A Staged Dissent
Leonard Dixon Drama Studio
An evening of performances and films centred around the theme of protest, rebellion and revolt.
Programme:
Gail Pickering
Zulu (Speaking in Radical Tongues)
Zulu (Speaking in Radical Tongues) consists of a large-scale sculpture that is activated by an evolving series of performances. The three-dimensional letters of 'Zulu' resemble a discarded advertising hoarding or props from a film set and have the physical presence of a collection of coffins. During the performances, 'Zulu' both as sign and stage, is hijacked by a performer channelling dialogue and physical gestures borrowed from the diaries and manifestos of 1960s/70s urban guerrilla groups, communes and their cinematic counterparts.
Pil and Galia Kollectiv
The Future for Less and Better Future, Wolf-Shaped
The Future for Less (2006) is a futuristic B-movie about a post IKEA riots society where art and high Modernist design have triumphed and Sunday DIY rituals are an underground cult.
In Better Future, Wolf-Shaped (2008), a rural cult perverts this official creed through pagan rituals of architectural worship performed at Celtic burial sites in Cornwall.
Oreet Ashery
Raging Balls
This short performance impart an angry speech written by Ashery and encouraged by the artist David Wojnarowicz's (1954 - 1992) potent performative diatribes against American policies of handling the Aids crisis during 1980s. Set amidst the speech are the live interactive limits of audience/performer instructed exchange and participation, deeming the event a form of experiment.
Tellervo Kalleinen and Oliver Kochta-Kalleinen
Complaints Choir
The Complaints Choir invites people to complain as much as they want and to sing their complaints out loud together with fellow complainers. The first choir was organised in Birmingham followed by the Complaints Choirs of Helsinki, Hamburg and St. Petersburg.
Mark Wilsher
King
A negotiation with history by asserting someone else's subjectivity at the wrong time and place. An historical performance that attempts to operate very much in the present tense. This piece examines the power of words to make things happen, asking what effect those same phonetic sounds might have today on both audience and artist.
Oliver Ressler and Zanny Begg
What Would It Mean To Win?
What Would It Mean To Win? (2008) was filmed on the blockades at the G8 summit in Heiligendamm, Germany in June 2007. In their first collaborative film, Zanny Begg and Oliver Ressler focus on the current state of the counter-globalisation movement in a project which grows out of both artists' preoccupation with globalisation and its discontents. The film, which combines documentary footage, interviews, and animation sequences, is structured around three questions pertinent to the movement: Who are we? What is our power? What would it mean to win?