Marta Sitarz (She/Her)
Performance Design MA
Marta is a performance designer and maker with a particular interest in immersive storytelling and the immediacy of live experiences. Which she has been exploring in her practice undertaking creative projects for festivals and music events, as well as theatres, and other arts and culture institutions of varied profiles.
As an active member of event organizing collectives, through the past years she has progressed from a volunteer into the head of design and construction, working in ongoing collaboration with groupings such as KarpatART foundation or The X festival. Prior to studying MA Performance Design at Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, Marta graduated from Nottingham Trent University with a BA (Hons) degree in Theatre Design.
BOVTS credits:
Concept Artist: The Writer (BOV)
Set Design: This House (The Tobacco Factory)
Costume and Set Design: The Brink (The Wardrobe Theatre)
Concept Artist: Refractions (The Loco Klub)
The Brink
The Brink by Brad Birch is a psychological thriller in which the character’s surroundings reflects his emotional state. In collaboration with the Director Daniel Preciado and a brilliant technical production team we created a world which blurs the line between reality and bad dreams of anxiety, aiming to suspend the audience in that feeling of uncertainty, confusion and unease.
As the story progresses the seemingly naturalistic elements become increasingly abstract, breaking apart into pieces as the main character, Nick, loses his grip on reality and gradually slips into insanity.
Photography credit: Marta Sitarz
This House
In this dynamic play, where the action jumps between multiple locations around the 1970s Westminster in a snap, together with the Director Nik Partridge we decided to convey the story through a transformative set, manipulated by the cast to establish a broad variety of settings, supported by projections displayed on the life-sized Westminster Clock centrepiece.
The aesthetic we created as a team with the Costume Designer Jasmine Thompson is a combination of the 70s style geometric forms and patterns with the sophisticated gothic revival architecture of Westminster Palace. Playing with those contrasts, we used distortion as a tool to further underline the absurdity of described events and reflect the increasing lack of stability in the parliament.
Photography credit: Craig Fuller
Refractions
Refractions is an interactive immersive performance concept, designed for the Loco Klub ash tunnels, in which the audience is the main character as they journey across a typical day in the life, experiencing how the mundane can be perceived through different lenses. Drawing inspiration from various philosophical streams, psychological theories as well as the ideas and aesthetics of the surrealist art movement the project has been developed from scratch in close collaboration with a writer Max Kyte.
In the free to roam environment multiple storylines interlace, cross and overlap across multiple rooms inhabited by vibrant characters, each of whom exists as an inseparable whole with their surroundings which reflect their individual way of perceiving. In this fantastical psychedelic world of everyday people’s minds each object has its meaning and purpose, and the environment filled with symbols and metaphors is fully intertwined with the stories that live within it.
Photography credit: Marta Sitarz
