Nic Green wins The Adrian Howells Award for Intimate Performance

In September 2016 we announced The Adrian Howells Award for Intimate Performance, and sent out a call for proposals seeking a Scotland based artist as the recipient of the award.

On 1 December 2016 it was announced that the winner of the Adrian Howells Award 2017 is Nic Green.

Adrian Howells (1962 – 2014) was one of the world’s leading figures in the field of one to one and intimate performance. Over two decades he developed an artistic practice that focused on the particular power and transformative possibility that could be achieved through creating a profound, immediate and personal connection to his audiences. Through these works and the care he took in every aspect of the experience he was often able to deeply affect those who participated in these encounters. The Adrian Howells Award aims to celebrate the particular type of intimate work that Adrian pioneered and excelled at as well as providing an opportunity to explore new territories in this field of practice. 

Nic is a multi disciplinary artist who focusses on the development of reciprocity in the contexts of liveness. The forms of her pieces vary from dance to bell-making, and are discerned through relational practice with people, place, material or context. Her work has been commissioned and presented nationally and internationally receiving sell-out audiences in the Barbican’s main house, ‘Best Production’ at Dublin Fringe Festival, a Herald Angel and the Total Theatre award for Best Visual/Physical Theatre at the Edinburgh Fringe.  She is based in West Scotland.

As the inaugural recipient of this annual award, Nic has been afforded the opportunity to explore a project idea in two stages, initially in Glasgow and subsequently in London at Battersea Arts Centre. She has also been awarded £4,000 towards the creation of the project and performances in Glasgow and London.

Nic said on winning the award:

“I am pleased to receive the Adrian Howells Award for Intimate Performance, and it comes at a timely moment for me in the trajectory of my life and work as an artist. I feel it is an honour to make a work in Adrian’s memory and I am pleased to create a piece that may, through this award, be related to his practice and the work he did during his lifetime. I will use this opportunity to develop a form initially explored in 2015 with Forest Fringe and the 20th Century Museum in Kanazawa, Japan, which facilitates the transformation of words donated by an individual, into the songs of birds.  The Adrian Howells Award opportunity will help me discover how this form might be in service to people approaching death.  In light of this I will be collaborating with experts and carers working in end of life care, to discover how best this work may be used in the complex context of these situations.”

Produced and developed by Take Me Somewhere. Supported by the National Theatre of Scotland, Battersea Arts Centre, the University of Glasgow and the Live Art Development Agency.