Never Going to be Carmen Miranda at Videoformes

Here are some stills of the performance livestreamed from a church in Salford as part of Videoformes, a performance and film exchange between Salford University and Clermont-Ferrand, France. I think the video is coming out soon. This performance included an introduction to the piece in French and a more ambitious head dress. I used more oranges this time, and a roll of paper to catch the juice as it rolled down my face and the wall. This time round it was more spectacular, silly and sort of harrowing.

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Photographs taken by Karen Heald.

Never Going to be Carmen Miranda

A one minute video of my recent ten minute performance, Never Going to be Carmen Miranda. It accompanied a performance workshop I gave at Salford University for Visual Arts students. The idea was to work with something simple (an orange) and make up exercises, games and performances. I nailed a juicer to the wall and tied oranges to my head and squeezed the fruit. Juice collected in a champagne glass on the floor. In the end, that orange signified a lot for me. It’s about the  sticky subject of love. I thought about breaking up with my Brazilian boyfriend. I thought of Carmen Miranda, with fruit in her hair, exotic, in glorious Technicolor; as juice rolled down my face in Salford.

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Find out about the accompanying workshop I ran here.

Vigil (Video)

Here is a version of Vigil, a short piece recalling real and made up memories. Originally made for David Hoyle’s Northern Lights in November 2011 at Platt Chapel, Manchester, here I am performing it before a talk at Salford University in February 2012.

You can read more about the performance here.

Right Handed Manicure Wanted: Enquire Within

15 February 2012
Islington Mill

A performance for one person. I got really fed up when on Valentine’s Day, of all the days, I couldn’t find my nail clippers. I found a pair of nail scissors and then realised I could only cut my left hand. There I was with long nails on one side and short nails on the other. Alone. I  hadn’t realised personal grooming could be so devastating. So the next day I took my nail scissors and waited patiently in a room with a sign that said ‘Right handed manicure wanted. Enquire within.’

Eventually a nice woman called Hannah came over with her boyfriend and cut my nails, she had never cut someone else’s nails before and thought it was strange. She was worried she might cut my skin by accident. I hadn’t had my nails cut by someone else since I was a child. We chatted about being alone and how a bus ran over her foot and destroyed her bike completely. It was a nice way to get to know someone and that the performance could only have happened then, though it might become a touring piece about every three weeks (based on average nail growing time). It was also an act of care and trust. I felt quite vulnerable, as I think Hannah did too. I am smiling thinking about the potential peril of nail cutting.

Thanks to Hannah, and to Roshana for taking photographs.

Mother’s Ruin Theatrical Spectacular

It was a really good night for lots of reasons- drag queen dressing rooms and that cabaret might just be the perfect home for Eggs Collective. We did a short sketch using bad poetry, Tashika’s Kwongy and an unforgettable Boom Boom Boom (Let Me Hear You Say Wayo) rendition with hairdryer wind machines. Here’s a backstage photo:

“Eggs Collective blend ironically earnest poetry, with gender and sex issues and a flair for the hilarious”
Laura Maley, The Public Reviews

“Dressed in beatnik black they read poems about their ladyparts with an aching sincerity that is simply hilarious. They also give a truly alien point of view on sex from, well, an alien”
Dave Cunningham, What’s On Stage

Vigil

5 October 2011
David Hoyle’s Northern Lights, Platt Chapel, Manchester

‘It’ my first proper relationship. It’s the middle of the night. You drive through the dark to see me. I leave the door open and light a trail of tea light candles to where I am, waiting for you. When you arrive I’m asleep and you have an asthma attack. We go to A and E.’

A performance for bonfire night. Vigil (meaning wakefulness,  a period of purposeful sleeplessness, an occasion for devotional watching, or an observance) was about marking relationships, past hopes and fears of the future during the repetitive lighting of matches, talking in the dark over a microphone. See a video of the piece here.

“Compelling” David Hoyle

“Lowri Evans was my highlight. And believe me, it isn’t easy outshining a man in lipstick.” Jim Molyneux

My set list:

 

The Resonance of Seclusion

4 – 6 October
Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester

It was really special to be part of telling the incredible and quite ordinary real life story of artist Joash Woodrow, in a  new play by Liz Postlethwaite and Small Things theatre company, The Resonance of Seclusion. I loved playing seven characters in just over an hour, with costumes and walks, and presenting a performance in an art gallery. My favourite thing was researching the story- meeting key people in Joash’s life, seeing his paintings and visiting his house.

“The air of a bedtime story, moving performances and an audience that didn’t move at the end. Beautiful.”

Sara Cocker, Whats On Stage

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Hold My Hand

1 October 2011
Emergency Accommodation Festival, Manchester

I couldn’t sleep, so I made sure you couldn’t either. I wasn’t sure if we were splitting up.  You didn’t say anything, you  just took my hand. We walked to the beach with mosquitoes and elderly joggers. Something changed in the silence and sunrise”

Thanks to everyone who held my hand at the live art festival this month. Each encounter for one was disconcerting,  close up, memorable. Some of you asked questions, stayed quiet, shared a story. Sometimes it was awkward and sometimes it felt right.

Here’s an extract from a book of carbon copies of receipts and some photos. I would like to develop documentation of my work and move on from feeling like a tourist of myself..

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Have Your Cake

Kraak Gallery, Manchester
18 August 2011

And in a bit I’ll go home. Tomorrow I’ll call my Mum. She’ll tell me about Amy’s wedding and ask how did the performance go, I’ll say it was good. Lots of people came. She’ll say have you thought any more about teacher training”

Have Your Cake was performed at Kraak Gallery, for Maria and the Gay’s album launch. It was a 5 minute experiment about a phone call to my mum. The piece involved me tricking a man into marrying me and explored the failure of big celebrations (and maybe, actually, the celebration of big failures). It did end up with cake all over myself, and I know it’s dangerous territory (female performance artist covered in cream, again) but I knew I had to be in order to tell the audience a small, sad thing. People listened in a way they only could if you’d really embarrassed yourself.

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The Life and Death of Eggs Collective

Eggs Collective, Flare Festival and Contact Theatre

2 + 6 July 2011

Life’s not like the films. Or if it was, it’s about being in the background.  In a crap costume. On a wobbly set, in a deleted scene, in a film that doesn’t even get a cinema release.”

June and July were taken up in the company of the barmy, brilliant Eggs Collective. A cabaret about life, death and survival, as much as a cabaret can be. It was great being amongst clever women. I got a lot out of being directed (by the amazing Rachel Brogan) and realised the fun you can have cutting between being yourself performing, and a character performing. I took on the role of a disaster seeking air hostess, but really it was me talking about how I don’t know what I’m doing with my life, and how it isn’t any the clearer for having a long distance relationship or being a freelance artist. My character and me were up in the air!

“the Manchester-based all female collective present a show that achieves fantastic variety in its style with an impressive set of performers differing drastically in both character and performance discipline” Nick Birchill, Flare Festival

Little Ireland 1842 / 2011

Watch the video I made for Rainer Ganahl’s current solo exhibition at Bury Transport Museum as part of the Text Festival. I am reading a part from Friedrich Engels’ The Condition of the Working Class, about an area of deprivation in Manchester in 1842 known as Little Ireland, on the handlebars of a bike in 2011.

Click here to watch the video on youtube.

For more information about the festival click here.

Would You Like a Cup of Tea?

Manchester
14 May 2011

This is the moment that hasn’t happened yet. This is the moment when you tap me on the back, take me by surprise and say something that changes everything forever.”

A short site-specific show on a piece of wasteland in Manchester City Centre. Eighteen people showed up in a gap in the rain to sneak through a fence and watch the performance. It was my first experiment in what I hope will become a series of solo shows. This first explored permanence, time and memory, whilst making a cup of tea against the odds.

Watch the youtube video here

House

Sounds from the Other City, Salford
2 May 2010

This was a one-off soap opera where barely anything happened for a whole half an hour. On the site of an old house, artist Amy Pennington and myself performed repetitive, domestic tasks. It was a tribute to the fact that nothing happens for a lot of the time, and how the weight (wait?) of the everyday, shapes our lives as much as the fleeting, memorable life-changing moments do. It was performed as part of Sounds from the Other City in Salford.

The Demolition of Dale Garage

Lowri Evans and Maurice Carlin, Islington Mill, Salford
May 2010

The Demolition of Dale Garage was a commemorative book making performance for Dale Garage, Salford. Artist Maurice Carlin and I were interested in what is left behind when something disappears, especially an old garage on a back street in Salford. I dictated the letter announcing it´s fate, and Morry typed as fast as he could what I was saying. The process was repeated until the letter fell to just one word. Then we had a drink of red wine together with the audience, remembering and toasting things. Finally we had a group photograph together, infront of the building. This was then collected and copied into a book for the audience to take home. The piece was part of Reading for Reading´s Sake festival at Islington Mill and comissioned for Lockwoods Yard, Nelson.

“Tim Etchells meets Harold Pinter meets Are You Being Served” Richard Gregory, Quarantine

The So Long Series

The Box Office Project, Salford
26 April – 2 May 2010

 

I run down her drive and turn to look at her house and she’s waving at the window. I am blowing her a kiss. I am getting into the car. We beep and wave.”

For three days I performed at Salford Central Train Station on Platform Two. I would arrive on the 14:36 train, face Platform One (where a mixture of commuters and audience assembled), a text about a moment of saying goodbye was played over the tannoy system by Tim and Martin from Northern Rail and then as it ended the 14:41 train would take me away. I would shed the clothes I was wearing and leave them on the floor, a bit like a magic act, so as the train pulled away I had gone, but remnants remained.

Spitfires

Eggs Collective, Contact Theatre
3 April 2010

I performed with Eggs Collective, a female performance collective, in this cabaret show. One piece culminated in the audience reading out love letters to me, written by me, into a crescnedo of choral adoration. Another piece involved the tricky translation of a real love letter in another language. There was also a group dance routine to Queen.

Welcome to Twin Peaks

Mayor Dwayne Milford Presents, Islington Mill, Salford
12 December 2009

Part theatre, part ghost train, part club night, and part social experiment of what happens when you bring together 150 Twin Peaks fans. This night coordinated numerous installations, interactions and a cast of twenty in a former mill in Salford with lots of cherry pie, a Miss Twin Peaks contest, a Leyland Palmer disco and Red Room. After buying a Twin Peaks board game, I asked around to see who would like to play it with me and dress up as a character. More and more people wanted to come along, much more than could fit in my front room. We discovered a secret society of massive Twin Peaks fans and decided to put on a night for them all. A sell out success.

“one of the best and most memorable nights that I have ever attended” Kieron
“congratulations to all involved. A totally surreal night…can’t even begin to explain to friends who weren’t there” Penfold
“SUCH an amazing night” Katherine

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Make Believe

Make Believe, Quarantine, National Tour
28 October – 5 December 2009
I worked with Quarantine on this show about what is real and what isn´t how we fit together as individuals when we are so different. What is performance and what is not. We danced to Take That, we asked the audience to tell the history of the world, we told each others stories and we told our own. Somewhere in the strangest places were the truest things, and in the most personal moments was deep uncertainty. It was really special to develop this show with one of my favourite theatre makers.

“This is beautiful work, delivered like a new-born baby into the world with discoveries to make and places to go” Lyn Gardner, The Guardian. 4 Stars

Song of Songs

Weeding Cane, National Tour

11 February – 5 March 2009

Sonia Hughes´show was an exploration of women and the impossibilty of love. Together we waited for answers at a wedding breakfast, with an aerial artist, dancing, chatting, sharing, trying to see what the little things could tell us about the big things. Here I am, on the right, giving out talking about my breaking up with my ex-boyfriend and giving out increasingly unhinged fashion advice.

“has the sweetly faltering feel of an awkward but promising first date – you may well be sufficiently charmed to get its number and see it again” Alfred Hickling, The Guardian. 3 Stars

Lost / Found

Shot in the Dark, Contact

28 February – 1 March 2008

After a good response to our debut show, Shot in the Dark returned with Lost / Found, a piece based on a found photos and lost memories. The ensemble style incorporated puppetry, physical theatre, poetry and a surprise rock band. The show was selected to be shown in  The Library Theatre’s Re:Play Festival in 2009.

“an excellent debut” Steve Timms, What’s on Stage. 4 stars

“it’s enormously ambitious, not a little challenging and performed with impressive enthusiasm” Kevin Bourke, Manchester Evening News. 4 stars