La Prima Donna

Pandora's Playground

Presenting fearless Victorian traveller Isabella Bird, passionate Japanese concubine Lady Nijo, valiant Flemish warrior Dull Gret, ever-doting Patient Griselda and courageous cross-dressing Pope Joan.  Our five feisty heroines battle the 3D surround sound, manipulating their audio environment; punching the treble, kicking the bass.

'La Prima Donna' is the new audio-visual performance installation by Hellcat Productions featuring the characters from Caryl Churchill's 'Top Girls'.  The piece combines choreographed dance, performative gender and period-shifting costume to explore the contorted ideals of feminine beauty.  The piece features live DJing through state of the art 3D surround sound technology invented by the Illustrious Company.

Hellcat Productions, founded by designers Katharine Heath and Eleanor Wdowski, previously performed ‘Lift and Separate’ at the V&A: Opera segued into pop as the five Hellcat performers danced and vogued in mini crinolines.

As a DJ and producer, Kat! Heath! regularly plays in London and Brighton, and has appeared in Vienna and Toronto, recently remixing The Pipettes, Prokofiev and DJ Yoda.  As a designer, Katharine Heath’s site-specific installation ‘I Love You So Much...’ has been commissioned by the Brighton Festival 2010.

Eleanor Wdowski has recently completed set and costume design for Mozart’s ‘Cosi Fan Tutte’, Clonter Opera April 2009. As a First Class graduate from Wimbledon College of Art, her costume designs were awarded the Vice Chancellors Award 2008.

The Illustrious Company, founded by Martyn Ware (Human League, Heaven 17) was formed in 2001 to create new forms of specialised sound composition using their unique 3D Audioscape surround sound system.