Block Universe, London’s international performance art festival, is back for the third year running, from 29 May to 4 June 2017, with a programme of newly commissioned performances, UK premieres, talks and workshops. FAD has teamed up with Blockuniverse to live broadcast some of the most interesting performances and talks from their schedule: (details below) To make sure you don’t miss any of the performances you need to make sure you like our Facebook page Facebook.com/FADsite to be notified when they start
1 Zadie Xa: Performance:Crash, Boom, Hisssssss. Legend of the Liquid Sword and Artist Talk
Creating an immersive environment for this performance at the Lancaster Rooms at Somerset House, Zadie Xa’s work interrogates ideas of authentic versus inherited positions and displacement within the Asian diaspora. Through a fantastical overlayering of cultural references, Crash, Boom, Hisssssss. Legend of the Liquid Sword will transport the audience into a supernatural narrative inhabited by shamanistic beings, based on Manshin (Korean shaman) and loosely inspired by Pansori, a Korean genre of musical storytelling performed by a vocalist and a drummer. A performance by Zadie Xa with Jane Chan, Jihye Kim and Joonhong Min. Written by Taylor Le Melle. Costumes by Benito Mayor Vallejo and Zadie Xa.
About The Artist: Zadie Xa (b. 1983, Vancouver) is a London-based Canadian artist. Through performance, video, painting and textiles, Xa interrogates the overlapping and conflation of cultures that inform self-conceptualized identities, notions of self and her experience within the Asian diaspora. Upcoming exhibitions and performances include Pumphouse Gallery, London, programmed by PS/Y as part of Hysteria 2017, Aga Khan Museum, Toronto, and Rehearsals from the Korean Avant-Garde Performance Archive, Korean Cultural Centre UK, London.
www.zadiexa.com
Zadie Xa – Performance: Somerset House, Lancaster Room : Thursday 1 June
Time: 7pm Watch Live on fb.com/FADsite.
Zadie Xa – Artist Talk Friday 2 June Time: 1pm Somerset House, Lancaster Room
Watch Live on fb.com/FADsite
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2 Will Rawls Performance
Working with choreography as an open source method, the UK premiere of Q&A is a game in which the audience participates by asking questions while Rawls responds. Through this interaction, an event unfolds that weaves together thoughts, desires, prompts and opinions from those present. Through this practice, Rawls employs choreography as a way to question the roots of authorship, embodied labour and the indeterminate interpretation of art.
About The Artist Will Rawls (b. 1978, Boston, USA) is a writer, choreographer and performer based in Brooklyn. Rawls creates solo and group work that turns around the idea of self and becoming through language and dance. He is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grant, the Casinos Austria Prix Jardin d’Europe and a Robert Rauschenberg Foundation Residency. As an interpreter and performer, Rawls has worked with Marina Abramovi?, Jérôme Bel, Alain Buffard, Maria Hassabi, Xavier Le Roy, Tino Sehgal and Shen Wei Dance Arts. His writing has been published by Artforum, Triple Canopy, les presses du réel, the Museum of Modern Art and Danspace Project.willrawls.com
Will Rawls Wednesday 31 May Performance: 7.30pm – duration: 45min/1hr The Asylum
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3 Rory Pilgrim Performance
Pilgrim will present Software Garden , a new commission for Block Universe 2017. This performance explores connections between technology, disability and care as a way of looking at larger political frameworks. Interweaving poetry, speech, song and choreography, this will be the first performance as part of a larger new body of work built on Pilgrim’s first experimental music album . U nfolding somewhere between Kabuki theatre, a pop concert and a political social space of action, this performance will attempt to bring together a variety of people from different ages, backgrounds, human and robotic, to propose the creation of an embodied system of care and kindness as a software garden. In collaboration with poet Carol Kalled, singer Robyn Haddon and dancer Casper-Malte Jorgensen.
About The Artist Rory Pilgrim (b. 1988, Bristol) is a British artist whose practice is based on emancipatory concerns in which personal and political questions are brought together to explore questions of time and connections between activism, spirituality, music and community. Solo shows include at Rowing Projects, London, Flat Time House, London, Site Gallery, Sheffield, Andriesse-Eyck Gallery, Amsterdam, and sic! Raum für Kunst, Lucerne, and group exhibitions, screenings and performances at South London Gallery, Guangzhou Triennial, Kunst-Werke, Berlin, and Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam. www.rorypilgrim.com
Rory Pilgrim Saturday, 3rd June Performance: 3pm (duration: 1h15min) The Light
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