helen spackman

Helen Spackman is a performance artist and lecturer in Performing Arts & Theatre Studies at London Metropolitan University. Her training includes butoh, corporeal mime, expressionist dance and yoga, and she has a BA Hons. Psychology (University of Nottingham, 1984), MA Performance Arts (Middlesex University, 1993) and is currently completing her PhD by prior output on the performance research she has undertaken with LEIBNIZ, a fluid collective of of international artists that she co-founded with Dr. Ernst Fischer in 2005 and that aims to present both intimate and large-scale, socially engaged work, create rituals and mythologies for a secular age, generate new audiences and assist emerging artists. Having worked together since 1995, Fischer & Spackman’s initial focus on gender issues has shifted to wider body- political concerns of human rights, migration and urban alienation. While both artists continue to pursue individual performance and directing projects, LEIBNIZ has to date produced four distinct pieces of work: The Book of Dust (2005 -), The Ship of Fools (2005 -), The Book of Blood (2007 -) and Ghost Letters (2009 -), various elements of which have been presented at performance festivals and symposia in Chile, Denmark, Greece, Italy and the Uk.