Founded in 2006, Barking Spider is an independent, vibrant and original visual theatre company based in Melbourne, Australia. Barking Spider aims to challenge and enrich audiences of all ages, through a combination of visual and performing art forms, such as puppetry, music and live performance.
Barking Spider Visual Theatre / Artistic director biography
Penelope Bartlau is a puppeteer, writer and director who has worked professionally in theatre since 1992. She holds a Masters in Puppetry from the Victorian College of the Arts and trained in Commedia Dell’Arte in residence at the Scuola Internazionale Dell’Attore Comico. She also studied at the Lee Strasberg Institute in New York. In 2006, she received the UNIMA Australia/Handspan Scholarship to tour Hatch to India and in 2007 she received the RE Ross Trust Playwrights’ Award for Dispatch.
Information / http://www.barkingspidertheatre.com.au
In 2007, Barking Spider toured to three major Arts festivals in India with its first show, Hatch. The company also travelled to Europe where various company members collaborated with Czech puppeteers for a performance of Windows at the Prague Quadrennial. Early in 2008, the company co-created an object theatre work, The Keeper, with Chrissie Shaw that premiered at Canberra’s Street Theatre. The next show, Dispatch will premiere at ASSITEJ in Adelaide in May, Melbourne in June and then at the Brisbane Festival in July.
