What we do
Emballage Ensemble is a UK-based theatre company making devised, intermedial movement theatre. We combine a collaborative, play-based approach with an interdisciplinary research process to make performances, workshops, films, and texts.
Our projects emerge from an approach to theatre as a way of thinking and a path to truth. We contend that the specific characteristics of live performance grant theatre a unique capacity to deepen our attentiveness to what lies before us in the world and, therefore, enable insight into the thorniest human questions.
All our performances, in one way or another, enter participants into an embodied investigation of the fundamental philosophical demand: ‘who are we?’.
How we work
Our working method is a continually evolving synthesis of practices and traditions, which has been shaped by our experiences working with members of the companies Goat Island, Shunt, Complicité, and Cricot 2. Three core principles underpin our process:
1. Collaboration
Each of our performances is the effort of a unique group of collaborators. Not just theatre makers, but subject experts, responsive audiences, and specific objects and materials. Our flexible working structures aim to catalyse rigorous playfulness. They maintain a safe environment for creative risk and enable nuance in our collective inquiries.
2. Research
Each project is sustained by long periods of study, interviews, field trips, and conversations. We approach thinking as a process rooted in the body, in emotions, in our environment. We aim for destinations we could not have imagined without everyone involved.
3. Formal Experimentation
Our work borrows from a variety of disciplines, including dance, painting, architecture, literature, music, sculpture, and cinema. We seek to develop holistic performance languages, re-interpreting traditional concepts of the stage.
Each project is the shared dream of a new collective. A world we could not have imagined without everyone involved.
Who we are
Artistic Directors
Emma Wagstaff
Emma is a scenographer and performer. She holds a BA in History of Art from University College London, an MFA in Advanced Theatre Practice from the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, and trained on the LEM at the Jacques Lecoq School in Paris.
Dominic Weatherby
Dominic is a director, dramaturg, and performer. He holds a BA in History and English from Oxford University, an MA in Advanced Theatre Practice from the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, and trained at the Jacques Lecoq School in Paris.
Artistic Associates
Jock Maitland, scenographer
Alice Boyd, sound designer
Luke Wintour, video designer/videographer