Gina Biggs - Artistic Director

My artistic practice emerges from two key influences - post-Grotowskian ensemble theatre training with Song of the Goat Theatre (Poland) and Helen Poynor's somatic non-stylised movement in the environment, influenced by Anna Halprin and Suprapto Suryodarmo. In my practice, I allow these influences to speak to and enrich each other, building on both to describe what I do as 'environmental ensemble practice'.

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In addition to my artistic work, I am a trained Counsellor and Wild Therapist. These roles inform and deepen my practice, enhancing my commitment to healing and fostering connection. As a Counsellor, I guide individuals through their personal journeys, helping them navigate their inner landscapes with compassion, mindfulness, and an embodied approach to emotional well-being. As a Wild Therapist, I facilitate healing encounters between people and the natural world, believing that the Earth itself holds profound wisdom and restorative power.

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Through non-stylised movement, a core element of my artistic practice, I intentionally build a relationship with the environment (landscape) as if it were an alive and active member of the ensemble. This is a movement practice rooted in the principles of somatic exploration and environmental awareness. Simultaneously, I draw on the rich musical heritage of Eastern European ensemble theatre to bring voice, sound, and song into an embodied practice traditionally rooted in movement. This is site-responsive work that facilitates encounters with the landscape, where personal experience and autobiographical story meet with the historical, social, geological, and natural histories of place to generate and present contemporary narratives in performance.

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I do this because I believe cultivating a relationship with the more-than-human world matters. Linear, extractive, production-oriented ways of being, fuelled by neoliberal capitalism, have driven us toward mass environmental devastation on an unprecedented scale. Similarly, the individualistic mindset that underpins this effort has left humanity feeling isolated and disconnected, yearning for community. We are living through a global mental health crisis as a result.

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My practice seeks to heighten our sensory awareness to these fractures and, through body and voice, (re)awaken a more caring relatedness - to self, to others, and to the environment. As a Counsellor and Wild Therapist, I view the act of reconnecting with nature and each other as a profound act of healing. In my therapeutic work, I intentionally foster compassionate connections between individuals and the more-than-human world, supporting holistic healing that embraces both personal growth and environmental stewardship.​ 

 

This ethos of care is central to my environmental commitment to better nurture life on this planet. It also responds to the need to care for myself as someone living with a chronic pain condition (early onset arthritis, hypermobility, and fibromyalgia) that can present mental health challenges in the attempt to stay well in this world.

 

In contemporary working cultures, ideas of progress, productivity, and success are often shaped around well-managed, linear, time-bound models, primarily focused on non-disabled bodies. Conversely, chronic illness has a less predictable, cyclical, fluctuating rhythm of symptoms that flare and recede throughout one’s life, with pain remaining a constant and invisible drone. The effects of living in a world that constantly demands speed and productivity are just as harmful to my lived experience as they are to the environment. Both body and Earth, subject to their own rhythms and ways of experiencing time, have the potential to suffer greatly as a result.

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I intentionally forge deep connections with the Earth, not only because spending time in nature is consistently proven to improve physical and mental well-being, but also as a personal commitment to celebrate life in other ways. Nurturing the right relationship to the more-than-human world, through ensemble, is my practice of care. It means that even when working alone I am always held in a sense of community. In environmental ensemble practice, the human and the more-than-human continuously make space to witness, celebrate, and attend to each other’s care and thriving life.