Anna- Helena McLean is a brilliant teacher . Go!
Final Call for Italy: ACT International Summer Residency & Symposium
Applications and group rates close 5 May
With three days until Italy registration closes, this is the final call for those wishing to join ACT International’s summer residency at Centro Anidra, Italy (2–10 August 2026). Group rates and the best available Italy offers now close, with remaining places subject to availability. Please note that en suite accommodation is fully booked.
We are also delighted to share new speaker announcements for our hybrid symposium, Cultures of Listening (8–9 August), hosted by Professor Karen Simecek (University of Warwick). Confirmed contributors include Tomei June Bacon (Trans+ Virtual Centre of Excellence), Jay Scheib (MIT), Carl Miller (Guildhall Production Studio), Dr Electa Behrens (Norwegian Theatre Academy) and Pembe Tokluhan (PETOK PRODUCTIONS), with further artists, scholars, and practitioners joining the conversation across studio, stage, and screen.
The symposium forms the intellectual and artistic hub of this year’s Italy programme, exploring embodiment, technology, relationality, human/nonhuman encounter, and the creative possibilities of glitch. It will also include an open rehearsal and livestream sharing of our latest new work, A Voice Lesson (Reimagined), on 9 August at 16:00 CET.
We continue to strongly encourage applications from people from marginalised and disadvantaged backgrounds, and from those who would particularly benefit from access to this work.
For those looking beyond Italy, the Portugal Leadership Retreat (22–28 August) remains open as a forward track for practitioners, educators, coaches, and leaders interested in carrying ACT’s physiovocal and relational methods into their own teaching, facilitation, research, or applied practice. For those completing the dual Italy–Portugal pathway, Level 1 certification is included.
Italy applications and group rates close 5 May.
Portugal applications remain open, subject to availability.
https://mailchi.mp/f109c341ecc6/finalcall_italyandportugal18240407-18243872
Photos by Francesca Cambi, Catherine Derry, Pau Ros
Delighted to announce with our lead partner in Greece -Makings of the Actor led by the brilliant Kiki Selioni -the launch last night , of an extraordinary new local, national and international arts project in Marathon Greece! ‘APOCALYPTICA festival celebrating the warrior artists of Marathon who fought at the birth of Democracy .
As Democracy again faces attacks from all sides I am proud to be a part of this extraordinary new initiative.
‘Seed Festival July 2026.
Founding Festival July 2027
More to follow.
#LetArtistsLead
Kathryn Hunter and Amit Lahav in ‘ Unheimlich Spine’ our free adaption of the Vincent Price horror ‘ The Tingler ‘ . Along with ‘ The Fly ‘ my favourite film from my childhood .
Delighted to be holding two events today—each exploring the power of the body, imagination, and shared experience.
CHICHESTER – HOLY DIRT PREVIEW
This afternoon, a preview of Holy Dirt in Chichester—a UK / India / Korea collaboration in its next phase of life.
A piece rooted in transformation, ritual, and the shifting ground beneath us.
Movement, image, and story colliding in a landscape of change.
⸻
BRIGHTON – PHYSICAL THEATRE WORKSHOP
Earlier today in Brighton, a physical theatre workshop with Split Hairs Theatre Company.
Exploring presence, play, and the intelligence of the body—
from impulse to action, from fragment to form, from individual to ensemble.
⸻
Two moments in one day—
training the craft, then stepping into performance.
If you’re nearby, come and witness.
Or better—come and play.
#PhysicalTheatre #HolyDirt #Chichester #Brighton #SplitHairs DevisedTheatre Ensemble AlchemyOfTheExtraordinary
Delighted to be holding two events today—each exploring the power of the body, imagination, and shared experience.
CHICHESTER – HOLY DIRT PREVIEW
This afternoon, a preview of Holy Dirt in Chichester—a UK / India / Korea collaboration in its next phase of life.
A piece rooted in transformation, ritual, and the shifting ground beneath us.
Movement, image, and story colliding in a landscape of change.
⸻
BRIGHTON – PHYSICAL THEATRE WORKSHOP
Earlier today in Brighton, a physical theatre workshop with Split Hairs Theatre Company.
Exploring presence, play, and the intelligence of the body—
from impulse to action, from fragment to form, from individual to ensemble.
⸻
Two moments in one day—
training the craft, then stepping into performance.
If you’re nearby, come and witness.
Or better—come and play.
#PhysicalTheatre #HolyDirt #Chichester #Brighton #SplitHairs #DevisedTheatre #Ensemble #AlchemyOfTheExtraordinary
Delighted to announce the summer outdoor production of …
HOLY DIRT
by Thirunarayan Productions
Physical Theatre, Dance
This summer, Holy Dirt rises from the earth to tour with Without Walls — appearing at the Norfolk and Norwich Festival and Brighton Festival.
A gathering of bodies, soil, memory, and myth.
A collision of the sacred and the everyday.
A fierce, playful, and deeply human exploration of what we worship—and what we’ve forgotten.
Performed in the open air, Holy Dirt invites audiences into a living landscape of movement, image, and collective experience. Expect bold physical theatre, striking visual worlds, and moments of stillness that breathe.
This is not just a performance.
It’s an encounter.
A remembering.
🌿 Come stand on the ground with us.
🌿 Come witness what grows.
#HolyDirt #WithoutWalls #PhysicalTheatre #OutdoorArts #FestivalSeason #NorfolkAndNorwichFestival #BrightonFestival
Excited to announce the first iteration with wonderful Japanese partner Yuko Kawamoto
THE CHAOS TREE: Japan
A futuristic folk horror.
What if the future wasn’t something that happened to us… but something we created—and destroyed—through our own beliefs?
The Chaos Tree is a bold new futuristic folk horror theatre project set in 2072—one hundred years after the publication of The Limits to Growth by the Club of Rome, developed with researchers at MIT.
In this imagined future—shaped by the warnings of that report—a fictional cult of women, responding to ecological collapse and societal breakdown, separates from the world to create a new order: The Chaos Tree.
But as their utopia grows, so too does its shadow. What begins as hope slowly transforms into control… and then something far more dangerous.
This is an innovative international co-creation, developed in collaboration with women artists in Ireland, Norway, and Japan—bringing together diverse voices, cultures, and perspectives to shape a shared future myth.
In Japan, we will create and present the first iteration of the production, working intensively through the summer and into the autumn—an evolving, living process of performance and discovery.
Told through powerful movement, music, and striking visual storytelling, The Chaos Tree is a visceral, ensemble-driven experience exploring:
The rise and fall of ideologies in society
Our relationship with nature and technology
Power, belief, and the cost of certainty
The haunting question of the last humans on Earth
This is not just a story.
It’s a warning.
It’s a ritual.
It’s a mirror.
The future is growing… but in whose image?
#TheChaosTree #FolkHorror #ClubOfRome #LimitsToGrowth #2072 #NewTheatre #ImmersiveTheatre #InternationalCollaboration #WomenArtists #FutureMyths #PhysicalTheatre #ClimateStories
Delighted to have met up in Berlin with the brilliant maverick Royston Maldoom who pioneered and innovated a community based approach to dance in 40 countries laying the way for so much of the innovations found around the world . I was lucky to be invited by him and Tammy McClorg to make a piece way back un the 1980’s for his ground breaking Fyffe Youth Dance called ‘Big Boys ‘ where I asked these strapping lads to ware their Mothers favourite dress. All set to Talking Heads numbers . I celebrate all he is and has achieved !
World Children’s Theatre Day
Since the very beginning of my work, creating theatre with and for children has been at the heart of what we do in the David Glass Ensemble.
Back in 1979, Peter and the Wolf travelled to 35 countries — a simple, powerful reminder that stories, when embodied, can cross any border. From there came Petrushka (inspired by Stravinsky), a beautiful collaboration with Polka Theatre; Off the Wall, where objects, paintings, and sculptures from the newly opened Tate Modern came to life; and Popeye, which toured the world bringing physical storytelling to young audiences everywhere.
With Polka Theatre again, we explored two very different storytelling forms through Theatre of Theseus and The Minotaur — myth, imagination, and the power of transformation placed directly into the hands of young people.
And then, of course, The Lost Child Project — across 25 countries — where children created from their own inner worlds: their dreams, fears, myths, and imaginations. Not imposed stories, but their stories, expressed through body, play, and ensemble.
Most recently, Galapagos: Imagination for Change — a climate adventure for young people — continues this journey. A story of a young girl, Juno, who, with her companion Flint (a tiny tardigrade living in her eye), and the forces of Mother Nature and Father Time, sets out to heal a broken world. A story for six-year-olds… and for all of us.
Children’s theatre is not a lesser form.
It is the root.
It is where imagination is still wild, where play is truth, and where the future quietly begins.
Today, we celebrate not only theatre for children — but theatre made with them, shaped by their curiosity, courage, and extraordinary capacity to imagine the world anew.
Here’s to the children — the original storytellers.
Delighted to have spent two days here in Wolfsburg, Germany, on the final leg of their tour, with the brilliant John Lehrer and his dance company.
It was a joy to watch them perform seven beautifully élan-filled, expressive works — full of precision, generosity, and celebration to a totally packed and rapt audience.
As two Artist led companies his of nearly 20 years and mine 45 years - we are devising our way forward towards a new co-production of Galapagos, exploring the DNA story through dance and physical theatre — an embodied language that feels absolutely right for this moment in the work.
We begin in December!
