We promote shared knowledge and understanding between UK and US artistic professionals. Over the years, the British Council has partnered with the Fusebox Festival to share the best of British performance art with a US audience.
Fusebox Festival
UK festival directors at the 2018 Fusebox Festival
From April 17-22, the British Council USA team hosted the next generation of UK artistic directors at the 2018 Fusebox Festival.
| Organization | UK Participant | Location |
| Transform | Amy Letman, Creative Director | Leeds |
| Fierce Festival Limited | Aaron Wright, Artistic Director | Birmingham |
| GIFT Festival | Kate Craddock, Festival Director | Newcastle upon Tyne |
| Block Universe | Louise O'Kelly, Founding Director | London |
| Take Me Somewhere Ltd | LJ Findlay-Walsh, Artistic Director | Glasgow |
| BUZZCUT | Karl Taylor | Glasgow |
In addition, we supported British performer Selina Thompson in her performance of Race Cards, a unique visual art installation exploring questions about race and identity.
British artists featured at the 2016 Fusebox Festival
Rachel Mars - Our Carnal Hearts
This fairy comes round your house. You, she says, are in luck. Ask for anything you want. Anything in the world and I’ll give it to you. But whatever you ask for, your neighbor gets the same thing, but double. Great. You say. Fine. Cut out one of my eyes.
Our Carnal Hearts is a celebration of envy; a call for everyone we’ve ever wanted to be and everything we’ve ever wanted to own. A place to whoop at our own fragility and delight against our better nature. A toast to our competitive spirits and a rumbling dance for the ugly gutter-tramping parts of our souls. Born from the suspect parentage of an ideological rally, a drunken sing-song, and a horrible but seductive dream, this show continues Rachel’s interrogation of envy, success and song.
With original music composed and arranged by Louise Mothersole.
Developed with the support of Arts Council England, South East Dance in partnership with Jerwood Charitable Trust, Orchard Project (NY), CPT, Cambridge Junction, Ovalhouse, American Repertory Theatre, The Royal Court Theatre and Playwrights’ Workshop Montreal.
Deborah Pearson - Like You Were Before
Deborah Pearson revives her first ever solo piece, Like You Were Before, a show from five years ago about leaving Canada five years before that. Using a video she took in October of 2005, she attempts to reinsert herself into the frame, and into this old show, standing in a hall of mirrors of five-year intervals. This is a show about 'doing it like it used to be done' and moving forward, backward.
Rachel Mars & Greg Wohed - Story #1
A reckless, reflective and live thinking-through of how and why we construct a narrative. We promise no less than 120 minutes. We promise real fictional characters. We promise a plot. We promise a surprise twist. We promise a rupture. We promise an ending. We promise a rupture. An Ovalhouse seed commission.
Dickie Beau - Dickie Beau: Unplugged
Dickie Beau is an actor, physical performer, and intrepid drag fabulist. He takes the familiar technique of lip-synching and refines it into an art form, to create work which is funny, virtuosic and eerily beautiful. In this intimate and stripped-back performance, Dickie takes the usually unheard of step to speak in his own voice, telling the story of how his love affair with found sound began; how it speaks not only to but also for, him; and reveals that there is more to this lip-synching lark than meets the eye. Part old-school cabaret show, part 21st Century séance, this is an opportunity to enter the world of one of the UK’s most distinctive and exciting new talents.
