Rachel comes to Cove Park this June through the Jerwood Performing Arts residencies, programmed by Fuel Theatre. In a new development for 2014, former participants will each nominate emerging artists new to both Cove Park and Fuel to take up this year’s residency opportunities. The nominated artists will work with Fuel either on a specific project, or for the more general development of their creative practice. The residencies will take place in May, June, July and August this year.

Cove Park is most grateful for the continued support of the Jerwood Charitable Foundation for making this work possible.

Rachel Mars is a performance maker, her work straddles live art, theatre and comedy. She creates performances that explore the idiosyncratic constructs that surround our social interactions. Above all she is interested in people; how we connect, how our brains work, and how we cope with the act of living. She is drawn to big human emotions: so far slamming against envy, grief, humour and rage as subject matter. Her Jewishness and Queerness offer a lens for the way she views the world, and she is constantly inspired by being part of an aging and gobby family.

The body in her practice is a site of personal histories, inherited behaviours and cultural expectations. At the moment she is experimenting with larger physical transformations to access characters beyond her own experience.

Whilst at Cove Park, Rachel will be working on ‘The Thirty Six’ a new project based on a myth rooted in the Talmud, which looks to explore issues of righteousness, doing-good and responsibility. Rachel will be collaborating with three other theatre makers, Tom Frankland, Laura Mugridge and Jamie Wood.