Silvia Mercuriali
Silvia Mercuriali has been working in theatre since 1998, creating events, site-specific installations, experimental theatre shows and immersive performances, focusing on altering the perception of everyday environments and the people inhabiting them, to turn reality into a fictional and poetic world.
Since 2007 she has created work using the strategy of Autoteatro which she pioneered with Ant Hampton for the show Etiquette. Autoteatro is a theatrical strategy developed by Silvia Mercuriali and Ant Hampton in 2007, which explores a new kind of performance whereby audience members perform the piece themselves following a set of pre-recorded instructions. The participants find themselves playing a role within a fictional narrative, without having to act or improvise, but simply abandoning themselves to a predetermined script, discovering the story as they enact it.
Silvia has experimented with this new strategy, applying it, stretching it and moulding it to different technologies and in different contexts constantly inviting audiences to question what is real and what is not. The audience’s panoramic view of Silvia’s work is a melange of public & private interactions, comprising both the random- unplanned and the controlled-scripted.
She has presented work internationally and has been commissioned by cultural centres and theatres including Brisbane Powerhouse (AUS), Museum of Art of Kochi (JP) as well as UK commissioning bodies such as Wellcome Trust, Fuel Theatres, The Roundhouse, Battersea Arts Centre, and Harrogate Theatre & Yorkshire Festival.