Ben Samuels
Ben is the Artistic Director of Limbik Theatre and was our first Watershed Fellow in Residence in as part of the MyWorld Ideas programme.
Ben Samuels
Worked on
MyWorld - Strength in Places
Watershed is excited to be a partner in MyWorld, a project led by the University of Bristol that will celebrate the West of England's reputation as an international trailblazer in creative technology and screen-based media.Ben Samuels, Artistic Director of Limbik, is an award-winning writer, producer and director. His genre-defying work extends from visual storytelling and music theatre to immersive audio and film, and celebrates ensemble, collaboration, and internationalism.
Ben was one of the first Watershed Fellows in Residence as part of the MyWorld Ideas programme. He was in residence at Bristol Old Vic from January 2023 for 7 months, embedded in the digital presentation of Complicités production 'Drive your plow over the bones of the dead'. Ben explored and developed approaches to digital presentation of theatrical performance, focusing on liveness, immersion in digital formats and connecting live and digital audiences.
This Fellowship in residence was part of the MyWorld IDEAS programme led by Watershed. The IDEAS programme encourages responsible forms of innovation and actively explores points of crossover and connection. The MyWorld Fellowships in Residence are aimed to support a period of short future-facing work injecting experimentation, ethics, and depth to a strand of technological enquiry.
Background
For Limbik, he writes, directs, and produces at the intersection of live performance and immersive digital technology. Fatherland (2019) broke new ground in its use of real-time motion capture and immersive virtual reality technology in live theatre. Recent Limbik projects include Rebel Rabble (2022), an outdoor site specific performance featuring a 3D spatial audio soundscape in the woods, and All the Water in the World (2023), a one-to-one performance on WhatsApp.
Limbik's work has been supported by Creative XR, Innovate UK, Arts Council England, and Nesta.
Ben's short story “The Garden,” a text-based story for smartphones accompanied by a 3D soundscape, was featured on BBC Taster. He is contributing a chapter on spatial audio to a forthcoming volume on XR Performance.
Work in film and television includes Screenwriter for Gaël Le Cornec’s short film, “Beasts of Burden,” Production Manager for her film “Ana,” and Assistant Producer for Native Voice Films’ Channel 4 Documentary series, “Rights Universal.”
Alongside his professional work, Ben has worked extensively in Universities and professional actor training programmes as a Visiting Director, including Rose Bruford College, the London College of Music, and the Drama School Mumbai. He recently joined the Curatorial team of Unrehearsed Futures, an international series of public conversations about the uses and practices of theatre pedagogy.
Ben received his BA in Postcolonial Studies from Brown University (USA), and received his MFA at the London International School of Performing Arts (LISPA), where he was supported by a Jacob K. Javits Fellowship for Theatre Arts.