Glitter Heart is a creative project for older women and non-binary artists to be a part of a playful exploration and research project using The Live Art Archives as a jumping off point.
It began with a reflection and question from lead artist Liz Clarke:
What would an early work of mine look like if I made it now, in this body—this aging, queer, maternal body, and through the lens of time, experience and the landscape of Live Art over time?
We are really excited to announce that Arts Council Wales are supporting the production of Cannonballista in South Wales this autumn.
We will be launching at The Riverfront in September, and blasting off at the Sherman in January (date TBC)
Between these times, catch the show at the Brunswick Club, Bristol on the 21st October and Arts Alive Wales, Crickhowell (date TBC)
Book tickets for the show at the Riverfron, Newportt on 21st September here
For this Beacons Icons & Dykons at the Arnolfini I imagined an off-stage scenario to accompany a famous scene of Pink Narcissus. The piece tells an imagined narrative of real life underpinning the artifice of the film, weaving gems of truth into the fiction.
I was fascinated by the timescale of the film (it took seven years to make) and the trajectory of the director James Bidgood, who's work has inspired many iconic artists.
This piece contains copycat Iconography, garden tools and some slight nudity.
Ladies and Gentlemen; you are here tonight to witness an Amazing, an Incredible and a Death Defying Feat. She’s a renegade mechanic, an altruistic megalomaniac and The World’s only one- woman-husband and-wife team. With 50% extra Extra, I give you: The mistress of contradiction herself…. Ms Betty Bruiser!
A performance by Liz Clarke and Ione Council (9 months)
‘You know the type of Ink. A huge clipper ship advancing, masts a flutter. It was amazing; the best thing I’d ever done…Until I woke up.’
In this short piece; part monologue, part confessional, part crèche Clarke invites the audience to consider the rights of the very young and the acceptable (or not) faces of motherhood.
Losing My Edge was a 10 minute jaunt through performance art history, enacting seminal moments both real & imagined upon the Body. The piece was set to a tongue in cheek rendition of the LCD soundsystem track of the same name, musing on the artist growing older, paying respect to those who have paved the way and worrying about those artists that are younger, better looking and more talented than me. It ended with a live tattoo which is a particularly enduring memory of this piece.
My Inflatable One has been a 5 minute cabaret piece, an hour long interactive durational experiement and a kid's performance where the mini audience stormed the stage!
Part mundane, part spectacle, part wonderment, this encounter charts the quest for Bigger! Better! More!
It has shown at Arnolfini, Thorny, Haphazard and Psychodrama.
Image credit: Vonalina Cake Photography & Toaster In The Bath
What People Said About My Inflatable One
The Last Trick is a series of performances and interventions. I think it was one of my first forays into performing with balloons!
It’s an inflatable musing on promise and absence, leaving and loss, revelation and secrecy. All in electric blue. It uses medicalized equipment juxtaposed with symbols of frivolity, entertainment and fun. With echoes of balloon strip tease, there is no strip here and definitely no tease. The balloons haave been pierced onto the body giving a new dimension to a 'balloon pop' routine.
'The Filth Queen of the Transgressive Scene' BBC
I love this title that was bestowed on me by a breakfast show presenter no less!
Filth Queen has shown at the Cube, Duckie, and many cabaret events. First commissioned by Beacons Icons & Dykons as an homage to the ‘Prince of Filth’ John Waters.
'Well a diva a day Keeps the boredom away I love 'em when they throw up their arms... They may find me on a hotel floor High heels in a pool of gore Curtains closed And a bolted door…'
The piece is a transformative jaunt of a journey inspired by sailors’ shore leave, burial at sea glitz and driftwood.The Body becomes a site for a gentle parody of the sexualization of the male and the female body through stature, heels and videotape... This piece has been shown as a four hour and one hour durational piece.
