Michelle Reader
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Biography
Michelle has a BA in Fine Art (De Montfort, Leicester, 1997), and an MA in Scenography (Central St Martins, 2003). She also participated in the 2001 Theatre Design Summer School at RADA.
In her parallel career as a sculptor Michelle makes sculptures from reclaimed materials which sometimes feature mechanical elements, and has undertaken public art commissions. She often runs workshops for festivals, galleries or schools creating objects, installations or environments from scrap materials.
She has worked regularly with Bamboozle Theatre Company since 1998 as designer during week-long residential projects in theatres and schools. This involves collaboration with practitioners from other artforms, working on a particular theme with groups of children from local special schools, culminating in a sharing of the work at the end of the week.
During her MA, she worked on several collaborative projects, and spent three months in Seville, Spain, where she wrote, designed and directed her own show with six spanish actors. In July 2003, her final piece, entitled "New Head", was performed in the Linbury studio at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. This was a devised dance-theatre performance. Her dissertation investigated the use of objects in performance, particularly in relation to rehearsal methodologies.
In 2003 she designed set, costume and lighting for 'Words Afoot', a promenade dance performance by Foot in Hand at Derby Dance Centre, and has worked as designer/facilitator for Big Fish Theatre, based in Greenwich. In 2004 she assisted Lizzie Clachan with Shunt's "Tropicana".
In 2005 Michelle designed Greg McLaren's "Riot Pilot" at the Hackney Empire, creating cardboard replicas of buildings and other items from the Town Hall Square. The audience participated in re-creating a fictional historical riot inside the room, which would spill out into the square itself. Audience members created props, reconstructed the square inside the room, dressed performers in cardboard armour, and created cardboard doppelgangers of themselves.
An ongoing project is a self-initiated one entitled "Experimental Anatomy". The first in this series of objects was a pair of mechanical wings, and Michelle collaborated with performance artist Tessa Wills. This resulted in performances in a shop window in Brighton, and at the Fresh festival (South Hill Park, Bracknell).
In 2006 Michelle made a 'magical' mechanical bird in a cage for Garsington Opera's production of "The Philosopher's Stone".
Recent projects include 'Spaces Between' at the Royal Festival Hall and a centenary project with a primary school at Watford Palace Theatre where she created an installation in the front-of-house area.
