Kate McIntosh is an artist practicing across the boundaries of performance, theatre and installation. Her works often focus on the physicality of performer and audience, the manipulation of objects and materials, and how relationships with and between audience members develop over the time and space of a performance. Guided by her ongoing fascination with the mis-use of objects, McIntosh’s practice can be characterised by a playfulness with audience, a love of theatrical images and off-beat humour. Originally from Aotearoa, New Zealand and trained in dance, McIntosh has developed an internationally recognised body of stage and trans-disciplinary work which tours extensively in Europe as well as to Asia, Oceania, and the Americas. Her stage works include the performance solos All Natural (2004),Loose Promise (2007), and All Ears (2013) and the group performances Hair From the Throat (2006), Dark Matter (2009), Untried Untested (2012), In Stereo (2015 with Bree Van Reyk) and To Speak Light Pours Out (2020). Her installation works include the video-installation De-Placed (2008 with Eva Meyer-Keller), and the interactive-installations Worktable (2011), In Many Hands (2016) and Lake Life (2023). Within these creations she has invited collaborators such as Tim Etchells, Eva Meyer-Keller, Jo Randerson, Arantxa Martinez, Eduardo Abdala, Lilia Mestre, Charo Calvo, Minna Tiikkainen, Mikko Hynninen, John Avery, Bree Van Reyk, Josh Rutter and many more.
A founding member of the Belgian performance collective and punkrock band Poni, McIntosh has collaborated as a performer with many directors including Tim Etchells (UK), Wendy Houstoun (UK), Simone Aughterlony (NZ/CH), Antonia Baehr (DE), and Meryl Tankard Australian Dance Theatre. McIntosh holds an MRes in Performance and Creative Research from Roehampton University (UK) and regularly teaches performance practice within various university courses.
McIntosh is also a co-director and founding member of SPIN - an artist-initiated production and research platform in Brussels, which also organises public gatherings for knowledge exchange.