During COVID, as theatre went into standstill, Tangled Feet developed a project called DEVOLUTION EVOLUTION, which responded to the urgent needs - and power - of our broad family of freelance artists.

As we watch ingrained power structures around us being (rightly) challenged and in some cases dismantled, it felt like the right time also to interrogate our own creative power structures, and to try something different. 

What kind of work will fit into the new landscape we find ourselves in? How can we play a useful part in the way our industry is evolving and adapting at this time?

We wanted to see what happens when we 'devolve' creative responsibility at the outset of the project to individual artists. 

We commissioned 27 artists from our network and asked them to step on board for an experiment. 

What new working practices might emerge? What new synergies created? What voices will rise to the surface? What will we learn about how creative ideas can be nurtured and grown?

The results: a myriad of brilliant, galvanising ideas, manifested through performance, video, film, balloon modelling, aerial, projection, sound, script and buffoonery. 

We hope that the seeds we sow now will come to fruition over the next 5 years – in new relationships evolving, new ideas blossoming and opening up avenues of further creative investigation. 

Devolution Evolution continues to bloom and grow.….for now, this part of the website is a space for some of the work in progress. 

Devolution Evolution evolved again in July 2021 with a number of the artists sharing their process and findings in an Open House of Ideas at The Hat Works & Pop Up Performance Shop in Luton Mall. The Shopfront returned over August bank holiday weekend 2022 to The Mall, Luton and is available to book now. 

For more information and to see our legacy site please click here