SLEEPWALK COLLECTIVE - iara Solano Arana

«Few theatre-makers capture the vertiginous thrill and terror of contemporary existence as captivatingly as Sleepwalk Collective» The Guardian

Sleepwalk Collective is the artistic collaboration between iara Solano and Sammy Metcalfe, an award-winning live-art and experimental-theatre company creating fragile, nocturnal performances between the UK and Spain since 2006. The company creates original work for theaters and unconventional spaces that emerge from their fascination with popular culture and the complexities of their relationships with one another, and with technology. Their pieces, sensorial and hypnotic, combine reflective and poetic texts and images with captivating sound and light designs.

To date, Sleepwalk Collective has created more than a dozen shows for theaters, and a large number of experimental pieces in various formats such as immersive, one-on-one, site specific, and durational including two 24-hour shows.

A selection of their shows include As The Flames Rose We Danced To The Sirens, The Sirens (2010), Amusements (2012), Karaoke (2013), Domestica (2014), Actress (2015), Kim Kardashian (2016), Kourtney Kardashian (2018), Psychodrama (with Christopher Brett Bailey, 2020), and Swimming Pools (2020).

The company has taken their work to Australia, Canada, Germany, France, Portugal, Italy, Poland, Austria, Kosovo, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Cuba, Brazil and Mexico, and has been programmed in prestigious theaters such as The Barbican in London, and renowned international festivals such as the Sydney International Festival, Festival d’Avignon, or MESS Festival in Sarajevo.

Awards include Best Show and Best Actress at BE Festival (Birmingham 2011), Best Actress at Skena Up Festival (Kosovo 2011) and Best Art Direction at Act (Bilbao 2010), all for As The Flames Rose We Danced To The Sirens, The Sirens. With Amusements, they have been nominated to the Total Theater Awards, and Arches Brick Awards (Edinburgh 2012). With Kourtney Kardashian they were nominated for the OFF West End Awards (London, 2019) and they were again nominated for the same awards with Psychodrama with which they became finalists in 2022.

Sleepwalk Collective is a resident company of the Sala Baratza Aretoa in Vitoria-Gasteiz, and have been associated artists at the Teatro de La Abadía and the Centro Condeduque in Madrid. Their dramatic texts have been published by Oberon Books and Salamander Street, and their theoretical essays have been included in DIY, DIY Too, and The Twenty-First Century Performance Reader.