Friday, 8 Feb 2008

Writers for

We Need to Talk about Live Art

are: Tim Atack, Rachel Lois Clapham, Mary Patersonand Theron Schmidt.We’re here to spark debate and stimulate conversation. Each writer’s opinions are personal,

unltered, unspun and not necessarily shared by the group.Disagree? Leave your comments at the front desk, contact us at www.writingfromliveart.co.uk, or

come talk to us at the NRLA.

We Need to Talk about Live Art

is an independent project and is not afliated with the National Review of Live Art.

contentsJulia Bardsley, Hannah Wasileski, Clod Ensemble, Marcia Farquhar, Claire, Augusto Corrieri

Friday8 Feb 2008

page 1

We Need to Talk about Live Art

is a writer-led initiative made possible by support from

www.writingfromliveart.co.uk

www.liveartuk.com

Beastly

Julia Bardsley,

Almost the Same

(Tramway 4)6-7 February 2008Animal. Shaman. Rational. Beast. Life.

Death. Rebirth. It’s difcult to say what is in

Julia Bardsley’s

Almost the Same

, because it’s

difcult to say what isn’t. The piece is a powerfuland intense visual and theatrical display, usingarresting visual imagery and props dripping withmeaning.

Bardsley acts two roles – as a feral beast and

a more rational, controlling woman whose face

is projected onto a screen in front of the liveperformance. The two women seem to react

to each other, at times watching the other move, at times disappearing into each other

as their ritualised actions and words melt intoone. The relationship between the two is

perhaps most clearly dened near to the end

of the performance, when they recite a list of

homophones – saying the same thing butmeaning something different.I also found meaning

hard to decipher in

Almost the Same

.The work is sointense and full ofsymbolism that I wasin turn overwhelmedby its possibilitiesand numbed by

the sheer weight of potential readings. Perhaps because I did not

understand its references,

Almost the Same

felt like watching the rites of a distant culture, ina language I can’t quite comprehend.At the beginning and end of

Almost the Same

the audience is led through the performance

space and allowed to explore some of theobjects that feed this powerful experience. Iwish I could have had more time inside thesespaces so that I could have travelled furtherwith the performance itself.

written by Mary Paterson

Sparking Debate. Stimulating Conversation. Supporting Artists. Taking LiveArt Seriously.

We Need to Talk about Live Art

is a daily, ash publication printed about NRLA events and for NRLA

readers.

We Need to Talk about Live Art

writers will respond to work during each day of the NationalReview, and publish it the day after. We are not afliated with the National Review of Live Art, but

we’re here to start conversations and support the work shown.

You can nd our publications every day, at the Tramway Arts Centre, from 2pm onwards.

Writers for

We Need to Talk about Live Art

are: Tim Atack, Rachel Lois Clapham, Mary Patersonand Theron Schmidt.We’re here to spark debate and stimulate conversation. Each writer’s opinions are personal,

unltered, unspun and not necessarily shared by the group.Disagree? Leave your comments at the front desk, contact us at www.writingfromliveart.co.uk, or

come talk to us at the NRLA.

We Need to Talk about Live Art

is an independent project and is not afliated with the National Review of Live Art.

Photo: Julia Bardsley

Friday8 Feb 2008

page 2

We Need to Talk about Live Art

is a writer-led initiative made possible by support from

www.writingfromliveart.co.uk

www.liveartuk.comWriters for

We Need to Talk about Live Art

are: Tim Atack, Rachel Lois Clapham, Mary Patersonand Theron Schmidt.

We Need to Talk about Live Art

is an independent project and is not afliated with the National Review of Live Art.

Schubert Dub

Hannah Wasileski,

Virtuosic

(Tramway 1)

7 February 2008

10pm, and as another day at NRLA tumblestowards a close a large queue is forming for

Gary McNair’s show in Tramway 4. Next door,Hannah Wasileski’s

Virtuosic

has garnered a

much smaller crowd, scattered about the dark

space like stragglers watching the embersof a bonre. It seems that, forced to make a

choice, most of the audience have opted for thepleasures of ‘performance’ in the old-fashioned

sense, the esh-and-blood sense, the can-you-

hear-me-at-the-back sense. Which is in no way

to denigrate Gary McNair’s show (I can’t, as Ididn’t get a chance to see it) but in some ways

it’s a shame… because

Virtuosic

turns out

to be all about performance, more than might

appear from the spec in the brochure.

The sizeable gloom of a darkened Tramway 1frames four small video projections, hung just

below eye level at the centre of a prosceniumarch formed by brickwork pillars. On each screen,one of four separately recorded members of

a string quartet play through the sentimentalcadences of the allegro from Schubert’s

Death And The Maiden.

The bowsmiths appear in

silhouette from a variety of angles. They playconsummately, no small feat given that they areall – in the rst instance – playing alone. The‘quartet’ is only manifest once edited together…and at rst it appears that this rendition of

Schubert will be a conventional one, albeitmediated by the pixel and the projector beam.Sure, there’s an oddness to the interactions of

tones and harmonics, something akin to someof the weirder sonic experiments of the 1970swhen overexcited studio engineers attempted

to multi-track entire orchestras rather than havethem play in unison. But these subtleties are

nothing compared to the glitchy cadenza that

follows.

‘Cello notes are suddenly bent into foghornmoans. The reside glow of the projections

abruptly slams on and off; the sound follows suit.

Wasileski edits the living crap out of Schubert,chopping phrases, repeating strokes, warpingthe score into passages which resemble awhistle-stop tour of modern composition, slidingthrough serialism, rattling around in the newcomplexity for a bit, bouncing around in the

silliness of Zappa or the phase shifts of Reich.

All of which suggests a primarily musical

exercise; but the tiny details within

Virtuosic

manage to nudge the proceedings into another arena altogether. It’s staging, for instance(projections angled slightly, human in scale)recreates concert conditions. At rst I nd thesilhouetted images of the performers something

of a disappointment, almost a cliché, withDisney’s

Fantasia

springing to mind; but asthe gures ash unpredictably from screento screen with increasing rapidity they morphinto another type of animation altogether – the

scratchy tone poems of Norman Maclaren or Len

Lye, speaking of something organic, something

imperfect; far from sleek and mechanical, as you

might expect from such blatant digital splicing.So here’s the interesting question: once we’veemerged from the nal barrage of mashed-upstrings, once the projections nally fall back

into the last, bittersweet moments of Schubertproper, and the virtual performers silently laytheir instruments down, what do you think the

audience does? A ripple passes around thescattered assembly, a few nervous giggles…are we going to applaud? Is it really called for?Would it be rude not to?

The players stand. Bow. And of course weapplaud.

written by Tim Atack