Mission

Hand2Mouth is a theatre ensemble committed to creating original work. Drawing from dance, music, theatre and design, Hand2Mouth strives to connect honestly with audiences and collaborators, blurring the line between performance and reality. We celebrate the raw, charged potential of the live encounter, and our methods and styles change to meet the demands of the work. Hand2Mouth performances push boundaries towards theatre that is bold and accessible.

Described by The Seattle Times as having “the kind of promise, fearlessness and energy that the American theater needs, and should encourage,” Hand2Mouth makes boundary pushing performances with a limitless appetite for exploration, energetic physicality and vocal experimentation. Recent works by Hand2Mouth have premiered at the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art’s Time Based Art Festival (Portland, OR), Bumbershoot Arts Festival (Seattle, WA) and have toured throughout the Northwest including On the Boards (Seattle) and the Myrna Loy Center (Helena, MT). 

Jonathan Walters founded Hand2Mouth in 2000 after training with street theatre troupe Teatr Biuro Podrozy in Poland. Hand2Mouth has since created 15 original performances, and the ensemble has grown to include a core of company members and associate artists. Company members have traveled and studied in London, New York, Poland, Denmark and Mexico City to find new performance forms. Hand2Mouth performances are developed through intensive rehearsals; each show demands its own creation process and training which builds over months of exploration including long form improvisations, endurance singing and rigorous mind-research. From these raw seeds, the company hones fragments into cohesive wholes, producing theatre that could not be produced off the page of a script.

Select Festival and Tour Performances

2008

Myrna Loy Center, Helena, MT (Repeat After Me)

Bumbershoot Arts Festival, Seattle, WA (Project X: You Are Here)

NW New Works Festival, Seattle, WA (Undine)

10 Tiny Dances, Portland, OR (Project X: You Are Here)

2007

On the Boards, Seattle, WA (Repeat After Me)

Time Based Art Festival, Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, Portland, OR (Repeat After Me)

Northwest New Works Festival, On the Boards, Seattle, WA (Repeat After Me - exerpt)

2006

Just Add Water Festival, Portland Center Stage, Portland, OR (After Hours)

2005

Festival Malta, Poznan, Poland (Blue with Stacja Szamocin)

Kalisz Theatre Festival, Kalisz, Poland (Blue with Stacja Szamocin)

Edmonds Community College, Seattle, WA (The Wild Child)

Williamette University, Salem, OR (The Wild Child)

2004

Open Theatre International Festival, Katowice, Poland (Blue with Stacja Szamocin)

Pablo Neruda Centenary Festival, Portland State University, Portland, OR (Slender with Carpetbag Brigade)

PuppetLove! Festival, San Francisco, CA (The Wild Child)

River Theatre, Astoria, OR (Thirst)

2003

River Theatre, Astoria, OR (Posture Queen)

2002

Blue Mountain Community College, Pendelton, OR (Jerusalem)