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Director: Live at LICA
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Matt Fenton is Director of Live at LICA, the public cultural organisation combining Nuffield Theatre Lancaster, the Peter Scott Gallery and Lancaster International Concerts, which merged in 2009 (www.liveatlica.org). Matt was previously Director of the Nuffield Theatre Lancaster (2003-2009).
Located on the campus of Lancaster University, Live at LICA develops and delivers high quality professional theatre, dance, music and visual art for the campus, the city of Lancaster and the wider region. It supports artists to take creative risks, each year commissioning and presenting an extensive amount of new work which tours extensively nationally and internationally. The organisation also provides unique opportunities for artists and local residents to meet in innovative participatory projects, and engages creatively with academic teaching and research.
Highly distinctive as a cultural organisation in an academic context, Live at LICA supports artists' creative ideas at all stages from conception to production, through to public showing and touring. The strategic value of this activity is recognised nationally and internationally, and is regularly funded by Arts Council England. From April 2012, Live at LICA will become an Arts Council England National Portfolio Organisation.
Activity takes place across the new £10million LICA Building (combining performance studios, installation space and design lab), an 800 capacity concert hall, the MLA-accredited Peter Scott Gallery, the 250-seat Nuffield Theatre, and across the campus of Lancaster University, Lancaster city-centre and beyond.
Matt currently teaches modules on Lancaster University's Masters course in Professional Contemporary Arts Practice (which he developed and ran from 2008-10), and supervises practice-based undergraduate and postgraduate students in Theatre Studies.
As a practising theatre director, Matt's work is concerned with the relation between performance, space and architecture. He has directed theatre for found sites, derelict and historical buildings, as well as theatres and festivals.
1. Nuffield New Works Programme (2003-2008); Languages of Process - Contemporary Performance Practice
Nuffield New Works is a major 5-year, international artist commissioning and co-production programme, funded by Arts Council England. The project has generated £340,000 of external funding, and developed over 20 innovative performance works of the highest calibre for national and international touring from some of the leading names in contemporary UK experimental theatre, dance and live art (see below). Curatorial selection responded to the following research strands: What kinds of performative responses are theatre and dance artists making to contemporary culture? How might we extend the territory of writing for performance? What is participatory practice and how might the artistic process be opened out to non-performance makers? The programme has worked with key international and UK co-production partners: Royal Opera House, Sheffield Theatres Group, Battersea Arts Centre, the British Council, Sophiensaele (Berlin), Kunsten Festival Des Arts (Brussels), Wiener Festwochen (Vienna), Centre Pompidou (Paris), Tramway (Glasgow). The programme's central concern is the facilitation of risk-taking artists in researching and developing works which, without the time, resources and opportunities to reflect afforded by the programme, would not otherwise have been made. Each piece also received significant subsequent public funding to develop and tour. As such, the Nuffield Theatre is defined as a 'safe-house' for such research and development activity by Arts Council England. Forced Entertainment (The World in Pictures) Vincent Dance Theatre (Punch Drunk, Broken Chords) Lone Twin (Alice Bell) Ursula Martinez and Mark Whitelaw (OAP) Walker Dance Park Music (Silence of the soul, 5-2-10) Scarlet Theatre (Chair Women) Marie-Gabrielle Rotie/Katsura Can (Incarnate) imitating the dog and Pete Brooks (Hotel Methuselah) Uninvited Guests (A Pastoral) Small Change Theatre (Red Velvet, Making the Difference) Niki McCretton and Kathy Hinde (Relative) Deer Park (Years, years) Goat Island (The Lastmaker), Kazuko Hohki (Wuthering Heights).
2. Practice Reflected Conference & Symposium programme (2006-2007); Languages of Process - Contemporary Performance Practice
Practice Reflected provides artists with a formal academic context in which to reflect on process and practice, alongside invited papers from practitioners and academics. The artists featured are nationally significant in the field of new performance. Core research questions: What are the politics and problematics of the collaborative creative process? How might performance-makers collaborate across time, space, even generations? What is the role of narrative in performance? What place do traditional narrative forms/structures take in contemporary performance, and what new kinds of narrative might it explore (especially in the light of filmic experimentation and new technology)? What is writing for performance? What kinds of writing does devised practice enable? How might we expand the notion of writing for theatre and dance? Events foreground languages of process, research and performance as expressed by artists and are targeted at emerging artists, postgrad students and early-year academics. From a small internal grant (£3,800), Uninvited Guests, Lone Twin and Goat Island successfully applied for public funding for the reflection enabled by Practice Reflected. Details available at www.cascpp.lancs.ac.uk Creativity and Collaboration (September 2006) Matt Fenton, Anna Furse, Carl Lavery, Lawrence Bradby, Alice Booth, Matthew Goulish, Lin Hixson, Karen Christopher, Bryan Saner, Mark Jeffery. Middle, End, Beginning: Adventures in Narrative in Contemporary Performance (October 2006) Matt Fenton, Richard Gregory, Dee Heddon, Lena Simic, Carl Lavery, Jackie Stacey, Cindy Weber, Gerry Harris, Jonathan Munby. Between You and Us: A Symposium with Uninvited Guests (November 2006) Matt Fenton, Paul Clarke, Jess Hoffman, Richard Dufty, Sarah Gorman, Simon Jones, Fiona Wright, Tom Marshman. I Can't Go On Like This: Approaches on Lone Twin and related practices (February 2007) Matt Fenton, Gregg Whelan, Gary Winters, Anne Bean, Augusto Corrieri, Sylvie Gilbert, Emma Govern, Teresa Grimaldi, Carl Lavery, Patrick Primavesi, Nina Tecklenburg, These Horses, David Williams, Niki Woods, Mary Oliver.