karla shacklock company ltd

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	KARLA SHACKLOCK COMPANY, based in Bristol, is run by award-winning Artistic Director Karla Shacklock. It makes and performs work, engages in research projects and delivers engagement activities, Karla is often commissioned to work as Movement Director for other organisations. It is Associate Company at Pavilion Dance South West, works closely with a number of South West partners, and is supported by Arts Council England. The practice is highly physical, visual and visceral and concerned with liveness, authenticity and transformation. It aims to allow our audience to have an experience, to feel, to be with us, rather than to sit and watch. We work imaginatively with the body, voice, live sound and everyday objects. We make work only if we have something to say.
	KARLA SHACKLOCK: Since graduating with a 1st class BA (Hons) in 2002 and a PhD in dance in 2005, Karla has toured her own work extensively throughout Europe and performed internationally with various dance, circus and physical theatre companies. She has delivered masterclasses throughout Europe, held a senior lecturing post at Bath Spa University, had her book published, been commissioned to choreograph works for dance, theatre, opera and youth groups and trained extensively in trapeze and Bodyweather/Butoh. Karla was the Co-Founder and Co-Artistic Director of multi-award winning physical theatre and multimedia company 'Precarious', which produced and toured works for five years. Karla also works as a Movement Director for other large-scale theatre productions - most recently she collaborated with Tom Morris (Warhorse) on World Cup Final 1966 and with Michael Oakley on The Life and Times of Fanny Hill which is soon to transfer to the West End.

Over the past eight years Karla's work has received much critical acclaim from national and international press. She has also been recipient of a Total Theatre Award, finalist for the Oxford Samuel Beckett Theatre Trust Award, shortlisted for further Total Theatre Awards and the Three Weeks Editor's Choice Award and been Associate Artist for a number of South West venues. This year Karla was selected by Dance UK as a 'Future Leader in Dance' and as such is taking part in Dance UK's Dancers' Mentoring Scheme. Karla is also thrilled to have been awarded a Bonnie Bird Award - the Marion North Award.
"Karla is an exemplar of the next generation of entrepreneurial dance artists who has worked with determination, passion and energy to establish herself and her work on a very fragile infrastructure and funding." Marie McCluskey, Artistic Director, Swindon Dance	"Karla and her team are energetically redefining theatre in dynamic terms: anarchic, intimate and unpredictable." Plays International	"Karla is an artist with an extraordinary capacity for plumbing the depths of human experience and communicating those experiences with rare combination of commitment and intensity, playfulness and simplicity." Carrie Rhys Davies, Tobacco Factory
"Karla is an instigator and a magnet and has the ability to connect and communicate with the professional, educational and public spheres with a generous human spirit." Ian Abbott, Pavilion Dance South West	"Karla Shacklock is an extremely talented choreographer/performance maker of real passion, bravery and integrity." Kate Yedigaroff, MAYK	"Seriously thought provoking stuff, sometimes very funny and at other times very poignant, but, as promised before we entered the theatre, we left on a high, feeling totally elated!" Vivienne Kenendy, Guide to Bristol, on The Happiness
"Wow. Part drama, part music, part dance, part audience participation this was a surprising, exciting, funny, intriguing performance peppered with pathos too." Angela Atkinson, Total News, on The Happiness	★★★★★ Never have I seen such explicit things done with an old sock or a little finger. The Independent on The Life and Times of Fanny Hill	★★★★ A knowing production which encourages us to swallow this entertaining package with ease before making us choke on harsh reality. The Guardian on The Life and Times of Fanny Hill
"★★★★ ...rather brilliantly combines critical intelligence with rollicking playfullness." The Guardian on The Life and Times of Fanny Hill	★★★★★ It tickles your funny bones and sends your spirits soaring with a winning combination of homespun theatricality and family-friendly charm. The Telegraph on World Cup Final 1966	★★★★ Done with breathtaking sincerity. The Guardian on The Fairy Queen