SPILL festival first stormed London in 2007, when Robert Pacitti turned from making work to curating work, with the goal of changing the experimental scene in the UK. Over the years the festival introduced all shapes and forms of radical performance to wide audiences, and became a constant presence in the live art world. It now has a permanent Think Tank in Ipswich, the town that last year also hosted the first edition of another initiative, National Platform, which showcased around 40 emerging artists.
With another edition of SPILL just around the corner, it’s time to let yourself be surprised by just how political, touching, risky and astonishing performance can get. Options include the self-proclaimed ‘witch, womaniser, childbearer, superstar’ Lauren Barri Holstein; Empress Stah trying to create a piece in outer space [read her interview here]; as well as a healthy portion of international experimentation arriving from Norway, Finland, Australia, Canada and Germany.
Spoiled for choice and eager to get stuck in? We talked to Robert Pacitti, SPILL’s  artistic director and curator, about what he thinks you should look out for this year, supporting radical work in a time of austerity and bringing out live art into the mainstream.

Run-Riot: This edition of SPILL takes anchor in the notion of contact, exploring ‘connection, exchange and advocacy’. I’ll be honest - it sounds like a subverted Big Society concept - an urgent invitation to unite and take charge. Is there any truth in this impression? How does the notion of contact resonate through the programme?
Robert Pacitti: SPILL has always sought to serve broad audiences, whilst at the same time trying to enhance working conditions for those involved in the making and framing of live performance. So it’s political and much more than just a festival of entertaining work. Behind the scenes we are always seeking out new ways of doing things better that hopefully lead to positive changes all round. This edition of the festival feels differently urgent to those we have made before, and we are clearly foregrounding important issues of sustainability and resilience. We are all certainly facing increasingly tough financial challenges now, and the premise of contact offers up opportunities for exchanging ideas but also shared action. This plays itself out across the festival in both the live programme, and through SPILL Think Tank events.

Run-Riot: SPILL offers a programme that’s a mix of international and UK artists. It’s a complex selection that must take a lot of careful artistic planning and choices. How do you approach the programming for the international section of SPILL? What leads you in deciding which companies need introducing to the UK? In contrast to that - what’s the process of deciding on what kind of work to commission specifically the festival, or which UK work to invite?
Robert Pacitti: SPILL is curated and so from the off this means I am not simply programming work. If we had a budget for me to travel the world and ‘shop’ for projects like lots of other presenters do (which we don’t) I still wouldn’t choose to operate like that. I go in to each new edition of SPILL with some projects in mind, whether they be international or from the UK, usually because I’ve been speaking to the artists involved for some time. This helps inform my deciding of a thematic for each festival, and I then actively seek artists and projects – or connections I can make within projects – that extend that theme in dynamic ways. I never put work in SPILL because an artist sent me their materials, and I am inundated daily with pitches from far and wide, but that doesn’t work for me. I am only interested in projects that evolve through dialogue and exchange, or that spark something when I hear of them. I try to calibrate the programme so that it is roughly 50% international work and 50% from the UK, and I also proactively seek to mix work of experienced artists with those who are newer to making. I never really think about who needs “introducing”, I am more interested in making a tight curatorial offer. As for commissions, they are slightly different and I usually just follow my instinct and support artists I am really excited by.

Run-Riot: Ten emerging artists that took part in the National Platform last year are now part of the National Showcase. Can you tell us about that?
Robert Pacitti:  The SPILL National Platform and Showcase supported by the Jerwood Charitable Foundation is an open submissions programme that presents the work of newer makers. After the National Platform took place at the SPILL Festival in Ipswich the Platform selection panel met again and agreed 10 artists to take forward to the SPILL National Showcase in London. These 10 are makers we felt showed real promise in Ipswich. The panel didn’t look for the ‘best shows’ but rather folk we felt would really benefit from the focused support that we could offer right now. Across the past few months the selected artists have gone through an intensive period of professional development support, delivered by SPILL working in partnership with the Live Art Development Agency. Each artist has been matched with an experienced artist mentor which has been really exciting. The mentors include Franko B, Cathy Naden from Forced Ents, Dickie Beau, Bobby Baker [read our interview with Bobby here], Julia Bardsley and other great folks. The Showcase takes place across both weekends of SPILL, first in and around Toynbee Studios, and then at the National Theatre Studio.

Run-Riot: In seven short years, SPILL has become a major festival on the London scene. Do you think it has a part in bringing less traditional theatre forms out into the mainstream - and in changing the way performance and live art is perceived outside its (possibly niche) audience?
Robert Pacitti:  Yes, and remarkably two-thirds of the audience for each SPILL are new to the festival, which is a major gain for the field. Certainly things are already different to when we started out in 2007. You can see performance work in artist-run spaces or contexts in London now pretty much every week, not necessarily always very well resourced, but made with commitment. Sacred at Chelsea Theatre [read our interview with artistic director Francis Alexander here] continues to offer a strong programme, as does Performance Space. The Tate has started to present live work. And a whole heap of small and mid-scale venues now present what they call live art but which to me often seems to lack any real edge. So SPILL continues to do something different, through being self-organising, independent, high profile, main stage, and an agitator. You’d be surprised by the level of industry resistance there still is to artist’s framing our own work on our own terms. It remains a frontline.

Run-Riot: SPILL has also consistently managed to reach out to the audiences outside of those who might normally venture to live art and performance events. What’s the secret?
Robert Pacitti:  There’s no secret really. SPILL attracts large audiences that seek something different. We come from the position that if you make a high quality offer to engage that is easy to understand from the off, then people will come.

Run-Riot: You recently called for artists to come together and think about ways to weather the financial storm. Do you see any new pathways and models, possibly away from subsidy, that performance and live art might take in trying to sustain themselves and provide a living for the makers?
Robert Pacitti:  We all have to find ways of doing what we do that aren’t so heavily reliant on public funding - it really is a no brainer. We are currently collecting models from folk of ways that we can co-support each other through being in service to the greater good. But it’s going to need artists to take the risk of working openly together if we are to succeed collectively. If that doesn’t happen then in a few years time I fear there simply won’t be many paid opportunities to exist as a maker, unless you are rich.

Run-Riot: Which work are you expecting to be this year’s Wild Card? What do you recommend for the SPILL virgins?
Robert Pacitti: This requires 2 answers: if you want a really amazing smart hardcore performance fix come and see Heather Cassils at the National Theatre Studio. Her piece has never been seen in Europe before and she is a serious world-renowned maker. And if you’re starting out and want a full-on experience come to the three and a half hour marathon of Entertainment Island by Anglo-Finnish company Oblivia at the Soho Theatre. Exploring popular culture through a stripped back aesthetic and a darkly caustic lens it is truly extraordinary theatre.

SPILL Festival of Peformance
3-14 APRIL 2013
Tickets and info spillfestival.com

Read our interview with Robert Pacitti here where he talks about his personal influences.