We Live Here invites a selection of Bristol’s exemplary live artists to create works at Arnolfini. Here a few respond to the very particular context of Inbetween Time and its audiences via brave explorations of Arnolfini’s nooks and crannies and the very inbetweenity of a festival experience.
Please note, performances marked !! contain adult themes or imagery. Parents/guardians should exercise caution when taking under 16s along.
This work-in-progress continues Bodies in Flight’s exploration of the power of the image: Gabriel confronting Mary in the Annunciation, that face-to-face encounter through which all performance and thence all living is articulated. It emerges out of the company’s opera collaboration with the band Angel Tech - Who By Fire – and prefigures its new work with three visual artists – an animator, a painter and a photographer. Using both live camera and music, two performers dwell in the instant of mutual recognition when-where that singular face appears out of the crowd and life is never the same again. Duration 30 mins
Trained by a TV make-up artist, Uninvited Guests lovingly fabricate bloody wounds on each other’s bodies. Over 6 hours these fake cuts multiply and proliferate across their skin. Performers become surfaces marked by real and on-screen violence, both a living memorial and a warning of what might be to come. The audience shares in the intimate eroticism of wounds, getting up close and personal, confronting your desire both to look and look away. The live soundtrack is produced by sampling the performers’ internal body sounds. This is the durational sequel to Schlock, which toured nationally in 2004-5.
Prank calls, long goodbyes and home truths all form part of The Special Guests’ “the telephone game.” This is a slippery sport of fictional phone calls in which the audience should get ready for foul play and fair play which divides the fibbers from the fools. Some dutifully follow instructions whilst others deliberately loosen the screws. A concept originally touched on in This Much I Know (Part One), witness the colour drain when stretched out to four hours. …
For this new durational performance The Special Guests will be working with sound artist Tom Bugs (www.bugbrand.co.uk).
