About Bob (me)
Hello, I’m Bob Karper. I’m an artist creating all sorts of different projects: award-winning solo shows, original song series for choirs, bespoke site-specific events for children, transforming dementia care homes into creative community hubs, documentary films for dancers, steampunk intergenerational kindness projects, lots of stuff...
Click Thru to See…
Performance
Solo performance shows mix live music, film and real stories. Collaborations include bespoke site-specific children’s shows with Lone Twin, inter-generational residencies with People United and inaugural Christmas shows with Lorna Rees. Participatory work includes transforming care homes into creative community hubs and Accordion Karaoke for the public, live, on the spot!
Music
Music is integral to the work I make. All my solo shows are underscored live while I’m performing, and in collaborations I compose for other artists, play in bands, write for choirs and design sound for performances in the UK and Europe, America and Australia.
Film, etc
I work regularly filming and editing - for my own shows as well as a wide variety of clients, from ethnographic research films to documenting performance to theatrical use to trailers for Everybody-Friendly cinema screenings. When documenting other artists’ shows it’s a real challenge to retain the energy and feel of a live performance without ignoring the format. Also in this section (the ‘etc’) are photographs, design work and acting in Film & Television…
Blog
Latest thoughts/projects/ideas/links/doodles/recommendations/general hooey can be found here - check it out…
Upcoming Events & Recent Projects
Wandsworth Masquerade 2025
May/June: Dende Collective’s Mask Project is back - this time at Tooting Works as part of Wandsworth Borough of Culture and Wandsworth Fringe Festival, culminating a stret performance on June 21st and a film screening in September.
Golden Slumbers
Summer 24: Moving Memory Dance Theatre Company are back with their latest street performance, Golden Slumbers. A giant four-poster bed pushed by a cast of five dancers accompanied by a dozen Glories and a live four piece band (I’m on accordion and trombone), repeatedly fall asleep to a favourite lullaby, only to be blasted awake again in a Groundhog Day cycle that gets more and more frantic and chaotic - a joyful, crazy, tumlutuos show full of Moving Memory’s fantastic wit and wonder… https://www.movingmemorydance.com/whats-on/
Love Post
Summer/Autumn 24: I shot the trailer for Frank Wurzinger’s now walkabout clown show, Love Post. He spreads love and good vibrations around venues and festivals in his own, hilarious quirky fashion…
Recent Project Highlights
The Devil’s Doorbell
November 24: Moving Memory Dance Theatre company’s stage show, The Devil’s Doorbell, developed from a film I created with them over Lockdown. It will be on at the Gulbenkian Theatre in November. I made the films used in the production. A more fearless, fabulous company of women you will not find… Gulbenkian Theatre Tickets
TreeFellas
Autumn 24: The TreeFellas are back with a new walkabout tour, I made the trailer for them on a beautiful sunny September day. Frank Wurzinger and Karina Garnett were at the Fresh Air Festival just outside of Clackton, on the coast, and it was a lot of fun…
Cracking the Crinoline
Summer/Autumn 24: Moving Memory’s outdoor walkabout show Cracking the Crinoline has been picked up for rural touring by Applause for 2024. Here’s the trailer!
Gardens R Us with Andre Pink & Dende Collective
March/April 24: Dende Collective in their first community project at Penfold House with a workshop around gardens. We created bugs, plants and fungi for an inter-species crossdressing drama project. For the final film I interviewed these creatures about themselves - mixing real-life delights/grievances/words of wisdom of folks in the Church Street community with their own imaginated creature lives…
The Lady or The Tiger
February/March 24: I played the Jack of All Trades Factotum - a narrator of sorts - along with a multitude of characters throughout the revival of this terrific musical. The songs are super catchy, rest of the cast was superb, it’s a v funny show. Reviews agree: Pub Theatre Magazine ****, Mark Aspen ****.5, Chiswick W4 ‘Vivacity & Verve’. “A princess with a taste for adventure falls head over heels for a wandering minstrel. But wait – Daddy Dearest, aka the king, isn’t exactly thrilled about his daughter’s taste in soulful troubadours. He whips up a trial with an impossible choice for the princess. Two doors for the minstrel: marriage to a beautiful lady or a date with a tiger. What would you do?!” It’s a sort of choose your own adventure farce, and was a hell of a lot of fun. Plus we got a bunch of award nominations includind a Standing Ovation from Pub Theatre Magazine and Best Musical from the Offies…
LifeSongs
June 2023: The culmination of an Artist-in-Residency at Anita Dorfman House and the LifeSongs Project filming residents and staff talking about their favourite music (and their lives). Every Thursday for the past six months we would screen the interview films to the whole home, sharing stories, history, trivia, jokes - you name it, and ending each session singing one of the chosen songs. This is a film of the highlights...
Breaks & Joins
Ongoing: I made the music for the Breaks & Joins Podcast by Sue Mayo and Chuck Lowry. Breaks & Joins is a film and spoken word project on the repair as an act of resistance, and their wonderful podcast launched February 2022. Listen to it here: Breaks & Joins Podcast
Oh! Suburbia!
October 22: My Solo show Oh! Suburbia! returned to the Hope Theatre, after being delayed when I caught Covid in June (grrr). But it was fortuitous - I had lovely reviews, received a Standing Ovation Award, and was a finalist in London Pub Theatre Magazine’s Best Solo Show category.
“The one man show is all about empathy and Karper is a Maestro”
— Mark Shenton - The Stage