Clod Ensemble

Clod Ensemble is a London-based performance company and registered charity established in 1995 by director and choreographer Suzy Willson and composer Paul Clark. The organization develops performances, workshops and participatory projects that connect music, movement, visual art, bodies and architectural or public spaces. Rather than operating as a conventional theatre company, Clod Ensemble works across contemporary performance, choreography, live music, installation and audience participation. Its productions have been presented in theatres, festivals, galleries, museums and public environments in the United Kingdom and internationally. A defining feature of the company is the close integration of sound and physical action. Productions may use acoustic music, composed scores, unusual vocal arrangements, multi-speaker installations, choreographed movement and carefully constructed visual environments. The relationship between bodies and the spaces they occupy is frequently central to the audience experience. Works can transform the normal relationship between performer and spectator, sometimes asking audiences to move through a performance environment or encounter performers in unexpected settings rather than remain passive observers in fixed seating. Clod Ensemble's artistic subjects often include embodiment, perception, social behavior and the complex ways people understand or regulate their bodies. Several works draw on medical imagery or on relationships between patients, professionals and institutions. This interest also informs the company's education and participation work. Through projects in schools, universities and National Health Service trusts, Clod Ensemble uses artistic methods to encourage reflection on communication, observation, empathy and professional practice. Its best-known activities include stage and site-responsive performances such as Silver Swan, Under Glass, An Anatomie in Four Quarters, MUST and Red Ladies. The company has worked in prominent cultural venues including Sadler's Wells and Tate Modern's Turbine Hall, as well as international venues such as Serralves Museum in Porto and The Public Theater in New York. The range of settings reflects a practice designed to adapt to different architectural, civic and institutional contexts. Alongside its artistic productions, Clod Ensemble runs Performing Medicine, an arts-based program for medical students and healthcare professionals. The initiative provides courses, workshops and events that use techniques associated with performance and the arts to examine clinical communication and the experience of healthcare. Performing Medicine was identified as an example of good practice in a 2017 report by the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Arts, Health and Wellbeing. Clod Ensemble has also received a Sustaining Excellence Grant from Wellcome Trust and operates as an Arts Council England National Portfolio Organisation. The available reference material does not specify a turnover, employee count, current executive roster beyond the artistic founders, or a separate commercial parent company.

Clod Ensemble was founded in London in 1995 by Suzy Willson and Paul Clark. From its beginning, the company developed a collaborative model in which direction, choreography, composition and visual presentation were treated as interconnected parts of a single performance language. Willson's work in direction and choreography and Clark's work in music provided the core artistic framework for productions that did not fit neatly into one traditional category such as drama, dance or concert performance. The company's artistic practice centers on the relationship between music and movement, and between bodies and the environments in which they appear. Its scores have ranged from acoustic work to electronic or multi-speaker installations, while performances have been designed for conventional theatres as well as galleries, museums, festivals and public spaces. This flexibility has allowed Clod Ensemble to create works in which the setting is more than a backdrop. Architecture, audience circulation and the visibility of performance mechanisms can become part of the composition. Selected productions illustrate the breadth of this approach. Silver Swan features a choir of seven unaccompanied singers, making vocal performance and collective presence central to the work. Under Glass places performers within transparent containers of different scales, including objects resembling jars and test tubes, creating a visual examination of containment and observation. An Anatomie in Four Quarters changes the audience's route through a large theatre, requiring spectators to cut a path through the auditorium. MUST was made in collaboration with New York performance artist Peggy Shaw, while Red Ladies uses a chorus of identically dressed women whose actions alter the familiar streets of a city. Together, these works demonstrate recurring interests in repetition, bodily display, social choreography, public behavior and the tension between individual and collective identity. Clod Ensemble has presented work at major cultural venues and international sites, including Sadler's Wells, Tate Modern's Turbine Hall, Serralves Museum in Porto and The Public Theater in New York. The company has therefore operated both within the British performing-arts infrastructure and through international presentation and touring. Its output has included theatre performances, festivals, gallery events and public-space interventions rather than a single fixed production format. A parallel strand of the organization's history is its commitment to education and participation. Clod Ensemble has delivered projects in schools, higher education institutions and NHS trusts. The most developed example is Performing Medicine, an award-winning program using arts-based methods in the training of medical students and healthcare professionals. Through workshops, courses and events, the program explores observation, communication, embodiment and the experience of healthcare from different perspectives. Its inclusion as an example of best practice in the 2017 report of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Arts, Health and Wellbeing helped document the relevance of this work beyond the cultural sector. Institutionally, Clod Ensemble is described as a registered charity in the United Kingdom. It has received a Sustaining Excellence Grant from Wellcome Trust and is an Arts Council England National Portfolio Organisation. These forms of support indicate a structure combining artistic production, public engagement, education and charitable activity. The available sources do not provide a complete chronology of productions, a detailed governance history, financial data or a current list of senior staff. Suzy Willson and Paul Clark remain the identifiable founders and principal artistic figures in the supplied reference material, but additional current executive information requires verification.

• 2017

  Performing Medicine cited as arts and health best practice

  [1]Clod Ensembleen.wikipedia.org

  The company's Performing Medicine program was identified as an example of good practice in a report by the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Arts, Health and Wellbeing.

• 1995

  Company founded

  [1]Clod Ensembleen.wikipedia.org

  Suzy Willson and Paul Clark established Clod Ensemble in London as an interdisciplinary performance company.

An interdisciplinary contemporary performance company combining choreography, live and recorded music, visual identity, installation and audience participation. Clod Ensemble is positioned at the intersection of theatre, dance, music, visual art and arts-based healthcare education, with a particular interest in bodies, medical culture and the relationship between people and spaces.

• Performance

  Silver Swan

  A performance centered on a choir of seven unaccompanied singers. The work exemplifies Clod Ensemble's interest in the physical and spatial dimensions of music, using collective vocal presence and choreographed performance rather than treating the voice as detached from the body.

• Performance installation

  Under Glass

  A work in which performers are contained within transparent glass cases of different sizes, ranging from forms resembling jam jars to test tubes. Its visual structure explores observation, containment and the presentation of the body as an object within a carefully controlled environment.

• Site-responsive performance

  An Anatomie in Four Quarters

  A large-scale work that changes the conventional relationship between spectators and the auditorium. Audience members cut a path through the theatre, making movement through the performance space part of the experience and reinforcing the company's interest in bodies, spatial organization and anatomy.

• Interdisciplinary performance

  MUST

  A collaboration with New York performance artist Peggy Shaw. The work belongs to Clod Ensemble's strand of performance that combines movement, music and distinctive stage identity while engaging with questions of body, identity and live presence.

• Public-space performance

  Red Ladies

  A performance for a chorus of identically dressed women. The performers transform, celebrate and interrupt the ordinary streets of a city, using repetition and coordinated movement to make everyday public space appear newly choreographed and socially charged.

• Education and healthcare program

  Performing Medicine

  An arts-based education and participation program for medical students and healthcare professionals. It delivers courses, workshops and events that apply ideas and techniques from performance to medical education, including reflection on communication, observation, embodiment and relationships between practitioners and patients.

1. 1Clod Ensembleen.wikipedia.org
2. 2Clod Ensemble official websiteclodensemble.com
3. 3Clod Ensemble, registered charity no. 1064633register-of-charities.charitycommission.gov.uk
4. 4Performing Medicineperformingmedicine.com