A hybrid, global, dopamine dressed, social media danced promenade – a magical drift out of the norm in the heart of Edinburgh’s most loved theatrical sites.
A communal ritual of cleansing which disrupts the everyday and crosses the private spaces of cultural organisations that the public is not meant to see.
The promenade will be live-streamed on Organic Theatre Facebook Live, while physically developing from Cambridge Street in Edinburgh (Scotland), drifting into the Traverse Theatre in a danced route towards the stages, exiting from the back door and resuming the procession around Grindlay Street to eventually reach the Edinburgh Castle esplanade, where it will disband.
See those two, catch them, follow them, watch them on your phone!
Dance Plague with Flanker Origami has been developed in collaboration with writer, site-specific artist and mythogeographer Phil Smith, with the generous support of Traverse Theatre and Queen Margaret University.
Performed in January 2022, in person and on social media @Sook, a pop-up venue, part shop, part gallery, part ‘whatever you want it to be'
August 2022, in person and on social media
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An artistic couple expose their daily rituals and lockdown coping routines, digitally unleashing two eccentric performance personas bent on transforming their Edinburgh home into a glittery alternative reality. Through dressing up, dancing, disembodied animations, forced karaoke and improbable ASMR storytelling, they are on a quest to enhance their own wellbeing and yours! Stranded on Zoom, their relationship reveals a tender and funny, if slightly disturbing, world of online intimacy on the edge of misunderstanding and manipulation. Award-winning Organic Theatre returns to the Fringe for a digital world premiere.
Created and performed on Zoom by Bianca Mastrominico and John Dean
Artwork and 2D Animations by Cristiana Messina
Film consultancy by Massimo Alì Mohammad
Digital technical management by Chiara Menozzi
Web Design by Rhubarbo.com
Press, Marketing & Production Consultancy by Ariane Oiticica, Unavoidable PR
We look for organicity in serendipity and embodied knowledge, building upon our personal artistic know-how. Our work is rooted in ongoing training and research for innovative interdisciplinary practice and pedagogy, and our focus is on process-led collaborative creation and audience participation, both live and digital.
We have performed throughout the UK and Europe, in theatres, art galleries, museums, streets, barns, village halls and festivals including the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, Brighton Fringe Festival, Brighton Science Festival, Festival d’Automne à Paris (France), E45 – Napoli Teatro Festival Italia (Naples, Italy) amongst others.
Our professional collaborations and training projects have included Royal Shakespeare Company, Royal National Theatre Studio, Shakespeare’s Globe, Gate Theatre (London, UK), Shakespeare Institute (Stratford, UK), Nottingham Playhouse (UK), Theatr Clwyd (Mold, UK), Teatro Sancarluccio di Pina Cipriani e Franco Nico (Naples, Italy), Odin Teatret (Holstebro, Denmark), Gardzienice Theatre Association (Gardzienice, Poland), Milòn Mèla (Bengal, India), Asian Arts Agency, Theatre Bristol and Tobacco Factory (Bristol, UK).
We have led pedagogical activities for Guildhall School of Music and Drama, Rose Bruford College, Roehampton Institute (London, UK), Prima del Teatro – European School for the Art of the Actor (Pisa, Italy), National Academy of Dramatic Art (Rome, Italy), Institut del Teatre (Barcelona, Spain), JIP – July Investigation in Performance (Idanha-a-Nova, Portugal), PAN – Palazzo delle Arti (Naples, Italy).
Workshops and research activities by the company have been presented at various UK universities, conferences and research centres including University of Exeter, Central School of Speech and Drama, Royal Holloway University, University of Bristol, University of Kent, Manchester Metropolitan University, TaPRA (Theatre and Performance Research Association), Theatre Training Initiative (London), Third Theatre Network, Bodies:On:Live, Magdalena:On:Line 2021 (online festival by the Magdalena Project). From 2005-2007 we were Company-in-Residence at University of Plymouth and we currently teach at Queen Margaret University (Edinburgh).
Organic Theatre has received financial support from Arts Council England, Exeter City Council, and Bristol City Council, ESPRC – Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, Ministero dei Beni e delle Attività Culturali e Turismo, and Napoli Teatro Festival Italia (Italy).
Over the years we have also created opportunities for the wider UK artistic community (and ourselves) to encounter and learn from the multicultural practice of artists of excellence, who have enriched and challenged conventional Western-centric conceptions of artistic forms and techniques, and visions of global performance culture. They include Eugenio Barba, Julia Varley and the Odin Teatret ensemble, as well as the late Brazilian dancer Augusto Omolú, Kathakali dancer Kottakkal Sasidharan and the Bengali ensemble Milòn Mèla, for whom we have organised workshops, residencies and touring events in the UK.
We are a culturally diverse company and our differences are our strengths. As individual creatives we are committed to promoting equality and diversity through our work and our engagement with audiences. We have a pool of longstanding collaborators, and we seek creative partners on a project-by-project basis. We welcome requests for placements from people with a creative background interested in learning about what we do and how we do it.