Robert Walton

Robert trained as a theatre maker at Dartington College of Arts (England), Hoogeschool voor de Kunsten Utrecht (The Netherlands) and TheaterForumKreuzberg (Germany) and was recently described by The Times as an “original and talented thinker and theatre-maker.”

In 2001 Robert co-founded Reader Performance Group (readreader.org) and took a central role devising and performing in each of the group’s 16 performance projects until the company’s dissolution in 2005.  Robert has also worked on numerous national and international projects most notably with PANTHER (Melbourne), Alice Hui-Sheng Chang (Taiwan), The Strange Names Collective (UK) and The Vacuum Cleaner (UK).  In 2005 Robert co-founded Fish & Game (fishandgame.org.uk) with long-term collaborator Eilidh MacAskill and is the company’s Co-Artistic Director.  In December 2008 Fish & Game completed a major tour of Scotland with a new show called Otter Pie (otterpie.org) which was “hilariously funny and pungently perceptive” (The Herald) and which “anyone who is remotely serious about theatre in Scotland should see” (The Times). Previous work has toured to Canada, Australia and USA.

Since 2001 Robert’s practice has explored collaborative authorship in devising processes that has resulted in over 30 original performance works for studios, outdoor sites, galleries, video and the web. The major concerns of his practice relate to the powers of performance to trouble the borders of language and the phenomenological experience of being, the human and animal, the civil and the natural, the seducer and the seduced. 

Robert has received many awards, commissions and residencies as a professional artist including Scottish Arts Council (SAC) Seed Funding, SAC Touring Funding, Tramway Darks Lights Commission, Tramway Surge! Commission, Centre for Contemporary Art Creative Lab Residency (two consecutive years), The Arches: Arches Live! Commission, Royal College of Art Commission, West Space Gallery Residency (Melbourne), Dance House Residency (Melbourne).

Robert also holds a Master of Science degree in Information Technology (Software and Systems) from The University of Glasgow. Since 2004 Robert has been the Lead Programmer for New Work Network (newworknetwork.org.uk).