Robert Pacitti

Ipswich and London based Robert Pacitti is Artistic Director of Pacitti Company. Having initially trained as a fine art painter, Robert began making performance and experimental theatre in 1988. With Pacitti Company, he spent two decades producing and touring an award winning body of radical performance works worldwide.

Robert is also the creator, curator and director of the SPILL Festival of Performance - a large scale international festival of experimental theatre, live art and performance presenting the work of exceptional artists from around the globe. Launched in 2007, SPILL has commissioned and presented large scale projects by hundreds of the world's foremost experimental makers (including Ron Athey, Julia Bardsley, Romeo Castellucci, Robin Deacon, Jan Fabre, Diamanda Galas, Ryoji Ikeda, Harminder Judge, Needcompany, Kira O'Reilly and many others) alongside a national platform for younger artists. SPILL Festival now alternates annually between London (where partners include Artsadmin, the Barbican, Live Art Development Agency, National Theatre Studio, and Whitechapel Gallery) and Ipswich in Suffolk (where partners include Colchester Arts Centre, Colchester & Ipswich Museum Service, Danceeast, Ipswich Borough Council, and the New Wolsey). 

In 2011 Robert launched On Landguard Point, a mass public research into notions of home involving 20,000 participants. The project culminated in his first feature film - also titled On Landguard Point - starring a commissioned soundtrack by composer Michael Nyman, with a cast including some of the UK's foremost experimental makers and 1000 non-professional performers. 

Also in 2012, Robert launched the Pacitti Company Think Tank,  a specially renovated building in Ipswich for both private and public research into contemporary performance and associated areas. A rolling public event programme offers salons, feasts, an alternative public library, artist surgeries, mentoring, publishing and more, alongside his own ongoing studio based practice and that of Think Tank Associates.

A highly experienced facilitator and teacher, Robert continues to lead workshops and residencies internationally. He has sat on a range of prominent UK funding selection panels and regularly contributes to a broad span of publications, conferences and other performance related cultural activities around the world.