Director & Performer
Photo: Alp Ilyas Klanten
Contact: crispinlord [at] gmail [dot] com
Crispin is a Berlin-based director, movement director and performer from London, working across Europe. Through his performance work he considers music as a body-based practice, with a particular focus on collective tasking, methods of translation and interpretation, and aesthetics of access. He is Co-Founder of Music-Theatre collective Slung Jugs and Vice-Chairperson of the Berliner Gesellschaft für Neue Musik.
His credits include, as Director: La Boheme (revival), English National Opera, PREPARE IT (MY BODY), Barbican Pit Theatre; Resurrection (A Bad Copy) and Stop Me When You’ve Had Enough, Ufer Studios Berlin; Self-Portrait Experiments in 360, Live Art Development Agency; A Father is Looking For His Daughter, Cockpit Theatre. As Choreographer: Dollhouse, Staatsoper Hamburg. As Curator: Digital Bodies at Candid Arts Trust. As Dramaturg: Cash n Prizes, Volksbühne Roter Salon. As Performer: Judith in Duke Bluebeard’s Castle, English National Opera (nominated for Olivier Award 2025); River, Heizhaus Berlin; I FURIOSI, Ufer Studios; Inside Outside, HfS Ernst Busch
Crispin also works freelance as an Assistant Director and has been a Staff Director with English National Opera since 2018. His credits include: The Marriage of Figaro (Joe Hill-Gibbins, ENO); Die Tote Stadt (Annilese Miskimmon, ENO), Peter Grimes (David Alden, ENO); La Cenerentola, Il Barbiere di Siviglia (Stephen Barlow, Grange Festival); and The Lighthouse and Written On Skin (Jack Furness, Shadwell Opera).
Crispin read undergraduate Music at Durham University (2013-16), focusing on Ethnomusicology and Composition with Simon Mills and Trevor Wishart. In 2024, he graduated from the MA Solo/Dance/Authorship at the Hochschulübergreifenden Zentrum Tanz (HZT) Berlin, receiving a Distinction for his final performance. His written academic research investigates the idea of the copy in performance and its relation to invisible labour and has recently been published in Journal of European Popular Culture (Intellect Books) and Still Busy (Universität der Künste Berlin).
Crispin is an accomplished musician, having studied Voice, Violin, Flute and Piano since the age of 6. Aged 18 he received a Distinction for his Diploma in Voice (as a Baritone), and currently studies experimental voice practice with Jessica Aszodi.
Crispin speaks English and German.
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