Small Sample Size Theatre
Small Sample Size Theatre is a dance theatre company setup by Casper Dillen and Gia Dreyer. Since their debut performance in 2018 with Bad Dress, the company has delved into explorations of human behaviour and relationships, where absurdity and tragedy collide.
In the field of statistics, a dominant form of inquiry, a prevailing belief is that larger sample sizes yield more accurate conclusions, while small samples are often dismissed as insufficient or misleading. This approach drives a way of thinking that is highly detached from the direct experience of being in the world. Phenomena do not emerge as tidy, understandable averages; instead, they appear to us in mysterious, specific, and situational forms. Engagement with the world does not reduce moments to detached objects of study; it reveals them as vivid, immediate encounters. Small Sample Size Theatre embraces this philosophy, suggesting that our individual lives are deeply meaningful precisely because they are limited and uniquely situated, revealing truths that could otherwise be lost in generalised, collective understanding.
Through expanded choreography, Small Sample Size Theatre stages pieces in unconventional spaces such as galleries, theatres, toilets, playgrounds, and museum staircases, each location becoming a stage for discovering how the subjective lens- our own limited access to understanding the world-is not a limitation but a profound way to see and be. The work they create amplifies singular, potent experiences that reveal the beauty of human existence, evoking the mysteries and peculiarities that statistics might smooth over.
Casper Dillen
Choreographer, writer, and sculptor, Casper Dillen (b. 1999, Belgium) makes performances and narrative objects resulting from embodied affective situation-specific collaboration and research: rehearsals. Creating situations that straddle humour and sharpness. Interested in behaviour. Using a mélange of sports and dance references, philosophical and political.
Casper studied at Central Saint Martins where they received the Deans Award for Adem (2021) a performance telling the story of Adam and Eve in reverse. They completed a post-graduate degree with distinction in philosophy at Birkbeck. Their research at the Royal College of Art focused on sculpting mythological narratives. Casper was shortlisted for New Contemporaries 2024.
In 2018, they staged ‘Bad Dress’ as a livestream performance with strategically positioned mirrors. In the same year they created ‘Silent Cows,’ a blindfolded dance duet, at the Metaphonica IV festival in London. Their ongoing engagement with the choreographic potential of everyday action took shape in works like ‘brushing teeth, playing the violin’ a short dance film presented at Southbank Centre’s Queen Elizabeth Hall in 2019 in the Framework of Georg Friedrich Haas’s Concert, Homage to Bridget Riley, with Sinfonietta. In 2019 they created and performed ‘Selling Life Insurance’ together with fashion designer Clara Fubini, who asked Casper to create an new way of seeing the clothes she had created, through the lens of childhood, and the cycle of aging. Casper’s first major performance exhibition in the UK came in 2019 at The Bomb Factory Art Foundation (London) with Siegfried Beyers and curated by Pallas Citroen. This exhibition displayed Siegfried’s collages as a backdrop for an extensive series of devised collective or solo actions by Casper, including o.a. : 'Shoe Game', 'Jump', and 'Selling life Insurance'.
During the pandemic. Casper created Adem (2021) a piece structured through figures crossing the theatre stage and referring to elements in the story of Adam and Eve in reverse. In 2022, they collaborated for the first time with composer Gia Dreyer and created ‘Orfeo’ presented at The Place as part of Resolution. This was the first of many collaborations (Long Tennis, A mirror is not a mirror, Mouth Wash and Razor Blades).
Casper was invited three times (2022, 2023, 2024) by David Zambrano and Matt Voorter, to perform at the anniversary of the iconic Tictac Art Centre in Brussels. Each time creating short scenes together with Inge Cauwenbergh alongside programs featuring Thomas Hauert, Sasha Waltz, Yoshiko Chuma, Alexander Vantournhout.
After working on choreographic material remotely since the start of the 2020 pandemic in 2023, ‘Long Tennis’ was premiered at the Center for Performance Research in Lenapehoking (Brooklyn), made by mother and son, rehearsed in kitchens. The same year an alternative version of Long Tennis was performed at the Holy Trinity Church as part of Wandsworth Arts Fringe, with four additional performers and with an expanded musical score by Gia Dreyer.
Together with Jiayu Zhang, Wang Wengzhe and Neo Gao they were commissioned to create ‘Cycle,’ (2023) an interactive sculpture exhibited at WIELS, Brussels.
They premiered ‘Good for end’ at Tictac anniversary week and went on to perform this piece at various private views in spaces around London’s Shoreditch and Mayfair. At the end of 2023 they curated the Exhhibition entitled: ‘All fish are dead fish’ in the Hangar space RCA. An exhibition featuring sculpture and performance. In 2024, they worked as a choreographer on Frankenstein with theatre company Imitating the Dog. This work premiered at Leeds Playhouse before touring the UK and Switzerland. During 2024 Casper made a series of site specific performances and constructed situations, including o.a. ‘Transparent Tree’ with Dann Xiao at Westbourne Grove Church, London, ‘The Three-Body Problem’ at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge , ‘The Agreement’ with Christy Taylor at Safehouse 1, ‘ Are we still friends’ at Greatorex street Gallery, London. They choreographed a dance scene in Greg Randolph's short fillm 'Different Faces'. They choreographed Izzy mcCormac's runway presentation.
In 2024, a scene of ‘Orfeo’ was screened during Tate Late, Tate Modern.
Casper’s sculpture ‘Babies, They are our future right?’ (2024) was exhibited at the Future Archaeologies, group exhibition in Camden Art Centre.
At the start of 2025, their video work ‘No’, was exhibited at the group exhibition, Wasteland Art Week, in Art Zhongshan, Qijiang, China.
In 2025, they premiered Mouth Wash and Razor Blades together with their company Small Sample Size Theatre. With music By Gia Dreyer and costume design by Dodam Gwon. This performance at The Place, Resolution, was their most ambitious yet with Bruce Marriott writing in his review : "I have no hesitation whatsoever in declaring Casper Dillen and Small Sample Size Theatre's Mouth Wash and Razor Blades the most exciting piece of physical theatre I have ever seen at Resolution"
In June 2025 they will premiere Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren together with Christy Taylor, at the Holy Trinity Church Roehampton.