Leo Burtin

Profile

As a practitioner-researcher, I am developing a body of artistic work in which each piece gently, poetically and playfully disrupts the familiar act of preparing, eating and sharing food. Recent work includes:

• performances ( with bread (2019); The Midnight Soup (2014-ongoing))
• public interventions (Le Bistroquet (2014-ongoing))
• installations (The Common Kitchen (2018))
• workshops (Around the Table (2018-2019))

as well as events which gently lean across forms and disciplines (To The End (2017), On Otherness (2018)). These diverse projects are connected by a desire to examine how coming together to share food and conversation might help us imagine new (and perhaps more effective) ways of living together.

In addition to developing my own artistic practice, in 2014, I began collaborating with performance-maker, researcher and singer Dr Alison Matthews. Our creative process draws on academic research, creative writing, music-making and improvisation. The resulting work is always humorous and lighthearted. In short, we make a song and dance of our political woes.

Teaching

I am currently a Visiting Associate Lecturer at the University of Salford, supervising 2nd Year (Level 5) Contemporary Theatre Practice students' performance projects. I also regularly contribute to teaching on MA programmes at the University of Salford and Lancaster University, on creative producing/creative enterprise, practice-as-research and developing a professional creative practice. 

Writing

In recent years, I have contributed to mainstream publications, including The Guardian and the Sick of the Fringe, and co-run the food blog Hive & Hob. I have also previously worked as a journalist and editor. As with my artistic practice & research, my writing mostly focuses on socially engaged arts, community and society, and how food can bring people together.

Producing

Prior to returning to academia as a PGR, I had been working as a producer, artistic director, and project manager for organisations which have included Making Room, Hear Me Roar festival, Ella Good & Nicki Kent, Dr Chloé Déchery, Imitating the Dog, The Conker Group and many more. I spent eight years in a variety of roles at Lancaster Arts (Lancaster University) where I was notably responsible for artists’ development programmes and a number of major commissioning projects.

Research interests

My current research is focussed on commensality, eating together and the use of food in performance. My broader research interests also include: 

- Eating and dining as participatory tools in performance

- Socially engaged performance practice

- Postdramatic theatre and performance practice

- Auto/biographical performance

- Death & dying

- Performance and the everyday

- The senses in performance

- Creative producing

- Queer feminist performance

Qualifications

• BA (Hons) Theatre Studies, Lancaster University