Slippages in perception: an interview with ZU-UK

A podcast interview with Duška Radosavljevic for auralia.space ('Aural/Oral Dramaturgies: Post-Verbatim, Amplified Storytelling and Gig Theatre in the Digital Age'). 'ZU-UK are a fiercely interdisciplinary UK and Brazil-based company of theatre artists, activists and pedagogues. Ever since their ground-breaking Hotel Medea, an all-night version of Medea performed in multiple locations between 2009 and 2011 including the Hayward Gallery, LIFT Festival and Edinburgh Fringe, they have been renowned for their distinctive approach to interactive performance and audience participation. In this interview the company’s founders, Artistic Director Persis Jadé Maravala and Executive Director Jorge Lopes Ramos, take us on a fascinating tour of ZU-UK‘s politics and poetics: we start from the company’s early days, influences and formative encounters and reflect on the specifics of some defining pieces, right through to their current and continuing interest in expanding the frame of theatrical representation through redefinitions of participatory, site-specific and immersive performance.