What We Do

Current and Continuing

Nimble Fish and writer Katherine May have developed an audience-immersive performance inspired by Katherine’s novel, Burning Out (Snowbooks 2009). With support from Shepway Find Your Talent and Arts Council England, the performance debuted at the Folkestone Literary Festival in 2009 and is now preparing for wider touring. Burning Out can next be experienced at Pulse Festival 2010 on 11 and 12 June. “Brilliant! I’ve never seen anything like it.” – Peggy Riley, Director, East Kent Live Lit Network

Burning Out is the first work to emerge from The Re:Authoring Project, a process to reinvent novels and works of non-fiction as three-dimensional, multi-media performances that engage new audiences in new ways. The project has recently been commissioned to work with several new writers to create re-authored versions of their work for public performance. See http://reauthoring.wordpress.com.

Performer Laura Mugridge’s new solo show, Running on Air, will be co-produced by Nimble Fish at the Pleasance Theatre for the 2010 Edinburgh Festival Fringe. The semi-improvised piece will take place entirely inside Mugridge’s 1978 Volkswagen Micro-Bus.

Culture Creativity and Education (CCE), Royal Opera House Creative Partnerships and Southend Education Trust have commissioned Nimble Fish to conduct an original programme of work called Space To Learn, a groundbreaking arts-led exploration of non-traditional learning environments that will explore the use of open spaces, historic sites and ‘slack’ spaces as unique places to teach and learn. The programme, to begin in the summer of 2010, is intended to produce best practice for such work nationally.

The Biggest Learning Opportunity on Earth will connect up to 150 London schools with the 2012 London Olympic and Paralympic Games through a variety of arts-led interventions. Through a competitive tendering process, Nimble Fish was one of 14 companies selected to deliver this work. The programme will run from September 2010 through July 2011.

The Trust Project, a multi-arts exploration of social interdependence and its limits, continues as a work-in-progress, having run through several sessions in 2008 and 2009 with more than a dozen artists from a variety of creative disciplines. Each session produces a unique set of offerings on the essential idea of trust, which Nimble Fish are collating and distilling for future presentation and performance.

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The Southend Education Trust, Royal Opera House and Creative Partnerships commissioned Nimble Fish to produce The Learning Town Project, an ambitious collaboration between artists and the staff and students of 13 Southend schools to explore and present innovations in teaching and learning. The project, which is ongoing, culminated in a major site-specific event in Southend in July 2009.

The FLABBAGASTIC, FABULUGIC, SPARKLE, GLITTER, SHINE, DISCOLASTIC BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION (below) connected Year 1 students at a Watford primary school with artistic and management staff at Watford Palace Theatre, on the occasion of the Theatre’s centenary in December 2008. The result was an exchange of ideas and dreams about birthdays and the creation of a Heath Robinson-esque ‘Wish Machine’, designed by Nimble Fish and eco-sculptor/designer Michelle Reader, that was installed in the Theatre foyer for the duration of centenary celebrations. “From the outset Nimble Fish brought tremendous energyand creativity to the project. Their flexibility of working and understanding of both school and theatre environments is rare, and made for an exciting and unique way to celebrate our centenary.” – Kirsten Hutton, Head of Learning and Participation, Watford Palace Theatre.

For the Fourth Plinth programme, sponsored by the Office of the Mayor of London, Nimble Fish workshopped a group of London young people to interview artists Antony Gormley, Yinka Shinobare, Jeremy Deller and Bob & Roberta Smith about their commissions to place a new public artwork in Trafalgar Square. The interviews were held a public forum held in February 2008 at the National Gallery. “The quality of the discussion was high – excellent questions” – Justine Simons, Head of Cultural Strategy, Mayor of London’s Office. See www.fourthplinth.co.uk.

From April to August 2007, Nimble Fish produced The Container (below), a site-specific play about human trafficking by Clare Bayley (The Enchantment, National Theatre, 2007). Staged in the back of an articulated lorry, The Container sold out its run at the 2007 Edinburgh Festival Fringe, where it won a Fringe First and the Amnesty International Freedom of Expression Award. “It doesn’t get much more real than this… brilliantly performed” – The Times; “Critics Choice” – The Stage, The Observer, Guardian. See http://thecontainerplay.blogspot.com.

Generation London brought 200 London secondary school students to the Tate Modern in the summer of 2007 for a series of performances and debates about the ‘built future’ of London. Generation London was part of Debate London, attended by more than 5,000 people, and sponsored by the Tate and the Architecture Foundation. “It was very inspiring to hear a group of people come together properly to debate.”- Keith Khan, former Head of Culture, London 2012 (and Generation London panellist). 

As producers of the Billboard Project (below), Nimble Fish workshopped more than 500 Essex young people before selecting a final group of about 100 to devise and perform, with a professional production team, a site-specific, promenade performance about regeneration. Billboard was commissioned by Creative Partnerships Thames Gateway and the East of England Development Agency. See www.billboardproject.co.uk.

Nimble Fish produced Einstein’s Dreams (below), an original, site-specific performance work at Woodlands School in Basildon that fused film, dance, drama, music, and the visual arts to explore Einstein’s theories of time and space. Commissioned by Creative Partnerships Thames Gateway, final performances were seen by nearly 1,600 people. “In terms of the kids, opening their minds to new possibilities, it was phenomenal” – Alan Morgan, Head of Performing Arts, Woodlands School.

Einstein’s Dreams was performed in July 2006 over the course of four days, with several performances each day. An estimated 1600 students, teachers and community members experienced the show, which has had a lasting effect on the pedagogy, culture and self-image of Woodlands School.