Bio
Leo Grierson is a trans theatre artist working at the intersection of theatre and emergent technologies. Their work explores queerness in digital interaction, using technological systems as frameworks and metaphors for navigating online and physical social environments. Their work has been shown at The Clarice Smith Center for Performing Arts, London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts, Auckland Pride Festival, The Brick Theatre, The Cell Theatre, The Oregon Shakespeare Festival, and more. They are a recipient of The Jim Henson Award for Puppetry, two time recipient of The International Program for Creative Collaboration and Research, as well as 10th place winner of the Jack Schlossberg look alike contest.
Artist Statment
I am a digital theater artist creating work that explores the marriage of form and content. To me, this
means that the medium is the message and I use technology to create work that is about technology and
digital spaces. I use satire, meme, and pop culture references to dig into the complicated feelings we
have about the technology
that permeates our lives.
I see a connection between
my lived experience as a
transgender person and my
work as a multi-hyphenate
digital theater maker. Both
force me to hold many
truths and experiences at
once, adding to the
complexity I explore in the
pieces I create.
I believe that technology has its own particular rhythms and ways of
being that both mirror and contrast our own. As a result, I treat
technology as a serious collaborator in the room. I create and am drawn to projects that use technology
and digital worlds as both setting and anchor to explore identity — incorporating and exploding these
containers, and marrying digital forms and with their content.
My work doesn’t shy away from the existential and absurd ways technology influences our
perception of ourselves, and it doesn’t try to answer the complicated questions that arise from the messy
ways our lives commingle with the digital. Instead, it attempts to hold those complexities with compassion,
curiosity, and humor.
The inclusion of technology and inclusion
of marginalized voices and identities
within the work is central to my ethos. I
believe the greatest power of the
internet is how it puts us in space with
one another. The old cliche of art being
society’s mirror demands such inclusions and breaking down of barriers. The mirror of the screen and machine is my favorite hammer.
