how I got into an unholy mess / by Mayou Trikerioti

https://unholymesstheatre.com/interview-with-mayou/

https://wtdir.com/production/above-the-mealy-mouthed-sea/united-kingdom/lucy-allan

  1. Who or what is your biggest influence?

Influence is a strange beast, as it keeps changing. In my work I try to be influenced by artists specific to the job at hand. Sometimes artists I have never heard of before but somehow appear when the time is right. Or maybe that is natural progression.

  1. What piece of work that you have done are you most satisfied with and why?

I could not separate one journey from another. I am forever a perfectionist and design is also a collaboration so each one, hard, easy or bumpy has been a stepping stone that has taught me and hopefully made me a better person.

  1. What advice would you give to someone starting out in your field?

To be persistent; to never give up and believe in yourself.

  1. What is the importance of design in performance?

Design is one of the ‘ingredients’ of performance along with the play the performer(s), the lights, the sound and above all the director: the glue that holds all of this together. These ingredients are like the proverbial tree in the forest: They exist even when there is no ‘designer’ to look after them, and, just that underlines their importance. You cannot have a nothing space, a nothing costume, no lights.. The audience will always be looking at the performer(s) in a space, their garments, all lit in (a) way, listening to the sounds of a space and that consciously or subconsciously informs their experience.

  1. What’s the biggest challenge facing artists at the moment?

The plethora of visual (and other) stimuli in all the arts, and being informed and educated of the past and the present.

  1. What excites you about live performance?

The intimacy and immediacy of the event. I am watching something under specific conditions with (a few) other people and what I am seeing is in itself the same performance as yesterday and tomorrow, but also unique that precise day I am there.

  1. If you hadn’t been a designer, what would you have been?

I cannot possibly imagine myself doing something different.