Belli and Belli

We are a production design collaborative that works in theatre, opera and cross art form as designers, artists, associate artists or assistant designers on projects nationally and internationally including West End and Broadway.  Our core strength is the quick generation of strongly narrative visual ideas for new writing, classics, dance, music theatre and opera, founded on R & D and a measure of gut instinct.

Following on from the amazing success of Bambino, we’re currently working with director Roxana Haines and composer Lliam Paterson on a new devised opera for 12 to 24 month olds in a new collaboration with Scottish Opera. FOX-TOT premieres this Autumn at the Edinburgh Festival. Click on this link for more info https://www.scottishopera.org.uk/shows/fox-tot/

We can also announce an exciting collaboration with TRANSPORTED developing a new opera as project leaders. This is hugely exciting for us. We have always been active in promoting designers as project instigators, and this is a really amazing opportunity to develop a project that has the capacity and potential to evolve and impact beyond the initial project, the community and region to have national reverberations. With support from the Society of British Theatre Designers in our roles as regional champions in the East Midlands for STAGING PLACES, we have become part of the bigger voice that asks how designers may be more engaged in creating the conditions for alternative collaborative processes that result in broader cultural participation. TRANSPORTED do this, they make things happen. Take a look at their work. http://www.transportedart.com

Other designer instigated projects in development include SIX OF ONE & HALF A DOZEN OF THE OTHER.  We explore a new performance model instigated by theatre designers and focused around a theatre set that inspires writers to respond. We aim to create a pilot production of 6 new 20-minute plays of mixed genre and repeat our model in multiple regions nationally.

Our collaboration with screenwriter and novelist Phil Cosker, CRUELTY TO ANIMALS is now a completed libretto, with music to come from Composer Lliam Paterson, a former emerging artist at Scottish Opera, now very much emerged! We’re all very excited by Lliam’s music, and his alliance on the development of the libretto to opera is a tantalising prospect.

We were design associates to David Roger on opera proposals for ADRIANA LECOUVREUR for Gergiev at the New Mariinsky Ballet and Opera Theatre, St Petersburg……

Designs for Opera and music theatre include SIR JOHN IN LOVE and LA RONDINE for the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland both directed by Ben Davis – TO THE SILKWOOD TREE Nottingham Contemporary/Streetwise Opera, and Children’s Opera RUMBLED for Wigmore Hal, both directed by Hazel Gould and composed by John Barber – Several opera/music theatre collaborations with Iain Burnside and Guildhall School of Music and Drama and the RCM included premieres A SOLDIER AND A MAKER at The Barbican, and JOURNEYING BOYS – Others include FALSTAFF, CARMEN and WEST SIDE STORY for Grange park Opera/Pimlico Opera, LA TRAVIATA for Opera Holland Park, POETRY OR BUST written and directed by Tony Harrison and many others.

Our set design for A SOLDIER AND A MAKER featured as installation in CREATING A SCENE, an exhibition of notable works by recent and contemporary British artists/theatre designers at the National Centre for Craft and Design, and Oriel Davies Contemporary Gallery.

Since relocating to Lincolnshire, we have become more involved in discussions relating to the process of making theatre and its cultural position within the city, county and beyond. An early introduction to OPEN PLAN, a local place-making studio, encouraged us to fully engage the bigger picture here, working with key practitioners and organisations, the University and the City Council. This has included community projects and youth engagement, speaking at Nottingham Trent, Huddersfield, Bishop Grosseteste and Lincoln Universities, and mentoring students in the professional workplace.

We are founder members of the Waddington Cultural Collective, a cross art form group for whom analysis of process is central; and have recently delivered a symposium at The Collection – Lincoln, supported by the Contemporary Visual Artists Network – exploring cross art forms with regional artists and engaging those differences positively.

Last year we founded 1to25scale.com and were commissioned by the City of Lincoln to provide their citywide branding artwork for 2016.

Have a look at our galleries; a selection of some of our favourite images.

Giuseppe and Emma