| Augusto Corrieri is a director, performer and writer of experimental dance-theatre. For the last six years he has worked alone and with performance companies Deer Park, Propeller, and Lone Twin, presenting new works in numerous venues and festivals in the UK and Europe.
In 2006 he made Quartet (for Anna Akhmatova), a solo piece in which the 4 elements of the performance (the movement, the objects, the music, and the words) are presented alone, one after the other: the audience’s role is to try and piece the performance together in their own minds. He is currently carrying out research for the ongoing project Theatre Gymnastics (working title): this will consist of small performance episodes involving other performers; in the 1st episode - Everything I do - Augusto begins by performing a short dance sequence; he then teaches it to an audience member; finally, he sits down and lets the spectator perform the dance for the audience.
His works playfully deconstruct the idea of theatre entertainment, which is based on the agreement that the entertainer is active and the receiver is passive. As the choreographer Jerome Bel writes: “Spectators aren’t there to consume a product; they are there to work at a definition of their own desire”. What happens if a show doesn’t try seducing its audience with a spectacle? What happens when a theatre stage is emptied, and spectators have nothing left to watch?
Augusto Corrieri began performing from early on as a close-up magician in Italy. In 1999 he moved to England to attend a degree in Theatre at Dartington College of Arts. In 2002 and 2003, together with friends and colleagues, he co-founded the performance companies Deer Park and Propeller, both of which have made and toured works in the UK and abroad.
Solo performance work
| 2007 |
Work in progress episodes for ‘Theatre Gymnastics’ (working title). Showing Everything I do Nightingale Theatre (Brighton) and Live art Platform at Arnolfini (Bristol). Showing Please Forgive Me at the B-Theatre (Birmingham). |
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| 2006 |
Devising Quartet (for Anna Akhmatova), funded By Arts Council England; supported by BAC (London), the B-Theatre (Leamington Spa), and the Nightingale Theatre (Brighton). National showings: BAC (London), Burton Taylor Studio (Oxford), The B-Theatre (Leamington Spa), The Nightingale Theatre (Brighton), Dartington College of Arts, Winchester University, The Cube (Bristol). |
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| 2005 |
Devising and performing a dance solo entitled Hotel California for Studio Vidac, a platform for dance-theatre work in Milan, Italy. |
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| 1993 – 1998 |
Early performance work as a close-up magician. Performances on Italian television and for private events. Member of the Magic Circle (London). 1st prize at the 1998 Italian National close-up magic competition, 2nd prize at the 1998 International Close-up competition (London). |
| 2004 – 2006 |
Direction and live music for The World Rushed In, a performance that used playful images and actions to explore our attitude towards the idea of an ecological collapse, by Propeller performance company. Funded by Arts Council England, supported by the Chelsea Theatre (London), BAC (London), and Dartington College of Arts (Dartington). National tour: Queen’s Mary University (London), BAC (London), the Scout Hut (Antwerp), Chelsea Theatre (London), Desire Lines Festival (Dartington), Dartington Arts Programme (Dartington), ICIA (Bath), Exeter Phoenix (Exeter), Barbican Theatre (Plymouth), the Flavel Arts Centre (Dartmouth), the Green Room (Manchester). |
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| 2004 |
Dramaturgical assistance for Years, Years, a performance that used text, music and movement to construct a world of longings, Kafka dreams, and gentle perversion, by dance-theatre company Deer Park. Supported by BAC (London), Dartington College of Arts (Dartington), the Cube (Bristol) and the Nuffield Theatre (Lancaster). National tour funded by Arts Council England: BAC (London), Dartington Arts Programme (Dartington), Navigate Festival (Newcastle), the Green Room (Manchester), The Cube (Bristol), Nuffield Theatre (Lancaster), Arnolfini (Bristol).
Directing Can I Stay A While And Say Nothing, a movement solo based on the collapse of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, by Emma Bush. Funded by the Arts Council of England. Tour: The Cube (Bristol), The Barbican Theatre (Plymouth), Dartington Arts Programme (Dartington), the Experimental theatre (Prague).
Directing Everything Is Squint, a text-based solo performance, partly based on the memory of childhood and the impossibility of its retrieval, by Joanna Brown. Shown at the Young Vic (Bristol). |
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Performing and Devising Collaborative Projects
| 2005 – 2006 |
Writing, devising, and performing We Are The Rivers We Swim Through, by Propeller performance company. Made with the support of BAC (London), and Dartington College of Arts (Devon). National tour: BAC (London), ICIA (Bath), Desire Lines festival (Dartington College), Dartington Arts Programme (Dartington), Dorchester Arts Festival (Dorchester). |
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| 2002 – 2004 |
Devising and performing See You Swoon, by dance-theatre company Deer Park.
International tour: NSDF (Scarborough), Transeuropa Campland (Hildesheim), National Review of Live Art (Glasgow), King Alfred’s College (Winchester), Nuffield Theatre (Lancaster), Prema Arts Centre (Uley), BAC (London), Manchester MET University (Manchester), Junge Hunde Festival (Antwerp). Winner of ‘Best Devised Piece’ at the NSDF (Scarborough). |
| 2006 – present |
Performer in Ghost Dance by Lone Twin, Presented at British Dance Edition (Leeds), Fierce Festival (Wolverhampton), Tanz im August (Berlin). |
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| May – June 2005 |
Dancer for Real Madrid by the Italian dance-theatre company MK. Italian tour. |
| 2007 |
Delivering the paper Describing Exhaustion: Lone Twin’s Ghost Dance And The Job Of The Performer, at the Lone Twin symposium ‘I Can’t Go Like This’, at the Nuffield Theatre. |
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| 2006 |
Writing and presenting the paper Words For Later at Dartington College of Arts and Winchester University. The paper accompanies the solo performance Quartet but deals mainly with specific issues of performance viewing. |
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| 2005 |
Writing the essay ‘Years, Years: a reading on Deer Parks’ performance ‘Years, Years’. It was published in the performance’s accompanying booklet. |
| 2005 – present |
Classes in movement and drama for primary school children, both mainstream (Brighton Bigfoot) and special needs (Reading MENCAP). |
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| 2002 – present |
Workshops on performance and devising for university students (Manchester Metropolitan University, Winchester University, Dartington College of Arts). |
| 2004 – present |
Ongoing attendance of numerous dance-theatre workshops in the UK and abroad. Teachers he continues to follow include Charlie Morrissey (Brighton), Katie Duck (Amsterdam), and Rossella Fiumi (Rome). |
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| 1999 – 2002 |
BA Hons Theatre (first), Dartington College of Arts, Devon. |
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