Outlandish Theatre Platform operates from a belief in cultural democracy and genuine social engagement, using experimental and participatory processes. We are committed to producing important theatre and performance projects through community collaboration, which places the individual central to their own representation. We invest in long-term partnerships with local communities, actively inviting inter-generational diverse community participants as vital co-creators in the experimental process.
OT Platform operates through two strands: Strand one with master projects in which we collaborate with community participants and professionals in the research, development and outcome phase. Strand two with Open Theatre Practice, a weekly open performance-making workshop free to the public, where no previous arts experience is required. Open Theatre Practice operates two seasons annually, working towards a performance at the end of each season.
The master projects and Open Theatre Practice interconnect symbiotically, with one inspiring the other and vice versa.
Our long-term objective is to develop and create new audiences and creators through participation and exchange and we are extending our focus to the context of arts and health and youth.
Background:
Outlandish Theatre Platform, founded in 2010 by Bernie O’Reilly and Maud Hendricks, creates new experimental performances through a theatre of enquiry. Engagement with Dublin 8’s diverse communities, as participants and audiences, is central to the company’s process. The found human sense and suffering is presented in uncanny theatre experiences for a diverse local and wider arts audience.
Since 2016 Outlandish Theatre Platform is the first theatre company in residence at the Coombe Women and Infants University Hospital (CWIUH). There, at the Rita Kelly Theatre, new work is developed in the contexts of ‘arts and health’ and ‘place and identity’. OT Platform has produced inter-media performances and theatre productions at the Rita Kelly Theatre, in site-specific locations in Dublin, Light House Cinema, IMMA and Shoreditch Town Hall in London.
In 2017 a new strand Open Theatre Practice (OTP) was established. People from Dublin 8 are invited to join a weekly performance making workshop. OTP is an essential part of our practice, creating a continuous live stream of fresh artistic responses, reflecting our constantly changing physical and social environment.
OT Platform creates inter-community dialogue in Dublin 8, where there is no independent theatre or common cultural hub, and finds innovative ways of overcoming barriers to accessing arts in Dublin.
If you are interested in joining an OTP session please connect to us via social media or email info@outlandishtheatre.com
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Supporting partners:
- The Arts Council
- ASHTAR Theatre, Palestine
- British Council
- Create Ireland, national development agency for collaborative arts
- City of Women Festival, Ljubljana
- Community and Education at the Abbey Theatre
- Coombe Women and Infants University Hospital (CWIUH)
- Counterpoints Arts, London
- Creative Ireland
- Dublin City Council
- Dublin Theatre Festival
- Department of Justice
- Dublin UNESCO City of Literature
- Dublin International Film Festival
- Five Lamps Arts Festival
- Dublin Fringe Festival
- Immigrant Council of Ireland
- Irish Arts Center NYC
- Mother Tongues Festival
- Robert Emmet CDP
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Communities we have worked with:
- Age and Opportunity
- Bealtaine Festival
- Bridge Project
- Candle Community Trust
- Charlemont community
- CWIUH Health Board
- Dolphin House community
- Dublin Mosque, SCR
- Dublin Simon Community
- F2 Centre
- Griffith Barracks Multi Denominational Primary School
- Hatch Hall DPC
- Killybegs Community Hospital
- MISA (Mercer's Institute For Successful Ageing)
- Outhouse
- Robert Emmet CDP
- St. Teresa’s Gardens community
- St John's Hospital, Sligo
- Warrenmount Secondary School
Bernie O’Reilly
Performer · Maker · Facilitator
With a degree in acting studies (TCD, 2007), Bernie’s professional
experience as a performer and facilitator of community theatre
workshops drives the creation of experimental performances,
questioning and challenging the status quo.
Using qualitative research methods, she is committed to exploring how different viewpoints are created, pushing boundaries boldly, connecting into the unknown, making visible the unheard and hearing the unseen.
Presently Bernie is developing new work in collaboration with CWIUH’s healthboard and community participants exploring the role of individual, gender, cultural, ethnic and LGTBQI identities within institutional walls.
Maud Hendricks
Performer · Writer · Director
Maud approaches theatre through the lens of place, identity and engagement, influenced by her studies in human geography. Inspired by Via Negativa philosophy and concepts of ‘theatre of ruins’, she creates trans-disciplinary experimental theatre with professionals and community performers.
She gathers wide-ranging and often contradictory perspectives in her theatre, exploring visible and invisible social and cultural barriers. The textual and sound elements as well as the performers form textures to the visual conceptualisation and unexpected theatre landscapes are created.
Her work is context sensitive and speaks to both new and existing arts audiences. Working from and with CWIUH, Coombe Women and Infants University Hospital, where one in three babies are born to non-Irish born mothers, has offered a unique institutional soundboard. Her inclusive practice depends on long-term engagements with socially and ethnically diverse community participants and audiences, both for independent theatre projects as well as Open Theatre Practice.
