Olivia is a theatre director and writer working across theatre and installation; indoors, outdoors and in places you weren’t expecting to find her.

She received a collaborative MA in International Performance Research from the Universities of Helsinki, Warwick &
Amsterdam and went on to take up a movement director traineeship at Opera North in 2015. She has directed, assistant directed and dramaturged work for York Theatre Royal, London International Festival of Theatre, Ensemble52 and Theatre Hullabaloo. She is co-artistic director of ivo theatre whose work spans theatre, XR and installation.

Her work focuses on borders (both those which are written into the mind and drawn into the ground) and how humans find ever-ingenious ways to cross them.

For b-side 2021

Olivia is collaborating with Ramzi Maqdisi to create ‘The Land’s Heart Is Greater Than It’s Map’ an alternative guided tour of the only city that exists twice, once on earth and once in heaven: Yaboos.

In Yaboos daily life is stranger than fiction: you can see the sea but are forbidden to touch it, being honest is illegal and those with ancestors from the city are forbidden to enter it. The tour questions who has the authority to give a coherent narrative of a city and how we are able to come into contact with the ‘real’ essence of a place. Your journey to this distant city will take place within Portland and requires only walking shoes and an open imagination.

www.oliviafurber.com