Pigeon Theatre is a Manchester-based performance company that makes small/medium scale theatre, site-specific and multi-media work. We are a physical performance company that specialises in experimental work with unusual spatial arrangements and site-specific work in unusual performance spaces.
Pigeon Theatre is a group of four women artists who over the past five years have researched and devised performance-work that addresses questions of site-specificity, of non-traditional theatre spaces, of unconventional and unfamiliar spatial/social arrangements, and of performer/spectator intimacy and interactivity. Our central research concern is in the formal structures of space, environment and architecture and the affect of these on the physical spectating experience.
Pigeon Theatre’s three full-scale performances over this time have looked at issues of site-specificity and spectating ‘discomfort’:
2002-3: The Housekeeper, set in a kitchen, thematically looked at the ways in which women are represented socially and culturally by deconstructing the processes of domestic labour.
2004-5: The Heist Academy, set in/around a large wooden box, explored the generic paradigms of the Heist movie through a vast multi-media project.
2007-8: The Rehearsal (a trilogy), set in a bar, is a three part performance based on verbatim interviews with over 50 differently aged and gendered individuals and is performed by differently aged and gendered couple s (two young women, a middle-aged couple and two older men). Each show makes radical reflections on and interventions into the other shows, but can be experienced individually.
Established in 2001, the company has made small and medium scale performance work and has performed at a number of venues including: the Green Room, Manchester; the Manchester International Festival at the Temple of Convenience; the Library Theatre, Manchester; Stamford Arts Centre; Alsager Arts Centre; the Jerzy Grotowski and Thomas Richards Workcentre, Pontadera, Italy; Charter and Guildhall, Preston; Art 06, Preston; Art 05, Liverpool; Wickham Theatre, Bristol; the Edinburgh Fringe Festivals 2003 and 2005; the International Theatre Festival, Amsterdam; National Review of Live Art; the Xtrax Festival, Manchester; the Frontiers International Theatre Festival, MMU; Street Level Arts Festival, Whitstable; the Commonwealth Games Arts Festival, Manchester; eXpo, Nottingham.
Pigeon Theatre are…
Anna Fenemore – Artistic Director
Gillian Knox – Performer
Lousie Bennett – Performer
Amanda Griffiths - Producer
