Developing a Portfolio

In this Flight, I reflect upon our response to ever-more diverse platforms and audiences and our strategies for survival: how performance and its ecology of developing and funding work has become more complicated in the last decade or so; how that complexity has become enfolded with our methodology to sustain for as long as possible an openness towards the mix of materials and media in any one work. As a consequence, our practice has opened out to both how material can be re-used and re-purposed across different media, and how diverse communities can engage with our devising process. Projects have developed from single outputs, mainly performances, to a portfolio of outputs, responding to funders and partners; single ‘versions’ have become ‘editions’ allowing material to re-invent itself in response to new opportunities. I conclude by returning to my opening Flight in recognition of a process of ongoing return and re-invention.

Keywords: choreography ; devising performance ; devising with communities ; theatre ecology