Case study with Victoria Collins
Background to involvement with Encounter
This was the company's second visit to Encounter Festival, having previously performed their show Captive in 2019.
Pioneers of outdoor dance, Motionhouse are one of the UK's busiest touring companies and perform their repertoire of outdoor shows across the globe.
The company's distinctive, highly physical style integrates elements of circus and acrobatics with breath-taking dance to surprise and delight audiences.
This summer, Motionhouse brought their flagship outdoor show, WILD, to Encounter Festival.
Using the powerful physicality distinctive to Motionhouse, WILD creates an urban forest in the everyday of the city.
Performers use dynamic choreography, acrobatic movement and hand-to-hand partnering to move through a forest of tall poles, which forms the striking set for WILD.
From the top of the pole, life in the canopy looks down onto the forest floor - a dangerous world of unknown meetings.
Motivation for involvement
Motionhouse creates and tours a wide repertoire of inspiring and powerful dance-circus productions to theatres and festivals in the UK and internationally.
The company engages and inspires as many people as possible with its touring. Working with Encounter Festival they reached audiences in Preston, which is in a region of the UK where they do not regularly have the opportunity to tour to.
One of the greatest things about performing our work outdoors is how accessible it is to audiences. They're able to watch performances without having to buy a ticket.
As there's no cost to watch the show, it breaks down barriers to engagement and so we can reach far more people, including people who may not usually engage with the arts.
At Encounter Festival we performed at Preston Bus Station; there was so much footfall and people who might not have originally intended to watch a performance had a fantastic opportunity to experience world-class dance for free, right on their doorstep, in the heart of the community.
Activity
Motionhouse performed their acclaimed show, WILD, twice on Saturday 21 September to a fantastic response from audiences.
After each performance, the dancers met audience members, and other members of the company handed out feedback cards to find out what audiences thought of the show:
- 'Exceptional piece of outdoor theatre. No words.'
- 'I loved it! Beautiful movement and great storytelling. STRONG PEOPLE'
- 'Excellent - I've seen you before and the physicality is amazing. Good to see you in Preston' 'Clever ideas, amazing physicality, clever use of audio and dare I say a moral message. Fantastic!' 'Was mesmerising to watch, amazing upper body strength. I could watch 1,000 times over.'
- 'I just watched it, and it was amazing. The whole group's trust is wonderful. The Acro and everything else were genuinely moving; you could feel the emotion of each move. The stunts were also outstanding. Well done to the whole group.'
- 'Excellent! Really enjoyed it. It was exciting, gripping and fun.' 'Astounding strength and grace. What a brilliant performance.'
- 'Amazing... unpredictable. Tremendous spectacle.'
- 'Absolutely bloody fantastic. Best show ever been to in years + FREE' 'It was terrifyingly brilliant. Loved it.'
- 'By far the best show of the day/night. You guys are crazy'
- 'Incredible, very engaging. Great at keeping the audience involved and interested'
- 'Incredible! So exciting, graceful and captivating. Your skills are amazing and I look forward to seeing you again.' 'It was great. I was immersed in the performance. I liked the music and acrobatics',
What worked well for 2024
From Encounter Festival booking the show through to the performances, the whole process was smooth and supportive.
It went really smoothly from start to finish. I really appreciated that Esther from the Encounter Festival team kept me updated while she was programming the festival.
I appreciated her openness during our conversations, and it was really useful to know from the start that we would be performing at Preston Bus Station plaza.
It's a perfect location for WILD, and it's always exciting to be able to visualise where we're going to perform. The whole Encounter team was really supportive and organised throughout.
The response from audiences is testament to the success of the shows. Audiences were captivated and immersed in the performance.
What could be improved for 2025
Motionhouse had no suggestions for improvement and emphasised how much they enjoyed performing at Encounter Festival and working with the festival team.
The contribution of WILD to the festival
Audiences were immersed in WILD and the performance engaged with people who may not otherwise have had the opportunity to experience live performance free of charge near to where they live.
The benefit to the audience can be seen in the amazing feedback the company received both in their in-person conversations and in the feedback cards distributed after the show.
I'd like to think WILD showed people something they hadn't seen before. Perhaps it introduced them to a new artform. I hope it inspired people to start dancing or attend dance performances in the future.
How Encounter supported Motionhouse's goals
Encounter enabled Motionhouse to engage with an audience in a part of the country where they often do not have the opportunity to tour and offered an inspiring location for the performances of WILD to take place.
Encounter going forwards
Encounter Festival is a great platform, it's a fantastic festival in Lancashire and we would love to return in the future. We have a wide repertoire of shows and it's always great to revisit festivals and engage with their audiences over the years.
The company have a wide range of outdoor shows touring each year and would like to return to Encounter Festival in the future. In addition to their performances, the company have an excellent reputation for delivering workshops, residencies and projects, and their team work with people of all ages and abilities.
The company would love to explore delivering workshops alongside performances at Encounter Festival in the future.
Motionhouse dancers have also delivered inspiring Curtain Raiser projects with young people at festivals in the past, which have proved to be a fantastic way of further engaging the community. These Curtain Raisers have involved Motionhouse working intensively with a local group to create a short performance, which happens immediately before Motionhouse's own show.
The group have the incredible opportunity to perform in front of the same audience as the professional Motionhouse company. This is something the company would also be interested in exploring with the Encounter Festival team in the future to further develop their engagement with audiences in Preston.