Current and Past Performance Projects

"Improvised Hope" Independents Biennial Liverpool - 2025

I'm delighted to be working alongside immersive digital artist Noel Jones on a filmed dance project for the 2025 Liverpool Independents Biennial.

“Improvised Hope” will transform the large windows of 24 Hope Street’s dance studio into an interactive digital canvas. This innovative project merges dance and technology, presenting an ever-evolving choreography of human and digital collaboration.

Noel, a seasoned professional with over 30 years of experience in Creative Technology and artistic sound design, has made significant contributions across various sectors, including Higher Education, professional engagements, and community-based projects. As a New Media Artist, his work is characterised by collaborative and interdisciplinary projects, resulting in innovative art forms and exhibited works.

You can find out more about Noel Jones here.

You can find out more about the Independents Biennial here.

You can find out more about 24 Hope Street here.

They Listen - Short Film

Short sci-fi written and filmed by me during 2021-2022 Covid-19 Lockdowns

Bring Your Own Beat (BYOB)

BYOB was created to explore the idea that “the audience makes the meaning of the piece” (and not the creator or the performer.)

The piece was created with no meaning behind it. It uses fundamental tools of choreography.

The performer does not try to feel, explore or convey any specific emotion. But he also doesn’t hide what he feels during the execution of the choreography. He also does not “immerse himself” in a character, story or mood.

The piece was created and always rehearsed without music/sound.

You can watch the piece as follows:

Prepare a 12 minute playlist. This can be music, spoken word, audiobook, news etc.

Start the video, press play on your playlist when prompted.

You may wish to watch it silent

Watch it again with a different playlist. Does the piece change?

First performed at Physical Fest Liverpool in 2016. Performed at LEAP in 2018 and in Ankara SoloDance in 2020.

Coffee and Distinction (May 2020)

A micro short film charting my journey of writing my PhD. This was a response to S. Gallegos and "bitchin nonfiction" call to create a nonfiction film in a minute or less.

The Seven Acts of Mercy

I appeared in “The Seven Acts of Mercy” by Anders Lustgarten directed by Jake Norton.

4th and 8th June 2019 – Liverpool : LIPA.
Originally produced by The Royal Shakespeare Company in 2016, Grasp The Nettle presents The Seven Acts of Mercy

Bootle, the present day. A retired dock worker teaches his grandson, as around them a community is disintegrating under the pressure of years of economic and political degradation. With all he has left, a book of great works of art, he tries to open the boy’s eyes to the tragedy and beauty of the life he faces. And the boy reciprocates in the only way he knows.

Naples, 1606. Inside an unfinished church, a painting is emerging from the darkness. The Seven Acts of Mercy is Caravaggio’s masterpiece – and his first painting since he killed a man and fled Rome. As the artist works, he is fuelled by anger, self-loathing and his driving need to create a work that speaks of compassion in a violent world.

Onur will be playing Giovan(ni) Battista Manso, one of the founders of Il Pio Monte Della Misericordia, where Caravaggio’s painting still resides.

Playing out across a gap of 400 years, Anders Lustgarten’s visceral play confronts the dangerous necessity of compassion, in a world where it is in short supply.

This rehearsal & development production of The Seven Acts of Mercy was supported by Arts Council England and The Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts, by arrangement with Anders Lustgarten.

Discordia Exhibition @ Hope Street Theatre October 2018, Liverpool

A distinctive new immersive show which blurs the realms of ‘art gallery’ and ‘theatre space’, fusing the disciplines of visual art by Laura Brownhill, choreography and music composition.

Discordia was performed October 3 to October 6 at the Hope Street Theatre in Liverpool. I choreographed and performed a solo dance piece in response to one of Laura’s paintings.

(You can watch a 360 video of the entire performance here. Duration: approx 90mins)

“In the beginning, surveying the formless chaos of inchoate matter and energy, Brahma felt confused and at sea. He had no idea how to fashion something out of that disorganised swirl. In desperation, he turned into himself and asked, “How can I create an ordered cosmos in the midst of this chaos?”

From within him, the Goddess spoke, “Through knowledge”, she said. “And from knowledge will come creative action”

Awakening Shakti by Sally Kempton

Discordia explores the theme ‘Making sense of the chaos’, through the exploration of various cultural, philosophical and shamanic ideologies, inviting the audience to experience the varied meaning and perspectives of a collection of paintings within an audio-physical tapestry.

Initially an ensemble of painted images created as art therapy by award winning artist Laura Brownhill (original co founder of The Kazimier), collaboratively a multisensory happening, featuring bespoke new solo works in response to the visual stimulus from accomplished pianists, Nina Windsor Roe, Nick Smith and Jacques Malchance, professional dancers, Hollie-Anne Coleman, Maria Malone, and Onur Orkut, including sound design by multi talented music producer, Mario Aguilar Leal.

Laura Brown hill says ‘Discordia Exhibition’ is an ever expanding discovery of new insights on our perceptions of ‘reality’ and our place in the universe, through ideas linking to various different cultures, philosophies, shamanic and spiritual practices, personal experiences, dreams and illusions.

Based on the supposition that creation and destruction are all part of the same process, resulting in pure chaos,’Discordia is an attempt to excite and unravel the knowledge that brings the chaos to balance.

Or indeed, it serves to provide the temporary lenses of order and disorder that we choose to view the chaos through”.