Profile for Luke Pell

I am a performance maker, an interdisciplinary artist concerned with other ways of being in the world.  I collaborate with outliers to poke at those things we are unprepared for.  In a world preoccupied with normalising, what we are unprepared for might be difference in gender, sexuality, morphology.  It might be ageing, trauma, death or disability.  It might be how we go about relationships or making meaning.

Using the autobiographical body as a beginning for exploring intimate human experience, I respond through text, touch and light to develop visual poetries and emotive environments where thoughts and bodies shift between the ordinary and the ethereal.  These explorations focus on relationship – between people and place – bringing our attention to fleeting moments that sometimes pass unseen.  Often working with artists whose practices reach beyond disciplinary definition – together – our works have been presented outdoors, site specifically in unique buildings or as installation, offering audiences the opportunity to encounter performance in unexpected spaces.

My artistic practice – as maker and facilitator – seeks to challenge perceptions of the body and the human condition.  Current collaborations are In Conversation with Liz Atkin and Embers research towards an installation with Catherine Long, along with performing for Rosemary Lee in Square Dances and one of Helena Hunter‘s contributions to On Languard Point.   I have previously  assisted David Harradine (Artistic Director, Fevered Sleep) with performance for theatre spaces and Athina Vahla on her epic site-specific spectacle Spaces Between.  I wrote and lead the Masters in Teaching Dance module, Inclusive Practice: Dance & Disability for the Royal Academy of Dance and was Associate Producer for Shobana Jeyasingh’s Counterpoint at Somerset House.  For the past 4 years I have worked with Candoco Dance Company as Head of Learning and Development.

PHOTO: MANUEL VASON