Clod Ensemble

Clod Ensemble is a multi-award winning[1][2] performance company and registered charity [3] based in London, UK. Founded in 1995 by director Suzy Willson and composer Paul Clark, the company creates performances, workshops and other events in the UK and internationally.

Artistic work

Each production has a unique visual identity and distinctive musical score, ranging from acoustic work to multi-speaker installations. Performances take place in theatre spaces, festivals, galleries and public spaces[4] including Sadler’s Wells,[5] Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall, Serralves Museum Porto and Public Theatre New York. Their work explores the relationship of music and movement, bodies and spaces. Performances sometimes draw on medical themes and the complex relationship we have with our bodies and the medical profession.

Selected performances include Silver Swan,[6] featuring a choir of seven unaccompanied singers, Under Glass, where performers are contained within glass cases, from a jam jar to a test tube; An Anatomie in Four Quarters[7] in which the audience cut a path through the auditorium of a large theatre; MUST, a collaboration with New York performance artist Peggy Shaw;[8] and Red Ladies,[9] in which a chorus of identically dressed women transform, celebrate and interrupt the familiar streets of a city.

They run a programme of education and participation projects in schools, higher education institutions and NHS Trusts. Their award-winning[10][11] Performing Medicine project delivers courses, workshops and events which draw on techniques and ideas in the arts to provide training to medical students and healthcare professionals.[12] Performing Medicine was cited an example of best practice in the 2017 report from the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Arts, Health and Wellbeing.[13]

They are recipient of a Sustaining Excellence Grant from Wellcome Trust[14] and are an Arts Council England National Portfolio Organisation.[15]

Education and Participation projects
  • Performing Medicine - a sector leader in arts-based approaches to professional development in health and social care contexts
  • Reboot - a programme of artist development workshops
  • Living Room Music - composition masterclasses for GCSE and A Level Music students
  • Ear Opener - A youtube channel for young composers, featuring exclusive interviews with leading composers.
  • Extravagant Acts for Mature People - a programme of free arts events for over 65's
  • Beginners Guide to Classical Music - workshops to introduce young people to classical music through embodiment

List of Productions

Direction and Choreography by Suzy Willson. Music by Paul Clark.

Title First Performance Revivals Notes
Feast During the Plague 1995, Battersea Arts Centre, London
Musical Scenes 1995, Battersea Arts Centre, London 1996, Battersea Arts Centre, London.

HaDivadlo Theater, Brno-střed, Czech Republic.
Metamorphoses 1996, Battersea Arts Centre, London UK Tour including Oxford Playhouse. Text by Peter Oswald.
The Overcoat 1998, Battersea Arts Centre, London UK Tour Referenced in: Drawing attention to the significant: exploring the functions of music in The Overcoat (1998) by Millie Taylor[16]
Silver Swan 1999, Battersea Arts Centre, London Victoria & Albert Museum, London (2002).

McEwan Hall, Edinburgh (2005). The Linbury Studio, Royal Opera House. Turbine Hall, Tate Modern, London (2012).

 Based on two 17th Century songs by William Lawes and John Smith.

Referenced in: An Inventory of Falling by Suzy Willson[17]

Lady Grey 1999, Purcell Room, Southbank Centre, London[18]
It's a Small House and We Lived in it Always 1999, Purcell Room, Southbank Centre, London International Touring Double Bill Double Agency with Miss Risqué, including La Mama Experimental Theatre Club,[19] New York (2002). A collaboration with Split Britches.
Miss Risqué 2001, Nuffield Theatre, Lancaster University International Touring (see above) A collaboration with Split Britches.
For One Night Only 2002, Battersea Arts Centre, London A selection of short pieces including Wrestling, Trapeze and Egg&Spoon.
Kiss My Echo 2002, Battersea Arts Centre, London
Greed 2003, Battersea Arts Centre, London UK and international tour including Bristol Old Vic
Red Ladies 2005, Trafalgar Square, London as part of British Architecture Week (outdoor interventions).

2006, Hackney Empire (Theatrical Demonstration).

 UK and international revivals 2005 – 2015 including:

Hastings in association with Coastal Currents Arts Festival (2015). Margate in association with Turner Contemporary and Margate Theatre Royal (2014). Porto and at the Serralves Museum, Portugal. (2008). Institute of Contemporary Arts, London (2008). Warwick Arts Centre (2006).

 Text by Peter Oswald.

Referenced in: Red Ladies: Who are they and What do they Want? by Suzy Willson and Helen Eastman.[20]

Must 2007, Wellcome Collection, London UK and international tour, including Public Theater, New York as part of Under the Radar Festival Written by Peggy Shaw & Suzy Willson. Performed by Peggy Shaw.

Referenced in: A Menopausal Gentleman: The Solo Performances of Peggy Shaw by Jill Dolan[21] and Queering the Temporality of Cancer Survivorship and Jackie Stacey & Mary Bryson.[22]

Under Glass 2009, Sadler’s Wells - off-site at Village Underground, London UK and international tour 2009 – 2019 Village Text by Alice Oswald.

Winner of Total Theatre Award for Visual Theatre 2009. Referenced in: The Pain of Specimenhood by Gianna Bouchard.[23]

An Anatomie in Four Quarters 2009, Sadler’s Wells, London Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff (2013)

The Lowry, Salford (2016)

 Referenced in: Clod Ensemble: Performing Medicine by Suzy Willson.[24]
Zero 2013, Sadler’s Wells, London UK Tour (2013)
The Red Chair 2015, Live at LICA, Lancaster England tour (2015)

Scotland tour (2017)

 Written and performed by Sarah Cameron.

Published by Methuen Publishing.

Snow 2018, Kings Place, London as part of Noh Reimagined Festival Text by Suzy Willson & Peggy Shaw.
Placebo 2018, The Lowry, Salford[25] UK Tour (2018) including The Place, London Including My Lonely Lungs monologue written with Peggy Shaw.

Design by Art School.

On The High Road 2019, Queen Elizabeth Hall, Southbank Centre, London UK Tour (2019) Including Madam Wu monologue written with Peggy Shaw.

Other Productions
Title First Performance Revivals Notes
Pierrot Lunaire 1998, Battersea Arts Centre, London 1999, Battersea Arts Centre, London Music by Arnold Schoenberg.

Translation by Alice Oswald.

Songs for the Dead 2000, Battersea Arts Centre, London 2001, Battersea Arts Centre, London Including music by Purcell, Schnittke, Paul Clark, Elliot Carter and Ligeti.
Swing Night 2006, Battersea Town Hall, London 2012, Stoke Newington Town Hall as part of London Creativity and Wellbeing Week With Gordon Campbell Big Band

References
  1. Bailey, Pippa. "Total Theatre Awards 2009". Total Theatre. Retrieved 26 June 2019.
  2. Knight, Eleanor. "ARGUS ANGEL WINNER Brighton Festival: The Red Chair, Brighton Dome Studio Theatre". The Argus. Retrieved 18 October 2019.
  3. Charity number 1064633
  4. Powell, Lucy. "The Red Ladies of Clod Ensemble hit the streets of Oxford". The Times. Retrieved 26 June 2019.
  5. "Under Glass". Sadler's Wells. Retrieved 18 October 2019.
  6. "Silver Swan". Tate. Retrieved 26 June 2019.
  7. Mahadevan, Vishy. "Another view on An Anatomie in Four Quartets (sic)". Guardian. Retrieved 26 June 2019.
  8. Stacey, Jackie. "Butch Noir". Differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies. Retrieved 18 October 2019.
  9. Roy, Sanjoy. "Clod Ensemble: Red Ladies review – dance rendezvous with Grace Kelly style". Guardian. Retrieved 26 June 2019.
  10. "Excellence and innovation in the arts". Times Higher Education.
  11. Willson, Suzy. "Performing Medicine". The Lancet, Volume 372, Issue 9647, doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(08)61574-3
  12. Winship, Lyndsey. "The doctor will dance for you now". Guardian. Retrieved 26 June 2019.
  13. "All-Party Parliamentary Group on Arts, Health and Wellbeing Inquiry Report" (PDF). National Alliance for Arts Health and Wellbeing. Retrieved 26 June 2019.
  14. "Grants awarded: Sustaining Excellence Awards". Wellcome. Retrieved 21 October 2019.
  15. "The data: 2018-22". Arts Council England. Retrieved 21 October 2019.
  16. Taylor, Millie. "Drawing attention to the significant: exploring the functions of music in The Overcoat". Ingenta Connect: Studies in Musical Theatre, Volume 2, Number 3. Retrieved 18 October 2019.
  17. Willson, Suzy. "An Inventory of Falling". Dance Umbrella. Retrieved 18 October 2019.
  18. Smart, Jackie. "The Clod Ensemble / Split Britches, Lady Grey / It's A Small House And We Lived In It Always". Total Theatre. Retrieved 18 October 2019.
  19. Van Gelder, Lawrence. "THEATER REVIEW; One-Acts Deal in Delicate Negotiations, in the Music Hall and Home". The New York Times. Retrieved 18 October 2019.
  20. Eastman, Helen (2010). Macintosh, Fiona (ed.). "Red Ladies: Who are they and What do they Want?". The Ancient Dancer in the Modern World: Responses to Greek and Roman Dance. Oxford University Press: 420–430.
  21. Dolan, Jill (2011). A Menopausal Gentleman: The Solo Performances of Peggy Shaw. University of Michigan Press.
  22. Stacey, Jackie (2012). "Queering the Temporality of Cancer Survivorship". Aporia. 4: 5–18. doi:10.18192/aporia.v4i1.2921. Retrieved 18 October 2019.
  23. Bouchard, Gianna (2016). Shaughnessy, Nicola (ed.). "The Pain of Specimenhood". Performance and the Medical Body. Bloomsbury Publishing.
  24. Willson, Suzy (2020). Brayshaw, Teresa (ed.). "Clod Ensemble: Performing Medicine". The Twenty-First Century Performance Reader. Routledge: 121.
  25. Willson, Suzy. "Looking at dance through a scientific lens". Run Riot. Retrieved 18 October 2019.
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