Anagram: Image courtesy of the artists

(UK)

Anagram are documentary filmmakers Amy Rose and May Abdalla. As ANAGRAM, they produce experiential documentaries and site-specific works that bring true stories off the screen and into new spaces. They use technology to make their interventions as invisible as possible. At 20 Wellington Road, they developed a project that combines character-led documentary storytelling with the immediate physicality of immersive theatre; documentary cinema for the body. This project is to be made at the Pervasive Media Studio in winter 2013/2014.

Testimonial

During the weeks we spent in the bowels of Blast Theory’s subterranean offices, which we affectionately called ‘the bat cave’, we rarely ventured out. For us, the residency was the first real opportunity we had as artists to dig deep into the why’s, how’s and what if’s of our practice. Having a place to hibernate, without the emotional vacillations brought on by over-exposure to other people, gave us the focus to really develop. 14 months on, we are still reaping the benefits.

Sometimes, space and creative support are all you need – and, without us even really knowing that we needed it, Blast Theory provided that. Their expertise, enthusiasm and open-minded approach to how we needed to operate gave us the impetus to move forwards into a genuinely new space.

Since those weeks we have, from working in straightforward documentary, become permanent residents at the Pervasive Media Studio in Bristol and made Door into the Dark – the show that is now our calling card. It’s a show we can stand by one hundred percent and say this is us, it represents what we care about and how we want to communicate as artists. The idea for Door into the Dark came to us whilst we were in the bat cave, and it would not have become what it is now had Blast Theory not offered us their firm critique and generous support at its birth.