Director, performer, collaborator, actress, troublemaker and jack-of-all-trades Zoe Klinger heads the Moral Support theatre company as well as The Friends of Gagarin, an anarchic site-specific, interactive, “spontaneous theatre” collective combining Russian cultural history with circus visuals, masque, burlesque, grotesque, pomp and Perestroika. The Friends of Gagarin have a regular residency at the Notting Hill Arts Club and have performed at the Barbican and the South Hill Park Arts Centre in Bracknell and are currently collaborating on the making of a documentary.
What do you do all day?
Work and play.
What will you do today/ What have you done today?
Had breakfast, started work. What will I do today – all sorts, and then run out of time.
What’s your working process?
Conversation, throwing ideas around, back and forth, building on them until they are practically impossible to deliver then working out how to turn them into reality – which involves a lot of experimenting with materials and rehearsal. And then sculpting it into the finished article, removing the excess, the flack, the spurious. Until an outline and some great design remains and the live experiment which involves the live audience can take place – and then afterwards we work out what happened and let that instruct us in the next experiment.
What’s the best thing about what you do?
It is challenging and always different from day to day.
And the worst thing?
Um, well I guess the money is kind of useless
How did you get into it?
Because it felt right and then I was hooked.
What’s been the biggest achievement in your career so far?
Difficult to say, for years it was getting a show on at the National Theatre, but now I think it is that I am still creating interesting stuff and working with good people. Right now it is Friends of Gagarin and how people are really lapping up live performance that involves the audience being integral within that performance. Oh, and to be still exploring with a passion – that is a big achievement.
Where do you go from here, career-wise?
Do more, reach more people… collaborate more.
Have you got any advice for someone trying to do what you do?
Persevere and stay passionate.
When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?
A rather round old lady.
And if you were going to have a complete career change, what would you go for?
Cosmonaut.
Where do you look for inspiration?
Everywhere, everything… other people.
Which other artists do you look [up] to?
Robert Lepage, The Wooster Group, Improbable, Kylie.
What constitutes a successful work, for you?
Something that reached the people it was aiming for and entertained them, makes them come back again, bringing their friends and leaves them all experiencing flashbacks of moments from the experience from time to time. Something that reaches unsuspecting people and gives them a buzz.
What constitutes an unsuccessful work?
Something created that doesn’t reach anyone is awful. Or if the work is just not right or simply doesn’t actually work – which happens as the work isn’t complete until the audience interacts with it – which is always a challenge. This riskiness is enjoyable, though some collaborators find it scary.
