Curious Performance - Curious work in the space between theatre, live art and performance

Discarded clothes draped on a masive tree trunk in a forest

Curious have been creating extraordinary theatre, site specific, installation and film works for 25 years with a focus on devised and collaborative processes that engage with social justice issues, the body & the senses and environmental activism.

Best Before End
Best Before End by Curious at The Chelsea Theatre, 2014. Photo: Richard Davenport

About Curious Theatre

Frequently edgy, often humorous and always authentic, Curious work in the space between theatre, installation, film and research.

Founded by artistic directors Helen Paris and Leslie Hill, Curious create critically acclaimed work, hailed as being ‘as smart as it is seductive’ (Irish Times) and ‘exquisitely delicate’ (Guardian). Their performances have been enjoyed by audiences and supported by venues and international festivals in 16 countries including the Centre Pompidou, the Sydney Opera House, the Ke Center for Contemporary Arts, Shanghai, the Edinburgh Festival, and PS122, New York. Site specific locations range from urban regeneration zones and decommissioned nuclear missile sites to forests and shorelines.

Hill and Paris are Theatre and Performance Studies professors who have served as faculty members at Stanford and several London universities as well as visiting professors at Oxford, Université Grenoble Alpes and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. They deliver an international programme of courses, workshops and bespoke mentoring, alongside award-winning publications and research.

Curious are privileged to have been managed and produced by Artsadmin since 2000 and to have an archive of their works housed at the British Library, London.

Current projects

Caption P3

Devising Theatre & Performance: Curious Methods
New book by Leslie Hill & Helen Paris

Wild Longings
A sensuous horticultural journey

Wild Longings by artist duo Curious in the most beautiful garden in the City of London – the church garden of St Dunstan in the East, St Dunstan’s Hill, City of London which was bombed in the Blitz of 1941, the ruins, and the unscathed church tower and steeple designed by Sir Christopher Wren, were turned into an enchanting public garden. Dressed like ‘40s land girls with added foliage charming tour guide Helen Paris delivers an ode to trees, raconteur gardener Leslie Hill delivers hand-on gardening tips and torch singer Claudia Barton performs a fantasia to the surrounding botanical delights. R to L: Leslie Hill Claudia Barton – centre (singing) Helen Paris Wild Longings will be performed over the weekend of 14 & 15 September as part of Artsadmin’s 2 Degrees Festival about art, climate and action. Photograph by Elliott Franks