In residence: March 20 – April 5, 2012
The Theo Adams Company presents Entertainment, is new performance-based exploration of human emotion and Melodrama. Entertainment offers a unique conceptualization of theatre, based on the company’s daring aesthetic and ethos. The project is a formal exploration of specific elements which have been identified as characteristic of the work produced so far by the company. The focal point of the Theo Adams Company is finding ways of triggering human emotion in performance. We have examined this through the media of music, movement, choreography, speech, song and visual elements, such as film, set design, colour, costumes and garments. These have all functioned as layers of narrative.
These elements are deliberately put together in unexpected and unconventional ways. The process is an organic collaboration of interdisciplinary artists; each bringing personal training and life experiences, inspiration and references as the precise foundation of the work. For this project, the company wishes to take a new approach, specifically expanding their frames of reference through an empirical investigation of the science of performance. Up until this point we have worked with a collage technique whereby we would juxtapose and layer existing material (songs, dramatic text, etc.) and personal inspiration to create new material. This project marks a turning point where we create totally original material (music, text, script) in collaboration with in-company musicians, composers, writers and movement directors. For this project, we also wish to invite consultants in areas of expertise such as movement psychology to collaborate with us. Such experts will allow us a clearer focus in achieving precise results for our attempt to conduct the audience on a heightened emotional journey through their experience of performance.
“Some day we wont have to make the movie, we’ll just attach the audience to electrodes and play the various emotions for them to experience in the theatre.”
— Hitchcock
The Theo Adams Company is a London based group of talented and passionate dancers, musicians, actors, singers and artists from across the globe, brought together by self-taught 21 year old artist and director Theo Adams. Their debut production was premiered on 4th January 2008 in front of an audience of 4000 at the Tate Britain, London. They have since gone on to stage their ambitious productions at some of the world’s most prestigious theatres and museums as well as more unexpected venues, from a 13th Century cathedral in Austria to a monumental warehouse in Tokyo. Collaborating with some of the worlds most respected artists and brands, they have received wild notoriety and acclaim along the way from both audiences and critics.
Entirely self-funded, managed and motivated, this new generation of interdisciplinary collaborators provide an uncompromised vision that is as exciting, artistic and powerful as it is unusual.
Images from the Open Rehearsal
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