About Guy Dartnell

Guy Dartnell is a performer, director and teacher whose work spans the realms of theatre, music, circus and dance. He founded such companies as Impro Cafe, Theatre Who and Voxall Bridge, who staged performances in places such as The Gate, the Arnolfini, the Tricycle Theatre, the South Bank and The Royal National Theatre.

As a solo artist he has just finished work on a new music-theatre piece called Consuming Songs, commissioned by BAC and premiered at the Sharp Intake Of Music Festival. He recently won a Time Out Live Award for his show Would Say Something which toured Britain, playing at the Southbank Purcell Room in the BFVT 99 and finishing off with a highly acclaimed three week run at The Lyric Hammersmith Studio in February 2000. For the few years previous to this he had been touring Britain and Germany with the critically acclaimed movement/theatre piece Bottle , which appeared at the Now 95 Festival, the 1997 London International Mime Festival, the 1997 Nott Dance Festival and the British Council 1997 Brits and Pieces Festival in Hannover, Germany.

His collaborative work includes establishing The Institute of Curiosity & Execution with Phelim McDermott and Lee Simpson, which was the forerunner of Improbable Theatre of which he is an Associate Artist. His recent work with them has been being part of the creative team on the new project Spirit, a Royal Court co-production, and previous to this he worked on Coma, Lifegame, Animo, and the highly acclaimed 70 Hill Lane which toured internationally winning, among others, a Time Out Best Devised Show award and and a New York OBIE Outstanding Achievement award.External projects with members of the Improbable team include Improbable Tales and Get Off My Foot at Nottingham Playhouse, The Ghost Downstairs at Leicester Haymarket, The Government Inspector at West Yorkshire Playhouse and Fast & Dirty at Second Stride.

His other collaborative work includes being part of the music-theatre ensemble The Walking Orchestra at BAC; co-directing/performing in the music-theatre project Physically Sound with composer Ben Park which took place in the 1997 BFVT; and co-directing and performing in two dance theatre projects: Slick & Sloppy with choreographer Cindy Faulkner, and Extase -what I have, what I lack with director Michael Dick. He also set up a collaborative research and training project in Israel with the Tmu-Na Theatre Company of Tel Aviv. His next collaborative project is to explore voice/movement in relationship to playing musical instruments. This will take place under the title Sound Movement at BAC during 2002.

As a performer he is soon to appear in the Neil Bartlett translation of Island Of Slaves at the Lyric Hammersmith and previously he has worked with the likes of composer Meredith Monk, animator Damian Gascoigne, choreographer Miranda Pennell, director Keith Johnstone and companies such as Louder Than Words, Park Music, The Comedy Store Players and Omelette Broadcasting. As a director, choreographer and consultant he has undertaken projects for Commotion, Threes Comnpany, Momentary Fusion, Live Bait, The Medicine Show and Niki McCretton, and in Germany for The Healing Theatre, Comecon Theatre and the Stolperbangels.

As a workshop leader he has taught around the world and until recently he was an advisory artist for the London International Workshop Festival.