Nathan Sibthorpe

Nathan Sibthorpe is a contemporary performance-maker and
video designer based in Brisbane, Australia. He is best known as
the director of Counterpilot – the award-winning collective of
transmedia performance artists responsible for: Adrift (Metro Arts,
2022); Truthmachine (Sydney Festival, Brisbane Festival & others, 2019-22); Crunch Time (Next Wave Festival & Metro Arts, 2018)
and Spectate (Metro Arts, 2017).

Nathan has three Matilda Awards including the Lord Mayor’s
Award for Best New Australian Work (2018), the award for Best
AV Design (2017), and the Judge’s Award for “pushing artistic
boundaries” (2022). Nathan was also the recipient of the Dr Don
Batchelor Award for Drama Research at QUT (2017) and a Sydney
Theatre Award for Best Production for Young People, with I’ve
Been Meaning to Ask You (2022).

Nathan was previously Queensland Theatre Company’s Geek-
In-Residence in 2012-14. He sometimes teaches performance stud-
ies at QUT, where he holds a Masters Degree in contemporary per-
formance.

Counterpilot is an award-winning collective of interdisciplinary
artists based in Brisbane, Australia. Together, we create interactive
performance works – activating audiences with new technology,
rich design, and transmedia storytelling. Counterpilot seeks to
transform the familiar, juxtaposing rich fictional worlds against a
backdrop of the everyday.

By subverting real social circumstances, we co-opt our partici-
pants as authentic performers. In this way we are harnessing what we believe to be the most exciting thing about theatre – the live audience. Our works enable participants to observe themselves re-
sponding in real ways to hyper-real situations. We seek to provoke change through acts of trouble, mischief and low-key chaos. We
play in the space between people, and we poke at the tensions that
bind us.

Counterpilot is directed by Nathan Sibthorpe, with Core Crea-
tives Christine Felmingham & Mike Willmett. Since 2022, we have been the Company-in-Residence at Metro Arts.

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