Persona Collective brings together community members and creative practitioners to devise and perform site-specific, immersive theatre & Filmmaking.
We aim to directly involve the community in the art-making process and live events. Persona is a vehicle to create an accessible platform for community-led arts education and creation.
“We bridge communities and take art, design and performance out of their traditional ghettos.
We create and stage extraordinary events in unexpected places layered with cultural heritage but at risk of slipping from living memory”
To each production we invite a team of artists, designers and creative directors from the fields of theatre, dance, film, music, architecture, design and education; creating a space for experimentation and innovation through cross-disciplinary, collaborative working.
Persona emerged from the arts community in Hackney, East London. It was founded by Artistic Director Rocio Ayllón and established as a Community Interest Company in 2017.
How we work
All our projects follow a key process:
1 - Finding a space which encompasses a common interest to the local community and a significant cultural and historical heritage.
2 – We invite artist to the space as part of the new project. From the start we run weekly labs in order to explore, test and document together the use of immersive design within the venue and the narrative
of the final show. We create a space for cross collaboration and exchange, feeding into
each other’s ideas and experience.
3 - Research into the history of the site, its urban context, and its past uses and users. This documentation heavily influences the role-plays and the narratives of the final show. This means that the story is tailored to, and emerges from, the building and its history.
4 - Each of our performances is created organically through a series of drama and dance workshops open to communities linked to our venue. Through open calls we aim to invite as diverse group as possible offering a realistic cross-section of society and the community local to our host site.
Find more in more in our community section
5 – These ‘hosts’ will participate in the temporary and partial transformation of their spaces through changes in light, soundscapes & music, set and costume design. At the end of the process we open the doors to the public to our final Immersive Theatre piece.
6 - After the live performance period we will make a feature length film version of the performance.
Our projects are developed collaboratively with a focus on education, research and experimentation. We use the resources available to us, letting the personality of our cast, our artists, the local history and our venues tell their stories. We constantly question the relationships with the audience ‘Blurring the boundaries between fiction and reality’
‘In ancient Latin the word persona meant, "mask." The word also can refer to a character played by an actor. While a persona is not considered a lie or a falsehood, its meaning implies that it is only part of the truth. Like all masks, there is "real" person beneath. Often a performer will take on a persona to express certain parts of himself’
The Trees of Life (1983) by Figurentheatre Triangel