Elastic Theatre

Elastic Theatre, also known as Vocal Motions Elastic Theatre, is a company dedicated to bridging the gap between music theatre and cutting-edge performance. At the heart of their work is the integration of text, vocal music and contemporary choreography and in exploring these through collaborative methodologies.

Their projects are designed to be adaptable to virtually any space. For each location or context, they challenge themselves to radically re-invent productions, making them, in this sense, ‘elastic‘. In collaboration with The Facility: Performance as Research at LMU and a wide range of organisations across Europe, Elastic Theatre has presented its internationally acclaimed stage-works since 2001. Directed by Jacek Ludwig Scarso, author of Voce per Ogni Giorno (Armando Editore), Elastic Theatre is also a network for voice and performance research-based both in the UK and across Europe.

Their productions are increasingly known for their boldly stark and highly stylised staging, presenting theatre in its most naked and direct core. Their work supported by The Facility: Performance as Research at London Metropolitan University, where they also base their research practice.

Since 2005, Elastic Theatre’s productions have focused on contemporary re-visitations of well-known characters from classical literature and mythology, radically deconstructing and re-evaluating their narrative roles, as well as exposing the cultural issues hidden in their traditional depictions. More recently, their work has concentrated on the creation of music theatre and contemporary opera through improvisational methodologies and collaborative devising. Their creative process challenges the traditional hierarchical methods that are often associated with opera and music theatre.

Many of their cores have been created or shaped through improvisation, and their texts reflect their work in the studio, merging historical documents with devised dance, music and theatre. The cultural diversity of Elastic Theatre team is a major strength and creative stimulus. The various disciplines featured in the company are intended to inspire and inform to create performance that is proudly hybrid and always evolving from space to space.

The latest review from ‘The Times‘ rated them four stars, here is a part of that review.

‘ Hard to think of a more contrasting creation than Vocal Motions Elastic Theatre’s rather haunting Medousa. If it was, as billed, half-improvised on the night, then this company deserves, even more, respect for such a tightly wound retelling of the gorgon’s story.

Hinged around Maya Sapone’s fabulously hot-blooded performance, this Medusa declared that she would “rather be monstrous than powerless”, and accepted her metamorphosis into a beast and her subsequent decapitation more as a sacrificial victim than a legendary nasty. Her counterpart was a dancer, Fernando Balsera Pita’s terrified Perseus, tripping through the cleverly gloomy set. The music, two intertwining monologues from cello and flute, was snakily neurotic.‘

Elastic Theatre recently announced as the Winner of the 2012 FRINGE REPORT AWARD for BEST THEATRE COMPANY. To document the creative process behind the making of Baroque Box, Elastic Theatre commissioned Savage Mills, an internationally acclaimed digital media production company, to create a short documentary in response to their work. This collaboration has been a great opportunity to record the journey and reflect on Elastic Theatre method and ethos.

http://vimeo.com/29875761

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