AVA LONDON Festival 2025 – pushing the boundaries of contemporary culture
March 14, 2025
Conor McTernan on why Camden’s Knowledge Quarter is the best place for AVA’s London edition
Camden’s answer to the infamous Edinburgh Fringe is back for the whole of August. Now in its 16th year, the festival brings the freshest theatre, comedy, dance and musical shows to the borough.
Named one of the Top 5 Immersive Companies in NYC by Jonathan Mandell of tdf.org, This Is Not a Theatre Company creates site-based, immersive, multi-sensory, participatory dance-theatre that can be smelled, touched, and tasted as well as seen and heard.
With three shows waiting to be downloaded any time this August, we asked Artistic Director Erin B. Mee to reveal a bit more. You can also hear her voicemails about each of the shows below…and purchase tickets for £5 on the Camden Fringe Website.
Your shows are a little different to the usual Fringe performances, so tell us a bit about the format and why people should download and enjoy each of them?
Our shows are site-specific audio plays, which means that you download the audio, go to a specific location (in this case a tree, closet, or bathtub), and press play. What you hear on the audio mixes with the real world to create a unique experience. The plays are self-scheduled, and the place and time you choose affect the outcome. If you listen to Tree Confessions on a warm sunny Sunday it will be different to the way the play feels on a cloudy weekday at rush hour.
What does this kind of non-theatre performance mean to you?
To me it means that the audience co-creates the play with us. Audiences don’t sit still and appreciate the results of our creativity; they participate in the creative act.
If your shows were a drink, what kind of drink would each be and why?
Tree Confessions would be a gin and rose tonic with a sprig of rosemary. Trees are not new to us. But have we taken the time to think about their experiences, about how they feel? So familiar with a twist.
Play…In Your Bathtub 2.0 would be a cup of green tea. Relaxing, clean, calming, rejuvenating. Or a glass of dry white wine 🙂
A Little Drape of Heaven would be a cosmopolitan.
What’s something you wish more people knew?
I think we all need to practice active and compassionate listening.
Who or what inspires you?
I’m inspired by John Cage, Marcel Duchamp, the ocean, the Sanskrit aesthetic theory of rasa, and Judson dance.
If you do site-specific work, where are some other places you have performed your plays?
We have performed in actual swimming pools, apartments, and cafes, ferries, subways, and parks.
Hear Erin’s Fringe voicemails below, and discover more from all the artists on the exclusive audio listings page
Conor McTernan on why Camden’s Knowledge Quarter is the best place for AVA’s London edition
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