Co-productions
Changing the arts with Co-Productions
We believe that the best way to achieve our goal of true representation onstage, off stage and in the audience, is through partnerships.
Our flagship collaboration is with Cirque Bijou. Together we lead Extraordinary Bodies* a company that creates bold, provocative work that changes hearts and minds.
Co-productions enable us to embed change and exchange knowledge while we create something terrific together. Interested?
Let's change the arts!
Co-Productions
As the industry recovers from the impact of Covid-19, we’re looking for ways to rebuild the arts into a fairer, more equal shape. This means not just ensuring equality doesn’t backslide, but actively pursuing better representation from boardrooms, to backstage, to centrestage.
We think the best way to make lasting change is to embed best practice everywhere we can. Change doesn’t come through a training day, although those can be useful too, but through creating something in a new way, learning good practice directly, by implementing it. If you work with us, you’ll have the confidence to uphold high standards for representation and equality in everything you create.
Co-producing with Diverse City can help you realise your ambitions for access and representation in your creative processes, programming, casting and staffing, while also making a bold, brilliant piece of work.
Our convictions feature in everything we produce. Our show Mid Life recently smashed taboos surrounding menopause to sell-out, joyous houses at Bristol Old Vic and Barbican. Mid Life interwove BSL and Audio Description into the creation of the show, and featured a diverse cast.
To see more of the amazing selection of shows we produce through Extraordinary Bodies, please visit the Extraordinary Bodies website.
Get in touch if you want to be at the forefront of the movement for positive, lasting change.
When you co-create work with us, you can benefit from:
- Accesible rehearsal room support
- Accessible auditioning
- Diversifying your casting and staffing
- Representative programming consultation
- To download the show pack for Mid Life or get the information you need to book the show, please click here.
- Creating new creative connections with diverse artists
- Accesible marketing support
- BSL and Audio Description integrated into the creative process.
Ready for more?
Whatever you have in mind, we might be able to work together: one way to find out!
Co-Productions
Photo credits from top to bottom of page: © Chelsey Cliff / Left © Paul Blakemore, Right © Paul Blakemore
/ Left © Richard Davenport, Right © Paul Blakemore / Left © Richard Davenport, Right © Gemma Aldred
Human
Human is about the small moments that shape us. This new show from Extraordinary Bodies is a poetic record of our time, based on the real life stories of our company and performers, told through circus, music and film.
Intimate, funny and celebratory, Human looks into the heart of birth, love and change.
Mid Life
Based on the real life experiences of Claire Hodgson, Karen Spicer and Jacqui Beckford, this joyful, potent show took on the taboos surrounding menopause. Weaving together BSL, audio description, original music, dance, and theatre, Mid Life told an honest story of different experiences of the same life event to sell out audiences in Bristol and London. Mid Life is currently available for touring.
Created with support from Ferment at Bristol Old Vic.
The Elephant Man by Lee Lyford
We co-produced director Lee Lyford’s take on The Elephant Man with Bristol Old Vic and Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. Diverse City’s Joint Artistic Director, Jamie Beddard, played the main character of Joseph Merrick and the company supported learning around improved access for artists and audiences.