Julia Bardsley

Last updated

Julia Bardsley is an artist working with performance, video, photography, sculptural objects and the configuration of the audience. [1] Her work challenges definitions of theatre and has been described as 'a major force in British experimental theatre and live art'. [2]

Contents

Education and career

Bardsley was a founder member of dereck dereck Productions; other stage performances in the 1980s included Marie-Christine in Ardele, Where the Rainbow Ends, Gaudette at the Almeida Theatre (where she won the Time Out award for direction), and Too Clever by Half and A Flea in Her Ear (Antoinette Plucheux) at the Old Vic. She was also the assistant producer for A Night at the Chinese Opera with Kent Opera. [3]

She began her career in theatre directing, writing and adapting works for the stage, [4] and was joint artistic director of the Leicester Haymarket & Young Vic Theatres (1991-4). [5] She was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from Middlesex University in 2007. [6] Bardsley lectures at Queen Mary, University of London, and Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London. [7] Her work has become known for its experimental use of character, solo performance, and elaborate video and set work in a performance art/visual art context. [8]

Bardsley's work is significant in its disruption of traditional understandings of theatre; [9] her hybrid practice first developed in collaboration with designer Aldona Cunningham in the 1990s through their innovative work on Hamlet at the Young Vic, which in turn led to a five-year long creation process combining theatre, performance and photography, resulting in the work 12/Stages/3 (a Memory Theatre) as part of the British Festival of Visual Theatre in 1999. [10]

From the late 1990s onwards her film and video works have been selected for film festivals internationally, [11] collected and represented in collections such as Lux Artists Films [12] and the University of the Arts British Artists' Film and Video Study Collection. [13] She has also created video art work for theatre productions including An Ocean of Rain, at the Almeida Theatre, London, 2008, [14] and Suenos composed by Simon Holt, [15] premiered at Queen Elizabeth Hall, London in 2007 . [16] [17]

Selected works

The Divine Trilogy (2003-2009)

Presented in London, Glasgow, Portugal, Spain, Slovenia, Croatia, Belgium, and Italy. [18] The three parts of which are:

Improvements on Nature: a Double Act (2009)

Produced for Chelsea Theatre, Sacred Festival, Improvements on Nature: a Double Act explored themes of science using imagery of amputations. 'It's the science of Charles Darwin incubated by the traumatised imagination of Mary Shelley.' [24]

meta_Family (2010-11)

A modular ensemble piece, the meta_Family, presented in Teresina & Rio, Brazil & Outside AiR - QMUL, London. In 2012 editions of the project were presented at Trouble#8 Festival, Brussels & City of Women Festival, Ljubljana. [25]

Medea: dark matter events (2012 - )

A performance project inspired by the Medea myth; drawing on themes of sexuality, eroticism and electricity. [26]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ron Athey</span> American performance artist

Ron Athey is an American performance artist associated with body art and with extreme performance art. He has performed in the U.S. and internationally. Athey's work explores challenging subjects like the relationships between desire, sexuality and traumatic experience. Many of his works include aspects of S&M in order to confront preconceived ideas about the body in relation to masculinity and religious iconography.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Imelda Staunton</span> English actress and singer (born 1956)

Imelda Mary Philomena Bernadette Staunton is an English actress and singer. After training at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, Staunton began her career in repertory theatre in 1976 and appeared in various theatre productions in the United Kingdom.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Almeida Theatre</span> Theatre in Islington, London

The Almeida Theatre, opened in 1980, is a 325-seat producing house with an international reputation, which takes its name from the street on which it is located, off Upper Street, in the London Borough of Islington. The theatre produces a diverse range of drama. Successful plays are often transferred to West End theatres.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Theatre Museum</span>

The Theatre Museum in the Covent Garden district of London, England, was the United Kingdom's national museum of the performing arts. It was a branch of the UK's national museum of applied arts, the Victoria and Albert Museum. It opened in 1974 and closed in 2007, being replaced by new galleries at the V&A's main site in South Kensington.

DV8 Physical Theatre was a physical theatre company based at Artsadmin in London, United Kingdom. It was officially founded in 1986 by Lloyd Newson (1986–2015), Michelle Richecoeur (1986–1988) and Nigel Charnock. Lloyd Newson led the company as choreographer and artistic director from its inception, apart from the production My Sex, Our Dance (1986), which was co-created and performed with Nigel Charnock. DV8 officially ended in April 2022 when Lloyd Newson announced his retirement via the company web page.

Lolita Chakrabarti is a British actress and writer.

Robin Deacon is an artist, writer and filmmaker. His interdisciplinary practice has spanned a variety of disciplines and themes, including explorations of performer presence and absence, the role of the artist as biographer, the possibility for journalistic approaches to arts practice, and the mapping and ethics of performance re-enactment. He graduated from Cardiff School of Art in 1996, and went on to present his performances and videos at conferences and festivals in the UK and internationally in Europe, USA and Asia. His work has been commissioned and programmed by venues such as The ICA, London (1996), The Young Vic, London (2000), CCCB, Barcelona (2006), Tanzquartier Wien, Vienna (2007) and the Centre d'art Scenique Contemporain Lausanne, Switzerland (2009), Tate Britain, London (2014) and the Barbican Centre, London (2015). He has also been artist in residence at MacDowell, New Hampshire, USA (2017) Sophiensaele, Berlin (2005), Camden Arts Centre London (2006) and Robert Wilson's Watermill Center, New York, USA (2009). He has received a variety of awards and fellowships from organizations such as the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, Delfina Foundation, British Arts Council, Live Art Development Agency and Franklin Furnace Inc. Between 2003 and 2012, he was an Associate Artist of contemporary artists producing organization Artsadmin. From 2004, he was Course Director of the Drama and Performance Studies program at London South Bank University before relocating to the USA in 2011. After ten years spent as Professor and Chair of Performance at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Robin returned to the UK in 2021 to take up the role of Artistic Director and CEO of the Spill Festival of Performance.

The People Show is the longest-running experimental theatre company in the UK, and is based in London.

SPILL Festival of Performance is an artist-led biennale of experimental theatre and live art in the UK which began in 2007 and takes place in a variety of venues in London and Ipswich, England. The festival is produced by Pacitti Company and the Artistic Director is Robert Pacitti.

Bobby Baker is a multi-disciplinary artist and activist working across performance, drawing and multi-media. Baker is the artistic director of the arts organisation Daily Life Ltd. A hallmark of Baker's work is food being used as an artistic medium. As John Daniel writes, 'Food - shopping for it, cooking it, serving it, consuming it - is a consistent feature in Baker's work, which focuses on the seemingly mundane, everyday details of life' (2007:246) Drawing from her own personal and family experiences, her work explores the relationship between art and lived experience and addresses the splitting of women's domestic and professional lives. Claire MacDonald points out how her artistic trajectory - moving from early food sculptures to later performances and installations - reflects the changing agenda of women's movement.

Lois Keidan is a British-born cultural activist and writer. She co-founded the Live Art Development Agency with Catherine Ugwu in 1999 and was the Director of the Agency until 2021. She was the former director of live arts at the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) from 1992 to 1997. Prior to working at the ICA, she was responsible for national policy and provision for Performance Art and interdisciplinary practices at the Arts Council of Great Britain.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lois Weaver</span> American actress

Lois Weaver is a Guggenheim-winning artist, activist, writer, director, and Professor of Contemporary Performance at Queen Mary University of London. She is currently a Wellcome Trust Fellow in Engaging Science. Her work centers on feminism, human rights and possibilities for public participation. Active for over four decades she is the founding member of significant New York theatre companies Spiderwoman Theater (1975), Split Britches (1980) and WOW (1980). Weaver came to London to take on the role of artistic director for Gay Sweatshop Theatre Company in 1992. She lives in New York and London.

Robert Icke is an English writer and theatre director. He has been referred to as the "great hope of British theatre."

Amy Sharrocks is a UK based live artist, sculptor, filmmaker and curator from London, England. Sharrocks' work focuses on collaboration and exchange, inviting people on journeys that they also help to create. She is known for large scale, live artworks in public places that use everyday activities, such as swimming or walking, in spectacular ways. Many of her artworks investigate the nature of cities, explore the importance of fluidity as a way of thinking, and question our constructs of city life. Her work has been supported by Arts Council England, The Live Art Development Agency and Artsadmin. Major works include SWIM (2007), a 50-person swim across London, and the ongoing Museum of Water (2013-Ongoing), a collection of over one thousand bottles of water from around the world.

Rosana Cade is a Glasgow-based live performance artist. They are known mainly for their queer, feminist and activist approaches to work. They are notable for winning the Edinburgh Festival Fringe Awards 2016, for Physical/Visual Theatre with Cock and Bull, and has toured work to The National Theatre, Battersea Arts Centre and international venues including Teatro Maria Matos, Lisbon, Frascati, Amsterdam and Kwai Fong Theatre, Hong Kong.

Nic Green is a performance maker and activist, brought up in Yorkshire, but based in Glasgow. Her work is based on the environment, social responsibility and relationships. She is well known for her use of nudity on stage, for example Trilogy (2009–2010), which is a two-hour show in three parts. It is a feminist, political statement on the body where she, three other women and a man are naked for the duration of it as well as asking members of the audience to take their clothes off too.

Stacy Makishi is a Hawaiian-born performance artist, physical theatre and live art specialist. Her work often involves combining autobiographical experience and comedy with inspiration from fictional sources, such as Hollywood movies or novels. She has been identified by The Guardian as part of a new generation of artists making 'innovative shows [. . .] with and by young people'.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Katherine Araniello</span>

Katherine Araniello was a London-based live art, performance and video artist, who responded to the negative representation of disability. She used a range of mediums including film, large scale production and live art performances. Araniello was a member of The Disabled Avant-Garde (DAG) with deaf artist Aaron Williamson.

Catherine Oliaku Ugwu is a British executive producer, artistic director, and consultant working in large-scale ceremonies and events, including for the Summer and Winter Olympics, the Summer Paralympics, the Asian, European, Islamic Solidarity, and Commonwealth Games, and the Millennium Dome.

<i>Andy Warhols Pork</i> 1971 stage play by Andy Warhol

Andy Warhol's Pork is the first and only play by Andy Warhol. It was directed by Anthony Ingrassia, produced by Ira Gale, and stage-managed by Leee Black Childers. Pork opened on May 5, 1971, at La MaMa Experimental Theatre in New York City for a two-week run. It was brought to the Roundhouse in London for a six-week run in August 1971.

References

  1. ↑ Online, LADA-Live (14 June 2018), Artists On: Being an Artist - Julia Bardsley , retrieved 22 March 2020
  2. ↑ Johnson, Dominic (1 August 2010). "The Skin of the Theatre: An Interview with Julia Bardsley". Contemporary Theatre Review. 20 (3): 340–352. doi:10.1080/10486801.2010.489045. ISSN   1048-6801.
  3. ↑ Theatre programme for A Flea In Her Ear by Georges Feydeau, August 1989, cast biographies.
  4. ↑ Johnson, Dominic (29 April 2016). Critical Live Art: Contemporary Histories of Performance in the UK. Routledge. p. 146. ISBN   978-1-134-90743-4.
  5. ↑ Guardian Staff (13 October 1999). "Now you see them". The Guardian. ISSN   0261-3077 . Retrieved 21 March 2020.
  6. ↑ "Bardsley, J - School of English and Drama". www.qmul.ac.uk. Retrieved 21 March 2020.
  7. ↑ Martins, Central Saint (20 June 2018). "Julia Bardsley". Central Saint Martins. Retrieved 21 March 2020.
  8. ↑ Johnson, Dominic (29 April 2016). Critical Live Art: Contemporary Histories of Performance in the UK. Routledge. p. 141. ISBN   978-1-134-90743-4.
  9. ↑ Johnson, Dominic (31 July 2015). The Art of Living: An Oral History of Performance Art. Macmillan International Higher Education. p. 219. ISBN   978-1-137-32222-7.
  10. ↑ Guardian Staff (13 October 1999). "Now you see them". The Guardian. ISSN   0261-3077 . Retrieved 21 March 2020.
  11. ↑ ArtFacts. "9e Biennale de l'Image en Mouvement | Exhibition". ArtFacts. Retrieved 21 March 2020.
  12. ↑ "Snow". LUX. Retrieved 21 March 2020.
  13. ↑ "Results – Search Objects – UAL". collections.arts.ac.uk. Retrieved 21 March 2020.
  14. ↑ "An Ocean of Rain". Almeida Theatre. Retrieved 21 March 2020.
  15. ↑ Wheatley, John (2008). "London, Queen Elizabeth Hall: Simon Holt's 'Sueňos'". Tempo. 62 (244): 35. ISSN   0040-2982. JSTOR   40072789.
  16. ↑ Charlton, David (2017). The Music of Simon Holt. Boydell & Brewer. ISBN   978-1-78327-223-5.
  17. ↑ "Performances - Wise Music Classical". www.wisemusicclassical.com. Retrieved 21 March 2020.
  18. ↑ "Julia Bardsley". Theatre and Dance. Retrieved 22 March 2020.
  19. ↑ Klein, Jennie (2006). "Genre-Bending Performance: The National Review of Live Art Glasgow, Scotland". PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art. 28 (1): 58–66. doi:10.1162/152028106775329688. ISSN   1520-281X. JSTOR   4139998. S2CID   57562299.
  20. ↑ Gardner, Lyn (13 April 2007). "Trans-Acts/Untitled (Syncope), Shunt, London". The Guardian. ISSN   0261-3077 . Retrieved 22 March 2020.
  21. ↑ Johnson, Dominic (29 April 2016). Critical Live Art: Contemporary Histories of Performance in the UK. Routledge. p. 150. ISBN   978-1-134-90743-4.
  22. ↑ Company, Pacitti (21 August 2013), Aftermaths: A Tear In The Meat Of Vision Julia Bardsley , retrieved 22 March 2020
  23. ↑ Johnson, Dominic (31 July 2015). The Art of Living: An Oral History of Performance Art. Macmillan International Higher Education. p. 220. ISBN   978-1-137-32222-7.
  24. ↑ Programme, Sacred Festival, 2009, Chelsea Theatre, London, 10 November
  25. ↑ Bardsley, Julia (20 March 2020). "Profile".
  26. ↑ Laera, Margherita (23 October 2014). Theatre and Adaptation: Return, Rewrite, Repeat. Bloomsbury Academic. p. 111. ISBN   978-1-4081-8472-1.

Further reading

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.