Collaborators
Glyn Perrin
Composer, The Seed Carriers
Glyn Perrin studied music at Dartington and York, and in California.
For the last thirty-five years he has been an independent composer, performer, producer and mentor.
Many of his works combine conventional and electroacoustic means. They have been performed by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Endymion and Michael Bonaventure, as well as within productions by Shobana Jeyasingh and Rambert dance companies, the Young Vic and the RSC, Stephen Mottram's Animata and Duncan MacAskill.
He has also been a keyboard player and programmer on numerous non-classical projects worldwide.
Sebastian Castagna
Composer, The Seas of Organillo
Melanie Thompson
Director, The Seed Carriers
Melanie Thompson has a broad performance background, having worked or studied with many dynamic companies over the last thirty years. (Akademia Ruchu, Cardiff Laboratory Theatre: Odin Theatre, Growtowski, Roy Hart Theatre, Hesitate and Demonstrate, The People show, Impact Theatre, Potlatch Theatre) She studied Drama and Dance at Dartington College of Arts and later did a M.A in Fine Art in Context.
Her own performance company - Intimate Strangers - produced major collaborative touring shows supported by the Arts Council and involving an eclectic range of practitioners. She also initiated The Zwillinge Project - performances responding to specific sites ranging from a hotel in Hull to the Streets of Bristol.
Melanie has travelled widely, both teaching and performing. (Denmark - Arhus Theatre Festival, France, Norway - Sortland New music week, Spain, Italy, Canada - Montreal Visual Arts Festival, Israel - Jerusalem school of visual theatre, Poland - British Council tour, and Germany.) Over 10 years she was a visiting tutor for Nordisk Theatre School Denmark and Sheersburg College in Flensburg Germany.
Over the years she has also taught in all the departments at Dartington College of Arts and is currently a freelance lecturer at Falmouth University College Cornwall.
Since 2000 she has been curating and producing various high profile public art projects. These include work on the redevelopment of Torquay Harbour, Palace Intrusions, (a year long series of interventions from commissioned artists leading to large community performances around Wells Palace), Tor Dance Festival, Shaking Hands with Ghosts and Slippage, (both related to the history and closure of Dartington College) Scallop and Project B-side Festival,(creating a series of works for Portland, Dorset.)
Deana Rankin
Director, The Seas of Organillo
Deana Rankin is Senior Lecturer in English and Drama at Royal Holloway, University of London and Programme Director of the English/ Drama Joint Honours degree. Before this she was the Muriel Bradbrook Fellow in English at Girton College, Cambridge and held a post-doctoral fellowship at the National University of Ireland, Galway. Her first book, entitled Between Spenser and Swift: English Writing in Seventeenth-century Ireland (Cambridge, 2005) was awarded the Book of the Year Prize by the American Conference of Irish Studies. She is currently preparing an edition of the first play by an Irish writer to be performed and published in Dublin - a 1641 tragicomedy about Scandinavian Amazons. She is also working on a study of the representation of assassins and assassination on the early modern English stage. She also teaches and writes about Shakespeare (in text, performance and on film), and modern Irish drama.
Before moving into academia, Deana worked in arts education and administration. She was Japan Festival Coordinator in Belfast and organised the first visit of the National Bunraku Theatre of Japan to Ireland. She then moved to Oxford to become General Manager of Pegasus Theatre. It was here that she first met Stephen Mottram while he was researching and developing The Seed Carriers. She then went on to direct The Seas of Organillo in 2000 Deana has also been a Director of the Southern Arts Board and of the Oxford Amnesty Lectures. She has coordinated a number of education festivals for the Royal Shakespeare Company and maintains close links with both the RSC and Pegasus.
Jessica Shaw
Designer, The Seed Carriers
Simon Scullion
Designer, Organillo (first version)
Simon trained at Wimbledon School of Art and works mainly as a set designer in theatre and has worked recently for companies including Belgrade Theatre Coventry, Bill Kenwright Limited and The Pleasance.
Kenneth Parry
Lighting Designer
Ken Parry worked with Stephen Mottram's Animata from 1993 to 1999, touring extensively in Europe, South America and to Pakistan. Ken designed the original lighting for The Seed Carriers and Organillo. A lot of his other design work was for dance. After 25 years of technical theatre, Ken moved over into arts management. Since 2002 he has worked at Hampshire Dance, where he is now Development Manager.
Alan Horne
Lighting and Sound
Alan Horne is a stage carpenter and technician, working with companies as diverse as Welsh National Opera and the Southwold Summer Theatre. He first worked with Animata during the early nineties, travelling with Stephen on long tours round Brazil, Japan and Russia - this latter in a converted Russian Army truck in the cold winter of 1992. Alan more recently worked on European tours - one involving a four day drive from Bialystok to Seville.
James Lewis
Lighting and Sound
James has toured with Stephen since he graduated from the University of Wales in 2003. He is an enthusiastic traveller who has travelled all over Europe with the company as well as the Far East and Brazil. James is a set designer who also runs Tin Shed Scenery, a scenic construction company based in Basingstoke.
Productions that James has designed and built have been performed in London's West End and other London venues, at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, at venues across England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, New Zealand, Greece, Armenia and at The Sydney Opera House, Australia.