Needless Alley at Camden Peoples Theatre

In July 2014 we were involved in two sold out performances at the Camden People’s Theatre with Needless Alley Collective. For this project the group consisted of Xavier, Karinne, Sam, musicians Joe and Ollie (Shifts) and us providing visuals and audience interaction with an overhead projector, some detritus scavenged from the local streets before the shows and gels and acetates. Needless Alley work in a very improvisational way within a loose theme with no two performances or rehearsals being the same. The musicians, dancers, visual artists and performers respond to each other intuitively, translating sounds, movements, words and images from one medium to another in ways that are often magical and very immediate. Part of our role was to involve the audience in providing imagery for the performances during the shows. They made drawings using acetates and pens in response to questions picked by them from a hat. They did this wonderfully and made the shows truly collective activities. Edited video of the one of the performances here Needless Alley Collective is funded by Arts Council England and Queen Mary University, London.