Suzy Willson (born 1970) is a British director and choreographer. Willson is co-artistic director of

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

-based performance company

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 in ...

Early life and education

Willson was born in

Northwood, Middlesex Northwood is an affluent area in northwest London, England. It is located within the London Borough of Hillingdon on the border with Hertfordshire and from Charing Cross. Northwood was part of the ancient parish of Ruislip, Middlesex and has f ...

in 1970. She graduated with a degree in drama from Manchester University before going on to study at

L'École Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq École internationale de théâtre Jacques Lecoq is a school of physical theatre located on Rue du Faubourg-Saint-Denis in the 10th arrondissement of Paris. Founded in 1956 by Jacques Lecoq, the school offers a professional and intensive two-ye ...

Career

Willson founded London based performance company

in 1995 with composer Paul Clark and has directed all of their productions to date. Her body of work ‘defies categorisation’ and crosses the boundaries of theatrical and choreographic practice, working with different combinations of dancers, musicians, actors and independent performers. Her productions take place in traditional theatres and dance houses, but also in found spaces and outdoor locations. Her performance work sometimes takes inspiration from medical themes and explores ways of seeing, thinking about and experiencing the human body. Recent works include: ''Placebo'' – a piece in which seven dancers explore the placebo effect commissioned by

The Place The Place may refer to: * The Place (London) The Place is a dance and performance centre in Duke's Road near Euston in the London Borough of Camden. It is the home of London Contemporary Dance School and the Robin Howard Dance Theatre, and former ...

; choral lament ''Silver Swan'' in

Tate Modern Tate Modern is an art gallery located in London. It houses the United Kingdom's national collection of international modern and contemporary art, and forms part of the Tate group together with Tate Britain, Tate Liverpool and Tate St Ives. It is ...

’s Turbine Hall (2011); ''Red Ladies'' – a piece for 18 identically dressed women performed across an entire city (locations include London with

Southbank Centre Southbank Centre is a complex of artistic venues in London, England, on the South Bank of the River Thames (between Hungerford Bridge and Waterloo Bridge). It comprises three main performance venues (the Royal Festival Hall including the Nat ...

Porto Porto or Oporto () is the second-largest city in Portugal, the capital of the Porto District, and one of the Iberian Peninsula's major urban areas. Porto city proper, which is the entire municipality of Porto, is small compared to its metropol ...

with

Serralves Serralves is a cultural institution located in Porto, Portugal. It includes a Contemporary Art Museum, a Park, and a Villa, each one an example of contemporary architecture, Modernism, and Art Deco architecture. The Museum, designed by Álvaro S ...

Museum , Margate with

Turner Contemporary Turner Contemporary is one of the UK’s leading contemporary art galleries. Celebrating Margate’s connection with the painter J.M.W. Turner (1775 – 1851), an artist who believed that art could be an agent of change, its year-round exhibition ...

); ''An Anatomie in Four Quarters'' – a site specific performance originally created for the entire auditorium of Sadlers Wells, London (2012) and ''Under Glass'' – a piece in which all the performers are in glass boxes and jars (Sadlers Wells 2009-2017), which won a

Total Theatre Award Total Theatre Awards were first presented in 1997 and are given annually at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe to companies excelling in devised theatre, live art, visual performance, mime, puppetry, physical theatre, experimental theatre, dance, clo ...

for Physical / Visual Theatre in 2009. Willson’s work is an advocate for role of the arts in healthcare education She is a regular contributor to journals and books on both performance and medicine (see selected journal articles and book chapters below) and an Honorary Professor at

Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry , mottoeng = Temper the bitter things in life with a smile , parent = Queen Mary University of London , president = Lord Mayor of London , head_label = Warden , head = Mark Caulfield , students = 3,410 , undergrad = 2,23 ...

. Willson pioneered the award-winning Performing Medicine programme which encourages people working in healthcare to appreciate the choreographic, non-verbal and spatial dimensions of care. Performing Medicine has been cited as an example of best practice in the 2017 report from the All Party Parliamentary Group on Arts, Health and Wellbeing.

Selected journal articles and book chapters

* Willson, Suzy and P. Jaye (2017), ‘Arts based learning for a Circle of Care’, Lancet 390: 642-643 * Willson, Suzy (2007) ‘Drama for doctors’, Lancet 369: 1782 * Willson, Suzy (2006) ‘What can the arts bring to medical training’, Lancet 368: S15-S1 * Willson, Suzy (2016), ‘Moving Medicine’, in Routledge Companion to Jacques Lecoqedited by Mark Evans and Rick Kemp (Routledge: London). * Willson, Suzy (2016), ‘An Anatomie in Four Quarters: Rehearsal Notes’, in Performance and the Medical Body, Edited by Alex Mermikides and Gianna Bouchard, (Bloomsbury Methuen Drama: New York) * Willson, Suzy (2014), ‘Clod Ensemble: Performing Medicine’, Performance Research: A Journal of the Performing Arts 19.4: 31-37.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Willson, Suzy 1970 births Living people British choreographers People from Northwood, London Women choreographers Alumni of the University of Manchester British expatriates in France Theatre people from London