Louise Orwin

Performance Artist Director Writer Performer Film Maker

Working across text, performance and video, Louise has a substantial body of work that has toured internationally to performance spaces, galleries and festivals. Her works to date have grappled with a range of themes exploring femininity and violence, and often have a participation and research focus. Her work is preoccupied with liveness, the fe/male gaze and queer and radical feminist theory. She finds she is inspired mostly by cinema, and indulgently and gloriously borrows from pop culture tropes. Focusing on the kind of stories that are often overlooked and under-represented, her work encourages spaces to grapple with ambiguity/uncertainty and unknowing, alongside a practice of deep listening: asking you to listening equally and non-hierarchically to fiction, to trauma, to other people, to yourself.

Louise also works as a director and dramaturg, and has worked with a wide variety of different artists, practices over the years including recently Ginger Johnson, Symoné, ELOINA, Rosa Postlethwaite and others. Louise’s written work has been published by Oberon, and has been featured in the Metro, Huffington Post and Independent. She has spoken, workshopped and lectured widely, including Studio XX Montreal, PYT Tokyo, Supersonic PT, Southbank Centre, RCSSD, Guildhall, Goldsmiths and LSBU.

Awards include: Flying Solo Award (2015), Ideastap ‘Untapped’ Award (2016), British Council ‘Artist to Watch’ (2017), Vaults ‘Highly Commended’ (2018), Oxford Samuel Beckett Theatre Trust Award Finalist (2018), British Council Edinburgh Showcase Artst (2019), Offie Nomination (2019), Barbican OpenLab Artist (2019/20)

Credits

Writer/Director, REALLYBAD, Sherman Theatre and Yard Theatre 2022

Writer/Director/Performer, CRYCRYKILLKILL, Barbican 2020, Brighton Festival 2022

Director, HIGH STEAKS by ELOINA, Vaults Festival 2023

Director, UTOPIAN by Symone, Cambridge Junction and Birmingham Hippodrome, 2021

Director, Green Scream by Rosa Postlethwaite, 2021

Dramaturg, Good Clean Fun by Ginger Johnson, 2021

Writer/Director/Performer, Oh Yes Oh No, Battersea Arts Centre, Summerhall and UK Tour 2017-19

Writer/Director/Performer, A Girl and A Gun, Vaults, Camden People's Theatre, Summerhall and UK and International Tour 2015-2017

Writer/Director/Performer, Pretty Ugly, Camden People's Theatre and UK and International Tour 2013-15

Training

MA Performance Practices and Research, RCSSD 2010-11
BA English and Drama, University of Bristol 2006-2009

Location

London

Experience

10+ years

Art forms / Disciplines

  • Film - documentary
  • Film - feature
  • Film - short
  • Literature
  • Live art
  • Multi-disciplinary / cross art form
  • New technologies / digital
  • Theatre / Live perfomance
  • TV - documentary
  • TV - drama
  • Visual arts

What I do

  • Access consultancy (including BSL, audio-description and neurodiversity)
  • Creative Access
  • Curating
  • Devising
  • Directing
  • Dramaturgy
  • Editing
  • Facilitating
  • Performance Art
  • Performing
  • Site Responsive/Immersive
  • Teaching / Coaching
  • Theatre making
  • Verbatim theatre
  • Video Design
  • Working with disabled artists
  • Working with young people
  • Workshopping & Development
  • Writing

Additional Languages

No

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