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| ABOUT
ACCIDENTAL COLLECTIVE |
ARTISTIC
POLICY
Accidental
Collective is fascinated by boundaries and driven by
a desire to push them. Our mission is to create original,
engaging, live events that question the assumed roles
of performance, audience, art, fiction and reality.
Within the expanding cultural environment of Kent, we
seek to confront lazy theatre, lazy performers and lazy
audiences, removing the blinkers and acknowledging the
shared responsibility in creative action. Accidental
Collective aims to use their innovative approach to
performance in order to cater for audiences living in
an age of microwave meals, Internet and reality TV.
By exploring the limits of performance and devising
new modes for its presentation we seek to engage with
these audiences in a provocative way, interrogating
their role within the live event. Searching for new
strategies of visual, verbal and physical presentation,
we will shatter conventions and hybridise art forms.
Part of our mission is to liase with local authorities,
venues and people to enliven and shake-up the growing
arts scene of the region. This is being cemented through
developing symbiotic relationships with Kent County
Council, Canterbury City Council, PANeK (Performing
Arts Network Kent), and Canterbury Festival. It is important
for the company to keep a wide and constant dialogue
with other artists and performers that may lead to creative
collaborations on a project-to-project basis. This is
something that is being pursued by attendance at the
NRLA, as well as various conferences, including Performing
Heritage at Manchester University, participating in
workshops, such as Basement Arts’ ‘Head
to Head’ sessions in Brighton, and our involvement
in Leibniz’s The Book of Blood.
Our founding members are passionate about contemporary
performance and intend to maintain the production of
high quality work by a constant evaluation of process
and product.
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MEMBERS
Rick Bolinger, was born in London
in the early 80s, and graduated from the University
of Kent’s MDrama degree in 2006. Having
been involved in children’s theatre in London
he pursued his interest in community arts with
Kent based company, Animate. He has worked on
television such as The Bill and Eastenders and
has also worked with award-winning artist and
film-maker, Sarah Turner on her project Ecology
(2007).
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Laura Dean, was born in Manchester
in September 1983 where she lived for ten years,
before moving to Oxford. Since Autumn 2002 she
has been based in Canterbury, graduating with
an MDrama from the University of Kent, where her
passion for performing grew and has resulted in
her being a founding member of Accidental Collective.
Her performance interests include humour and persona,
and work which interrogates the potential points
of connection between audience and performer.
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 Daisy
Orton is originally from the deep,
dark wilds of the North Country (Leeds). She completed
her MDrama degree with first class honours. She
has performed, directed, devised as well as collaborated
on a range of diverse live events, which has included
her autobiographical project, This Is Your Life
(I think), which was devised in collaboration
with Laura Dean. She likes books, old things,
and nice people, pleases and thank yous, uncomfortable
silences, dressing up, and wants to be a proper
artist when she grows up.
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Pablo
Pakula, left Spain and his German
cabaret group Lampenfieber to study in the UK
back in 2000. Since then he has become increasingly
entangled in contemporary performance: collaborating
with the Japanese company Gekidan Kaitaisha on
several projects; attending a number of conferences
and workshops; stage-managing in London and the
Edinburgh Fringe; and graduating with first class
honours MDrama degree at the University of Kent.
He received funding for a PhD on the impact of
Grotowski’s work on the contemporary British
stage in 2006.
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THE
COMPANY STORY
The
Accidental Collective story…
 ACCIDENT#1
Daisy Orton and Pablo Pakula look for a good excuse
to justify the South-North coach odyssey that was to
take them from Canterbury to the Open Wide Festival,
Leeds. To create a short performance and submit it to
the ‘scratch’ section of the festival seemed
to be the best course of action. Inadvertently, the
ball has begun to roll. The result, CONTINUAL COLLECTION,
is hailed as the messiest, most anarchic chaos to be
shown at the Scratch Days. They go home happy and satisfied.
 ACCIDENT#2
As the result of a late June, late night chat (“Little
interventions, you know...”) Rick Bolinger joins
the unsuspecting duo. Of course, there isn’t much
to join. Nobody takes themselves seriously, this is
just for laughs. Suddenly the three are working together
on COLLECT CALL. Four months later they complete a six-hour
telephone marathon in the name of live art. Their games
attract much attention across campus, reaching far beyond
to Iowa, Finland, and Singapore.
 ACCIDENT#3
The antics of the trio catches the attention of Laura
Dean, a budding performer with a need to make theatre
and a fear of falling prey to office life (she also
has a car). She very sensibly gravitates towards the
collection of intrepid rebels yet to determine a cause.
They appear to share her sense of urgency in making
a go of this thing called theatre. Somehow she galvanises
the resolve of all involved to find some ways of creating
their own work, together, formally, collectively, intuitively,
scarily and quite, quite accidentally.
 ACCIDENT#4
Amidst the pressures and demands of their MDrama final
year, the accidental quartet makes time to consider
their options. Where are they to go? Leeds, Manchester,
Nottingham, London? What are they to do? Unable to find
satisfactory answers they seek advice from the powers
that be. Suddenly an offer is put on the table. Stakes
are raised. They cannot refuse. So, just before graduating,
with support from the University of Kent, Accidental
Collective decides to stay put in Canterbury. This is
it. This is now. It is happening.
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