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7/4/2010

Mel Brimfield: This is Performance Art

Camden Arts Centre, London

Mel Brimfield’s residency, This is Performance Art, will be a historical reappraisal of performance art of the 20th Century. Through a series of discussions, documentary research, re-enactments and live performance she will undertake an examination of what can be said to constitute the ontology of ‘live art’ within current discourse. This research will form the basis for a documentary film, the first in a series, charting the new narrative through the fragmented and often unreliable documentary record of this elusive art form.

The final film will be screened in the Artists’ Studio at Camden Arts Centre at the culmination of the residency along side a series of live performances and re-enactments.

Mel Brimfield's complex practice takes a skewed and tangled romp through the already vexed historiography of performance art, simultaneously revealing and inventing a rich history of collaboration between artists, dancers, theatre makers, political activists and comedians. Meticulously drawn and painted posters and programmes for fictional interdisciplinary cabarets, together with costumes and props, are produced alongside documentary-style films and live works that playfully associate performance art with most significant cultural developments of the last 100 years.

Following the residency, the next phase of This is Performance Art will be shown at Yorkshire Sculpture Park in 2011.

Live performance finale: Wednesday 02 June 2010, 7.00 – 8.30pm

Mel Brimfield
Mel Brimfield (born Oxford 1976) was Associate Producer at The Collective gallery, Edinburgh, and the Curator of The Comic Book Project publication and touring performance programme appearing at the 2007 Edinburgh Fringe, Film, Art and Book Festivals, and at the ICA Comica Festival. Other relevant credits include co-production of the performance programme for the Whitstable Biennale 2006, and devising and producing Radio Radio (2003–4 at The Trade Apartment, London, The International 3 Manchester and De Appel Curating Institute, Amsterdam). She is represented by Ceri Hand Gallery, Liverpool.

Alice Capitani
From 1997 to 2001 Alice Capitani was part of the Italian National Team of artistic gymnastics, taking part in many competitions including Shanghai Gymnasiadi (1998), Tianjin World Championships (1999) and the Olympic games of Sydney (2000). From 2001 to 2007 she then joined the Italian National Team of Aerobic gymnastics, competing in World Cups, European Championships and World Championships. In 2008, Alice Capitani received the award of merit “world-class gymnast” by the FIG (International Gymnastics Federation), before starting to focus on her artistic career when she began working as an acrobat-dancer in musical theatre, fashion shows as well as other events.

Clever Peter
Comedy sketch troupe Clever Peter formed in early 2008 and have created a fast-paced, exciting brand of sketch comedy. Their hour-long shows encompass a running narrative amidst the range of ridiculous, bizarre and just plain funny sketches, setting them apart from other sketch shows. Since May 2008 they have been nominated for a Best Comedy Award at the Brighton Fringe Festival 2008, won the Best Comedy Award and a nomination for Best New Writing at Buxton Fringe 2008, and enjoyed sell-out shows in Edinburgh where they received an impressive set of reviews. A year on they returned to the Brighton Fringe, with a sell-out run where their new show for 2009 gained more outstanding reviews and an Argus Angel award for artistic excellence, before taking it on to Buxton and Edinburgh Fringe Festivals.

Gwyneth Herbert
Gwyneth Herbert is a British singer-songwriter, initially known for her interpretation of jazz and swing standards, and now established as a writer of original compositions. Hailed as ‘brilliantly original’ by Mojo and ‘super-talented’ by The Telegraph, Gwyneth Herbert is at the vanguard of a new generation of genre-defying singer-songwriters. Herbert’s latest record ‘All The Ghosts’ is populated by a living, breathing cast of beaten-down dreamers, jaded city-dwellers, and women in a quandary, and has the critics scrambling for comparisons with artists as diverse as Lennon and McCartney, Nina Simone, The Kinks and Tom Waits.

Paul Higgs
Paul Higgs has an extensive music career in many fields including performing, composing for film and TV, musical directing for companies such as the Royal National Theatre and Royal Shakespeare Company, and arranging music for film and TV. He is particularly sought after as a brass arranger within all mediums and genres of music. He is most renowned as one of the UK’s leading trumpet players and works both as a performer and session musician. He has performed for luminaries including Sir Peter Maxwell Davis, BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, Lulu, Tony Hatch, John Williams, Vic Damone, Nancy Wilson, Brook Benton, Jackie Trent, Al Martino, The Foundations, Danny Williams, Rolf Harris, Johnny Dankworth and Shorty Rodgers.

Joanna Neary
Joanna Neary is an accomplished performer with considerable experience in television comedy. She has starred in That Mitchell and Webb Look (BBC Two) and appears as Judith in Ideal (BBC Three) with Johnny Vegas. She recently filmed Gamarjobat, a pilot for Babycow, and the third series of Skins (Channel 4/E4). Further credits include Katy Brand’s Big Ass Show (ITV2), Angelo’s (Five) Comedy Cuts II and III and No Heroics (ITV2). Joanna has been writing and performing character comedy for several years, starting in Brighton at venues such as the Komedia. She took her debut solo show Joanna Neary is Not Feeling Herself to the Edinburgh Fringe in 2004, where she received rave reviews, a Perrier Best Newcomer nomination and won Fringe Report’s Award for Best Actor - Theatrical Comedy. During her subsequent UK tour Joanna also won the Best Actress award at the 2005 Brighton Festival.

Whoopee Club Beaux Belles
The Whoopee Club Beaux Belles are The Whoopee Club's all female dance troupe of up to 20 girls. Their name was inspired by the Bow Bells of London and the famous Parisian dance troupe the Bluebell Girls. All professional dancers, the Whoopee Club Beaux Belles have performed tap dancing and showgirl routines for numerous high profile events. They create dance routines which entertain and impress and at the same time seek to subvert the traditional expectations of showgirls. Recent acts include skirt dancing fin de siecle sirens, tap dancing sailors, hula girls, art deco Egyptian tiller girls, 1950's Betty Page jungle women, and gaiety pearly queens. The Whoopee Club Beaux Belles are choreographed by Jane Turner who has choreographed for the likes of Hermes and the ICA.

For images and further information please contact Elisa Ruff: elisa.ruff@camdenartscentre.org

Opening 8 April 2010

Camden Arts Centre
Arkwright Road, London NW3 6DG
Opening times:Tuesday - Sunday: 10am-6pm
Wednesddays late 10am–9pm
Closed Mondays

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