Clod Ensemble


Clod Ensemble is a multi-award winning performance company and registered charity based in London, UK. Founded in 1995 by director Suzy Willson and composer Paul Clark, the company creates performances, workshops and other events in the UK and internationally.

Artistic work

Each production has a unique visual identity and distinctive musical score, ranging from acoustic work to multi-speaker installations. Performances take place in theatre spaces, festivals, galleries and public spaces including Sadler’s Wells, Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall, Serralves Museum Porto and Public Theatre New York. Their work explores the relationship of music and movement, bodies and spaces. Performances sometimes draw on medical themes and the complex relationship we have with our bodies and the medical profession.
Selected performances include Silver Swan, featuring a choir of seven unaccompanied singers, Under Glass, where performers are contained within glass cases, from a jam jar to a test tube; An Anatomie in Four Quarters in which the audience cut a path through the auditorium of a large theatre; MUST, a collaboration with New York performance artist Peggy Shaw; and Red Ladies, in which a chorus of identically dressed women transform, celebrate and interrupt the familiar streets of a city.
They run a programme of education and participation projects in schools, higher education institutions and NHS Trusts. Their award-winning Performing Medicine project delivers courses, workshops and events which draw on techniques and ideas in the arts to provide training to medical students and healthcare professionals. Performing Medicine was cited an example of best practice in the 2017 report from the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Arts, Health and Wellbeing.
They are recipient of a Sustaining Excellence Grant from Wellcome Trust and are an Arts Council England National Portfolio Organisation.

Education and Participation projects

Direction and Choreography by Suzy Willson. Music by Paul Clark.
TitleFirst PerformanceRevivalsNotes
Feast During the Plague1995, Battersea Arts Centre, London
Musical Scenes1995, Battersea Arts Centre, London1996, Battersea Arts Centre, London.
HaDivadlo Theater, Brno-střed, Czech Republic.
Metamorphoses1996, Battersea Arts Centre, LondonUK Tour including Oxford Playhouse.Text by Peter Oswald.
The Overcoat1998, Battersea Arts Centre, LondonUK TourReferenced in: Drawing attention to the significant: exploring the functions of music in The Overcoat by Millie Taylor
Silver Swan1999, Battersea Arts Centre, LondonVictoria & Albert Museum, London.
McEwan Hall, Edinburgh.
The Linbury Studio, Royal Opera House.
Turbine Hall, Tate Modern, London.		Based on two 17th Century songs by William Lawes and John Smith.
Referenced in: An Inventory of Falling by Suzy Willson
Lady Grey1999, Purcell Room, Southbank Centre, London
It's a Small House and We Lived in it Always1999, Purcell Room, Southbank Centre, LondonInternational Touring Double Bill Double Agency with Miss Risqué, including La Mama Experimental Theatre Club, New York.A collaboration with Split Britches.
Miss Risqué2001, Nuffield Theatre, Lancaster UniversityInternational Touring A collaboration with Split Britches.
For One Night Only2002, Battersea Arts Centre, LondonA selection of short pieces including Wrestling, Trapeze and Egg&Spoon.
Kiss My Echo2002, Battersea Arts Centre, London
Greed2003, Battersea Arts Centre, LondonUK and international tour including Bristol Old Vic
Red Ladies2005, Trafalgar Square, London as part of British Architecture Week.
2006, Hackney Empire.		UK and international revivals 2005 – 2015 including:
Hastings in association with Coastal Currents Arts Festival.
Margate in association with Turner Contemporary and Margate Theatre Royal.
Porto and at the Serralves Museum, Portugal..
Institute of Contemporary Arts, London.
Warwick Arts Centre.		Text by Peter Oswald.
Referenced in: Red Ladies: Who are they and What do they Want? by Suzy Willson and Helen Eastman.
Must2007, Wellcome Collection, LondonUK and international tour, including Public Theater, New York as part of Under the Radar FestivalWritten by Peggy Shaw & Suzy Willson. Performed by Peggy Shaw.
Referenced in: A Menopausal Gentleman: The Solo Performances of Peggy Shaw by Jill Dolan and Queering the Temporality of Cancer Survivorship and Jackie Stacey & Mary Bryson.
Under Glass2009, Sadler’s Wells - off-site at Village Underground, LondonUK and international tour 2009 – 2019Village Text by Alice Oswald.
Winner of Total Theatre Award for Visual Theatre 2009.
Referenced in: The Pain of Specimenhood by Gianna Bouchard.
An Anatomie in Four Quarters2009, Sadler’s Wells, LondonWales Millennium Centre, Cardiff
The Lowry, Salford 		Referenced in: Clod Ensemble: Performing Medicine by Suzy Willson.
Zero2013, Sadler’s Wells, LondonUK Tour
The Red Chair2015, Live at LICA, LancasterEngland tour
Scotland tour 		Written and performed by Sarah Cameron.
Published by Methuen Publishing.
Snow2018, Kings Place, London as part of Noh Reimagined FestivalText by Suzy Willson & Peggy Shaw.
Placebo2018, The Lowry, SalfordUK Tour including The Place, LondonIncluding My Lonely Lungs monologue written with Peggy Shaw.
Design by Art School.
On The High Road2019, Queen Elizabeth Hall, Southbank Centre, LondonUK Tour Including Madam Wu monologue written with Peggy Shaw.

Other Productions

TitleFirst PerformanceRevivalsNotes
Pierrot Lunaire1998, Battersea Arts Centre, London1999, Battersea Arts Centre, LondonMusic by Arnold Schoenberg.
Translation by Alice Oswald.
Songs for the Dead2000, Battersea Arts Centre, London2001, Battersea Arts Centre, LondonIncluding music by Purcell, Schnittke, Paul Clark, Elliot Carter and Ligeti.
Swing Night2006, Battersea Town Hall, London2012, Stoke Newington Town Hall as part of London Creativity and Wellbeing WeekWith Gordon Campbell Big Band