IOU is currently working to make accessible video, film, photographs
and print for each of the original works it has produced since 1976. The
archive is currently available by visiting the IOU Studio in Halifax by
appointment
- A chronology can be downloaded here.
This archive is currently work-in-progress so some information is missing. Please bear with us. Please note that images will be credited individually shortly. In the meantime, photographers are: Mike Laye, Charlie Meecham, Porl Medlock, Brodnax, David Wheeler.
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Long Division - Long Division is a sound installation made specially for the walled garden of the University of Oxford Botanic Garden.
As the surrounding church bells chime seven, a sequence of sixty
whispered exchanges begins, timed to the divisions of the clock.
The sequence lasts one hour and repeats three times as day merges
into night.
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Process - Explores the ways in which three highly visual theatre companies approach the making of their work. Drawings, photographs, video, soundscapes, costume, objects and text combine to reveal how Hoodwink, IOU and Whalley Range All Stars have evolved specific productions for non-theatre spaces. |
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Eye Witness China - Vis-A-Vis Art Lab at CO2 United Creative Space, Sevenstar Main Street, 798 Art Zone, Beijing.
Explore an unnerving environment where life is suspended in a series of never-ending cliff hangers as IOU presents Eye Witness - a darkly humorous investigation at the point of no return. Witness intriguing scenes from ill fated adventures as a succession of characters are caught in a continuous loop from which there seems to be no escape. Each looks to you for help, but, trapped in another dimension, you can only observe.....
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Waylaid - re-worked for national touring in a giant inflatable dome. |
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Space:Time:Tools:Advice - A professional development programme designed for emerging collaborative groups wishing to produce creative projects with the prospect of continuing their working partnerships into the future. For periods of up to three months, groups are given space to work at IOU Studio, a small production budget, mentoring and advice, calling upon IOU's wealth of experience in both the art and business side of producing creative projects. Aimed at existing partnerships, companies or individuals coming together to develop ideas towards performance or installation works for theatres, galleries, indoor and outdoor spaces. |
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2006 |
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Waylaid - Site-specific show created for Square Chapel Centre for the Arts. A woman awakes to find herself in a vast white desert. The only landmark is a distant dead tree. The only evidence of how she came to be here is a wrecked car. As she begins to piece together her recollections, grotesque figures from childhood stories invade the landscape, intent on preventing her escape. |
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Professional Development - a pilot project to support the development of emerging practitioners and their work. |
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Plot - an exhibiton of images from 30 years of IOU's site-specific work. |
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2005 |
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Transports of Delight - an exhibition of extraordinary wheeled props and vehicles from over 28 years of IOU productions. |
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Tattoo - Revealed - Including giant mechanical props, costumes, drawings, plans, photographs and video, this exhibition presents the process of devising, developing, making, auditioning, rehearsing and staging a large-scale outdoor show |
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Tattoo - staging in Manchester as part of x.trax showcase Festival. |
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2003 |
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Tattoo - In a mechanical wild life arena, nocturnal creatures are coming to life! A large scale outdoor show for 2000 people commissioned by Stockton International Riverside Festival and co-commissioned by Bradford International Festival, Big in Falkirk and Streets of Brighton. It was staged at these festivals and at Halifax, Liverpool, and Greenwich. A fuming army of petrol driven insects are in erratic pursuit of a monstrous mechanical egg factory. Venting gooey foam along the way, this towering structure ambles through the audience attempting to keep its precious crop from the clutches of the marauding swarm. |
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Eye Witness - video installation at Darlington Arts Centre. |
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2002 |
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Daylight Nightmare - UK tour. |
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Eye Witness - video installation at Dean Clough. |
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2001 |
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Cure - restaged for the Upper Campfield Market building in Manchester as part of x.trax international showcase. The show was remade to allow touring into a variety of spaces and was presented within a series of marquees built within the Victorian ironwrought and glass structure of the former market. |
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Leech!
- presented as part of x.trax international showcase. |
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Daylight Nightmare -
a small scale outdoor show tours England. A stretched limousine is cut in half and welded into an enormous Baroque mirror with a pile of kitchen cabinets to create a contraption that becomes the vehicle for a perilous and improbable journey. |
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Eye Witness - video installation commissioned by Tramway in Glasgow. The development of this work also informs the development of Waylaid - IOU's show for 2006/7 |
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Providence - IOU’s large scale show for 2006/7. |
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2000 |
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Leech!
- this processional show tours again to festivals across England. |
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Cure - large site specific show for the Dean Clough Mill complex in Halifax as part of the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival. |
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1999 |
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Into the Forest - IOU collaborates with film maker Amy Hardie on an educational project helping 6 Scottish schools create 6 5 minute films on the theme of beasts of the forest. |
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The Consulting Room II - IOU collaborate with 6 artists based in Scotland to create an installation in two weeks for presentation to the public. Again, this project explore ideas around the theme of illness and remedies for the development of Cure. |
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The Fermentation Chamber - an educational project with IOU helping a group of young practitioners to create their own site specific show. Participants shadow the development of the core performance element of IOU’s Cure in residency at Daedalian Glassworks in Stalmine, Lancashire. |
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Leech!
- this processional show tours again to festivals across England. |
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The Consulting Room III - IOU collaborate with singer Brenda Rattray to create a processional performance for presentation to the public at The Royal London Hospital. The project involves both staff and patients at the hospital, who participate in the performance following voice workshops. Again, this project explore ideas around the theme of illness and remedies for the development of Cure. |
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Trace Elements - a digital education project with young people creating their own digital scenarios using computer software. Participants explored IOU's working methods through practical workshops, devising, making and videoing resources to input into the scenario. The project culminated in a screening at Artezium in Luton. |
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The Consulting Room IV - education project with fashion students at Batley exploring ideas for costume for the development of Cure. |
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The Consulting Room V - the results of each of the Consulting Room projects is presented in an exhibition for the public at Dean Clough Galleries. |
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1998 |
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Wooden Heart - educational project for three schools in Calderdale region, creating life size mannequins with their own life histories for a presentation and exhibition at Victoria Theatre, Halifax. |
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Leaves Among Thorns - tour continues. Presented at the MacRobert Arts Centre, Stirling. |
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Leech!
- A giant leech, 20m long by 3m high, is on an insatiable quest for blood as it lumbers through the streets sampling innocent bystanders. Outdoor processional touring show for festivals in UK and The Netherlands. It is designed to act as a prologue to Cure - a site specific show for a variety of sites, in which visitors inflict their remedies on a hapless invalid, whose fevered sleep conjures up both demons and lovers planned for 1999. |
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The Consulting Room I - IOU collaborate with 9 artists from The Netherlands to create an installation based on the theme of illness and remedies in four weeks for presentation to the public at the Oerol 98 Festival. This project also allows IOU to identify potential artists who will collaborate with IOU for Cure.
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1997 |
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Cold Fusion - the beginning of Life depicted with 500 sq. feet of canvas, giant zip fasteners and a rubber glove. Featuring an operatic style score, this work is commissioned by Eastern Touring Agency. |
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Shining Words and Shouting Pictures - residential workshop exploring writing for devised performance, music and sound at Arvon Foundation, Lumb Bank, West Yorkshire. |
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Work-in-progress - collaboration with Spanish theatre company - La Fura Dels Baus - for Tarrega Festival, creating a performance in four weeks with students from across continental Europe.
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Leaves Among Thorns - tour continues. Presented at the Nature Discovery Centre, Thatcham.
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1996 |
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Water Shed - a short presentation piece commissioned by the Green Room in Manchester for their special events for the re-launch of the venue after refurbishment. |
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Island - a commissioned site-specific for Copenhagen 96, Europe's City of Culture Celebrations. Taking the theme of Earth, this show is presented within the Old City's ramparts and moat.
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Leaves Among Thorns - tour continues. Presented at The Harris Museum & Art Gallery, Preston.
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Another Part of the Island - an indoor touring show commissioned by Darlington Arts for Northern Arts' Year of Visual Arts celebration. Based on the theme of Communication, the show takes as starting points the sculptures of Richard Wincer while sculptor, Frank Darnley, creates some radio-controlled props. |
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Leaves Among Thorns - tour continues. Presented at The Castle Gallery in Haigerloch in Germany. |
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1995 |
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Distance No Object - tour continues. |
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Autoperipatetikos - a roving clatter of gigantic tin toys and mechanical music machines - an outdoor touring show for people of all ages. |
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1994 |
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Boundary - re-designed for Warwick Arts Centre and Manchester City of Drama. |
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Distance No Object - a middle scale touring show commissioned by Warwick Arts Centre. One man's encounters on a day trip to the sea-side with music provided by the Creative Jazz Orchestra from the top of a railway viaduct. |
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Leaves Among Thorns -commissioned as the central part of the South Bank Centre's 'Fairy Tales' Season. A colourful forest of revolving trees, presenting tales of the Brothers Grimm. |
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Court In The Woods - IOU's own Grimm-style tale in the form of a mini opera. Commissioned by the South Bank Centre and performed within the Leaves Among Thorns exhibition. |
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1993 |
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2 x Table - a new outdoor Summer touring show. Leather-skinned gardeners tend singing hedges, giant furniture tours the grounds and pest control is carried to extremes. |
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Boundary - re-commissioned and re-designed for the Tramway Glasgow thus creating an IOU festival including workshops, 2 x Table and an extended exhibition of Revealed - photographs, props and objects from IOU shows. |
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Boundary - adapted for the Rialto theatre as part of the Octoberfest in Derry. |
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1992 |
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Full Tilt - short tour for the Brighton and Bradford Festivals. |
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Boundary - a large scale indoor show commissioned by the Bradford Festival and Bradford Theatres. Evolution demonstrated in three acts with zips, rubber gloves and three flying baths... |
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One IOTA 1 2 and 3 - written and performed by Lou Glandfield - three comic harangues on the feelings of furniture, misunderstandings in Babylon and a citizens arrest in purgatory. |
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1991 |
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The Weatherhouse - a ten minute film version with animation sequences; developed with film maker Joanna Woodward for the BBC2 10 x 10' series. |
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Full Tilt - tour continues. |
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The Weatherhouse - tour continues. |
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1990 |
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Gravity - tour continues. |
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Full Tilt -an automatic-music car plays for a deadly dinner dance and joust. Touring outdoor events throughout the Summer. |
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The Weatherhouse - The odd couple inhabiting a Swiss-style weatherhouse can never meet. Their doomed love affair is frustrated by the weather, the house and a radio-controlled dog. |
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1989 |
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Just Add Water - a huge scientific exploration vehicle encounters a puppet show and acrobat around costal resorts of Britain. |
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Gravity - the activities of a small village are disrupted by visitations from the gods. |
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1988 |
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A Word About Waves - a show created on site and specially commissioned by Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff. An illustrated song cycle on the nature of various fish and unrequited love. |
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Journey of the Treeman - a fruit laden tree is the prize for a succession of greedy protagonists. |
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Concise Pocket Atlas - a reworked version as a two man show - a story teller and musician take a world tour to find the murderer of Anton Webern and other famous composers. |
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1987 |
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Windfall - commission for BBC TV Northern Region. |
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Pocket Atlas - indoor tour. |
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Journey of the Treeman - revived and reworked for the European Year of the Environment. |
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Terra Firma - residency for the Coventry Festival. |
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Salt and Slack Water - a show specially commissioned for the Bradford Festival at Salts Mill Saltaire. |
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Pocket Atlas - tour resumed. |
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1986 |
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Three Storeys and a Dark Cellar - tour continues including Almeida Theatre, London. |
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Out with the Ark - commissioned by the Brighton Festival for Brighton Beach. |
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Out with the Ark - touring version performed outdoors throughout England. |
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Second Soaking - residency for the Manchester Festival and
Long Overdue - a concert for the Reading Room of the Central Library. |
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1985 |
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The Attraction of Things - commissioned by the Arnolfini, Bristol. Revised version at Unity Theatre, Liverpool.
Series of slide talks around Yorkshire and the north-west. |
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Distance No Object - indoor performances for the Valladolid and Zamora Festivals in Spain. |
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This is the Edge - outdoor residency for the Copenhagen Festival. Spectacular images with moving railway wagons and a manic car chase - July/August. |
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The Other Foot - outdoor tour of Yorkshire and the West Midlands - Autumn. |
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Three Storeys and a Dark Cellar - indoor production, a haunting delight for autumn evenings. |
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1984 |
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Dangerous Lullaby - A published collection of poems, and songs from several productions, with illustrations. |
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The Sleep of Reason - tour continues. |
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A Drop in the Ocean - evening performances on the beach for the Brighton Festival. |
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The Sea Saw Red - three-week residency at Nutclough Mill, Hebden Bridge, created for a large outdoor site between a crescent of derelict houses and an eighteenth century mill. |
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The Sea Saw Red II - promoted by the Almeida Theatre, London in the courtyard of a former prison. |
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Table Talk - indoor show for the Tivoli, Eastbourne Short residency and Table Talk II for Northampton Arts Centre. |
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The Gift - commissioned by Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff and created on site over two weeks. |
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1983 |
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The Patience of Fossils - ICA, London. |
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The Lost Wax Process - created in the garden and woods of South Hill Park Arts Centre, Bracknell, performed at dusk. |
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The Sleep of Reason - tours England, Scotland and Wales over two weeks. |
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1982 |
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The Trumpet Rat - tour continues. |
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Residency at Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff - incorporates The Trumpet Rat, A Musical Meal and The House. This remarkable piece used a real house and witnessed an outdoor airmail parcel delivery. |
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The House II - Almeida Festival, London, outdoors. |
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Untitled - for Hood Fair, outdoors. |
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I Could Have Sworn I Saw Feathers - tours England. Short residency at Leicester Polytechnic. |
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1981 |
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Double Geography - Bingley Hall, Birmingham. A crescent of shops and a traffic island built in a huge exhibition hall |
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Eyepiece - tours Yorkshire and East Midlands - huge bees attack the keeper.
Eyepiece II - indoor version for Leicester Festival.
Eyepiece III and From Hell, Hull and Halifax in catacombs for the Santarcangelo Festival, Italy. |
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From Hell, Hull and Halifax II - for the Dubrovnik Festival. |
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The Trumpet Rat and other natural curiosities - tours England. |
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1980 |
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The Universe (simplified) - four-week residency at Aston Centre for the Arts, promoted by Birmingham Arts Lab. |
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The Universe (simplified) II - second version devised for the University of Antwerp. |
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Forbidden Riddles - an uncommon pageant of human life and fantasy tours England. |
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Large Door - residency for the Nancy Festival of World Theatre subsequently performed in Amsterdam Street performance in Cologne. |
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A Clock Sculpture - music and images for unsuspecting tourists at Scarborough and Deal Castles. |
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Odd Descending - Streatham Common, London; specially commissioned piece for an English park and English weather. |
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Walk A Deathly Dog - Unity Theatre. Liverpool Events, concerts, lectures around Yorkshire and the north-west. |
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Revealed - commissioned by Birmingham Arts Lab. This exhibition of photographs is constantly being toured and updated. |
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1979 |
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Rub-a-Dub-Dub, Rub-a-Dub-Duband Who Do You Think Was There?
Images of Flesh, Bread and Wax - at Oval House, London. |
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Images of Flesh, Bread and Wax II - adapted and reworked for performance at First Aid, a deconsecrated church in Doncaster. |
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An Example of Zeal - three weeks film-making in West Yorkshire 16mm, colour, 17 minutes. |
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Arable Parable - All Saints Church, Norwich. |
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Forced Landings - Lincoln Cathedral. A 25ft high sculpture of a flying boat remained for two days and beneath this the Prologue was performed. The main show took place the next day in the cloisters to the chiming of the cathedral clock. |
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Agog - touring show for outdoor spaces, visits Yorkshire, East Anglia, southeast England, Denmark and Germany. |
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1978 |
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Wet Maps, Dry Seas - epic opera, London and Yorkshire. |
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Les Loups du Lac - residency at University of East Anglia. |
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Journey of the Tree Man - compact outdoor touring show for Yorkshire, Kent & East Midlands. |
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Mayhem and Violins - landscaped piece for the grounds of Digswell House, Welwyn Garden City. |
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Between the Floods - the Churning of the Milky Ocean - resulting from a threeweek residency at Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff involving large-scale landscaping of Chapter's courtyard as a sunken silted village. |
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Between the Floods II - four-week residency in the courtyard at Birmingham Arts Lab. |
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1977 |
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The Rape of the Tea Goose - an opera, tours England. |
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Towers - episodic piece created for Brighton beach. |
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Towers II - touring piece plus residency on Mersea Island. |
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Untitled - a show created to open the Lantaren Theatre, Rotterdam. |
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Nutrimenta - theatre piece presented in Birmingham and Cardiff. |
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1976 |
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Haunted Lift - a rooftop fantasy for Oval House, London. |
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Captain Goat's Parrot - a pantomime. |
A chronology can be downloaded here. |
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