ARTISTIC MANIFESTO

nervousystem is evolutionary in its approach to creating theatre and performance.

nervousystem ventures forward while maintaining the thread to our collective past, conserving what is essential in the tradition and knowledge handed down by those who have come before us.

Our remit is the systematic exploration and elaboration of an authentic objective praxis, language and aesthetic for performance appropriate to the needs of our time.

The starting point is that place where the dramatic experience is laid bare and all one is left with is the interplay of actuality and illusion via the encounter between actor and onlooker.

nervousystem promotes the actor's creative autonomy and cultivates her psychophysical art by creating a context where detailed investigation and experimentation nurture a process that clears obstacles to creative impulses and artistic objectives. Extensive (and intensive) on-going auto-didactic actor training is central to our practice.

This combined with a commitment to exposing our practices to diverse audiences in as many different contexts as possible (i.e. non-conventional theatre environments) is fundamental to our investigation into the actor/audience relationship.

From here the evolution of new forms can emerge and the beginnings of a new language for theatre making can grow, therein allowing the creation of original contemporary secular rituals that permit a total sensory engagement of the doer and receiver, revealing and intensifying the theatre event for all involved.

It is our aim to grow and evolve by investigating the fundaments of theatre and performance, by continually developing the actor’s craft and building a repertoire of original work of the highest quality to present to our audience, nationally and internationally. We also seek to form and strengthen dialogues with other artistic bodies to share and broaden the horizons of our research work.