The 2015 Emerge Laboratory is co-curated by Jonathan Heron (IATL/Fail Better) and Anna Harpin (STPCPS/Idiot Child) with support from the Warwick Arts Centre. At the inaugural 2014 Emerge Festival and Laboratory, graduate theatre companies (including Barrel Organ, Dumbshow, Fat Git, FellSwoop, Kill the Beast), alumni practitioners (including producers Emma Beverley and Ric Watts, performers Lotte Allen and Tom Syms, writers Sam Gayton and Lulu Raczka) participated in four days of events and experiments. This year’s theatre laboratory is open to all Emerge practitioners and new members of the IATL Student Ensemble. The theme for this year’s lab will be the structures and conditions of listening in theatre and performance making. Our experimental practice will take the form of discursive making, practical challenges or devising strategies. Based on last year’s feedback, we will create an environment for companies and artists to share practice, explore new methods and compare their approaches to devising. Each Emerge company – or their nominated associate artist – will have the opportunity to present an experiment to/for the devising ensemble in order to respond to the following questions:

• Are we listening when we make theatre and performance?
• Is anyone listening to us as/when we make this work?
• How do we listen to our collaborators when we make this work?
• Does it matter how and where our audiences listen to us?
• Are we listening to the communities in which we locate our practice?
• What structures for listening can theatre and performance support?
• Are there alternative forms of listening that performance enables?
• What are the conditions of listening well?

During the 2015 Emerge Laboratory two communities will be brought together by Harpin and Heron: a new student ensemble that will represent every faculty at Warwick and a network of practitioners drawn from various graduate theatre companies formed at Warwick over the last two decades. Get involved!

To Warwick alumni:

If you are an associated member of the Emerge programme, you can curate an experiment that responds to at least one of the above questions through practice. We will be conducting experiments through practice during the laboratory and we will be able to offer you a resourced environment for experimental performance. IATL and WAC will be supporting your attendance at Emerge via our Santander funding, which is administrated via the WAC Programming Office. There is no additional fee for taking part in the lab. If you would like to discuss your contribution, please email A.R.Harpin@warwick.ac.uk

To Warwick students:

Please note this event will take place on Wednesday 4 November only; there will be no lab activities on Thursday 5 November.

Please email Jonathan dot Heron at warwick dot ac dot uk for more information.