Julia Bardsley

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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]

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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.

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