Aller Park Studios is delighted to welcome artist Adam Chodzko and actor Gretchen Egolf for a conversation about their experience of performance, and their respective approaches to embodiment, characterisation and voice.

Everyone is welcome. Doors open at 6.30pm and donations on admission support the programme. 

Ahead of this evening’s talk, Gretchen Egolf will lead an all-day performance workshop where participants will work with visualisations and exercises developed by actor, director and teacher Michael Chekhov at Dartington in the 1930s. Gretchen will talk about her work with Chekhov’s techniques, reflecting on the day’s workshop and on the legacy of the Chekhov Theatre Studio.

Adam will share some of his questions about visual art and performance and present images of his work. Gretchen and Adam will also try, in the moment, to figure some things out between them about acting, theatre, visual art, performance, audience, body and becoming, inviting the audience to join this conversation and pose their own questions.

Adam Chodzko is an acclaimed contemporary artist who uses a wide range of media, including video, installation, photography, drawing and performance. His work focuses on our relationships to life’s edges, endings, displacements, transitions, disappearances and in-between states. Operating between documentary and fantasy – especially in the form of science fiction – his practice is influenced by both conceptualism and surrealism. He has exhibited extensively in international solo and group exhibitions and projects including: Tate St Ives; Groundwork, Cornwall; Museo d’Arte Moderna, Bologna; Athens Biennale; Istanbul Biennale; Venice Biennale; Deste Foundation, Athens; PS1, New York; Ikon Gallery, Birmingham; Kunstmuseum Lucerne; Creative Time, New York; Hayward Gallery, London and Tate Britain.

Gretchen Egolf is an actor, director, teacher, and co-director of The Chekhov Collective UK. Gretchen trained at The Julliard School and has performed in theatre, film and television in New York, Los Angeles and London. She has taught in London at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, RADA, LAMDA, ALRA, and Brunel University, as well as the Actors Centre and independent workshops.

Throughout the evening, material from the Dartington Hall Estate archives – photographic documentation of the Chekhov Theatre Studio company rehearsing and performing at Dartington between 1936 and 1939 – will also be on display in the studios.

Adam and Gretchen will talk for approximately 90 minutes, starting at 7pm. Everyone is welcome to stay and continue to view archive material and have a drink together after the talk.

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This event is part of Embodiment and Performance, a weekend of activities with Gretchen and Adam that consider physical performance and the development of character in body and voice. A performance workshop, an artist talk and a cinema screening draw on the legacy of actor, director and teacher Michael Chekhov.

Live events are recorded whenever possible and shared online. Visit our LINKS page to listen to an audio recording of this event, where you’ll also find more about the story of the Chekhov Theatre Studio at Dartington.

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Aller Park, Park Road, Dartington Hall Estate TQ9 6EL

There is a car park on the West side of the building – turn right off Park Road. Parking is free in all car parks on the estate after 6pm. For more information about visiting the estate, directions and maps, visit the Dartington website here.

There isn’t currently an accessible wheelchair entrance to the Aller Park building – there are four steps from the car park to the entrance hall.

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Image: Chekhov Theatre Studio, ‘wrestling without muscles’, Dartington, 1938  © Dartington Hall Trust