Stillpoint produce the work of Rachel Blackman with various collaborators and associates. We create powerful live performance that combines integral physical language with piercing humour and cinematic intimacy.
Stillpoint has been commissioned by Fuel Theatre, Brighton Festival, Ovalhouse, Merge Festival Bankside, Brighton Digital Festival, White Nights and The Nightingale, attracting numerous awards and critical acclaim.
Collaborators over the years have included Geoff Hense, Emma Roberts, Wendy Houstoun, Emma Kilbey, Paul Hodson, Jules Munns, Pearl Bates, Greg Mickelborough, Kate Genevieve, Louis D’Aboville and Lucy Moore. Stillpoint is produced in the UK by Beccy Smith.
The Company
Rachel Blackman Rachel Blackman is Artistic Director of Stillpoint, bringing together the teams that create Stillpoint’s work and steering the company’s vision. Rachel’s work as Stillpoint is fascinated by the body as a resource of non-verbal language and of live performance as a site of ritual, collective dreaming and transformation.
Rachel trained and worked as an actress in Australia before relocating to England where she is now based. As well as Stillpoint, Rachel works as a collaborative artist, actor, director and consultant on other projects. For nearly a decade she has been collaborating with Katy Schutte on the improvised show Katy and Rach.
Recent non Stillpoint projects include Rituals For Change by Emma Frankland (Collaborator); Bloodlines by Talia Randall – (Roundhouse, London – Director); The Bombing of the Grand Hotel by Wildspark Theatre – (Actor); 3 Mile Radius, by Talia Randall – (Rich Mix, London – Director); Heliosphere by Chroma – (Performer / Collaborator); Impulseby Chroma – (Performer / Co-devisor); Ghosts in the Machine dance film by Billy Cowie – (Dancer / Actor).
Notable earlier work includes: Charra in Matrix Revolutions (Actor – Time Warner, AOL); The Crucible (Actor – Elizabeth Proctor, Sydney Theatre Company Dir: Marion Potts), Home and Away (Actor); Aperture: Life at Three Different Speeds (Actor / co-writer – Tamarama Rock Surfers); Ruby (Actor – country Q films)
Emma Roberts is a freelance artist, movement director and movement facilitator. For Stillpoint, Emma co-created and directed The Art of Catastrophe with Rachel Blackman in 2007/8, collaborated on the movement score for the remount of Triptych: Three Attempts at Love and was Movement director for Moon Project. Emma’s artistic philosophy and unique approach to somatic practise has profoundly informed all of Stillpoint’s work.
Emma has trained professionally as an actress and studied physical theatre with David Glass, Dah theatre, Piezan Kozla, and Complicite and has a rich background in dance, with an extensive knowledge in Laban and improvisation. She Emma is also an accredited 5 Rhythms teacher and movement therapist and runs classes and workshops nationally and internationally. Emma is artistic director of Shaping The Invisible, an ongoing investigation into improvisation as research and performance language.
Geoff Hense
Geoff Hense is a lighting designer, composer, sound designer and production manager. He is currently head of technical production at The Arcola in London. He has collaborated on most Stillpoint productions to date, designing lights for The Art of Catastrophe, Steal Compass, Drive North, Disappear and The Growing Room. He is also technical manager for Triptych: Three Attempts at Love. Geoff has been instrumental in the development of Stillpoint’s sounds designs and unique aesthetic.
He graduated with a BA in Music (First Class Hons.) from Chichester University and then went on to graduate from an MA Music Design for the Moving Image at Bournemouth University.
Geoff has worked extensively with the Brighton International Festival and Edinburgh Fringe Festival, toured nationally and internationally both as a designer and technician and co-founded award-winning venue Upstairs at Three and Ten in Brighton. He has recently worked with Fuel/The Future Is Unwritten’s Brighton ‘Till I Die, and the Fringe First Award winning Meeting Joe Strummer, The Factory’s Boiling Frogs at The Southwark Playhouse and Stewart Lee’s If You Prefer A Milder Comedian, Please Ask For One, at the Leicester Square Theatre.
Beccy Smith is Stillpoint’s creative producer. Beccy produced Moon Project and is currently being a mum to a recently arrived baby boy.
Beccy also works as a dramaturg and writer for her own work, specialising in developing original and contemporary visual theatre for and with new audiences, and in work for children and young people. Beccy is also reviews editor for Total Theatre magazine. She is Co-Artistic Director, dramaturg and writer for Touched, a contemporary puppetry and visual theatre company. For more information on Beccy’s work please visit Touched
Other valued Stillpoint collaborators:
Lucy Moore – Producer – The Growing Room & Triptych: Three Attempts at Love
Jane Bom-Bane – food menu / space – Brief Attempts at Love
Paul Hodson – Director / Dramaturgy – Moon Project
Wendy Houstoun – Mentor – The Growing Room
Lucinka Eisler – Mentor – Steal Compass
Kate Genevieve – Co-creator – Transmission / Transmute
Emma Kilbey – directorial Steal Compass, Drive North, Disappear, director / dramaturg The Growing Room. Emma also co-created The Department of Unreliable Memoirs
Ella Thompson – Sound Design – Steal Compass and The Growing Room
Ross Gurney Randal – Mentor – The Art of Catastrophe
Jules Munns – Actor / Devisor – Moon Project
Greg Mickelborough – Lighting Design / Production Manager – Moon Project
