Fem Fresh – Feminism, Age and Live Art

Queen Mary, University of London and the Live Art Development Agency present

Fem Fresh – Feminism, Age and Live Art 

Sunday 8 June 2014
2pm to 7pm
£5, call 020 7882 2851 to book tickets

A day of intergenerational performance and dialogue featuring Fresh, an emerging artist performance platform and Art Tips For Girls, invited presentations on, about, and around feminism and age in Live Art.

With performances by Liz Aggiss, Chloe Alfred, Feminist Women’s Institute, New Noveta, Hannah Stephens, Priya Saujani & Kate Spence, Emily Underwood-Lee, and Jess Williams.

With presentations by Oreet Ashery, Anne Bean, Bobby Baker, Tania El Khoury, and Marcia Farquhar.

Performance and artists details

– please note that the running order of performances will be revealed on the day:

Liz Aggiss / Cut with Kitchen Knife: a bit of slap and tickle

An all talking all dancing all singing scrapbook and disorientating display of composite contradictions and varied interpretations on the aging female solo performing body. 

For the past 35 years Liz Aggiss has been refining and delivering her signature style in ad hoc locations around the globe; from her early days in the 80’s supporting punk legends The Stranglers with her cabaret troupe The Wild Wigglers, to her cross art form performance The English Channel (2014).

Chloé Alfred / Double Take

What would happen if the heroine of Vertigo re-stages her own version of Hitchcock’s movie? By becoming director, producer and actress in her own movie, Judy gives a Double Take on Vertigo and takes back control of her life.

Chloé Alfred is a French emerging artist and MA student of Theatre and Performance at Queen Mary University. Her performances purposely objectify the female body in order to denunciate this very same objectification.

The Feminist Women’s Institute / Everyday Nakedness

Why has female nudity become so sexualised? – Everyday Nakedness turns this question on it’s head by presenting passing audience members with women, in a state of undress, as they carry out a variety of everyday tasks. You can join in if you like!

The Feminist Women’s Institute is a new collective, which aims to explore current issues related to Feminist discourse through interdisciplinary and experimental performance.

New Noveta / Jet femme Dovolena

A piece exploring repetitive ritual, within a framework of noise and projected through a semi constructed physical structure. Through this piece New Noveta will attempt to challenge boundaries and expectations of the female working body.

New Noveta is a collaborative project between Ellen Freed and Keira Fox. Their performances are multidisciplinary, combining sound production, prop and costume making, installation building and live body action/dance

Hannah Stephens / The Meister & The Melonheads

A short exploration of the artist’s bewilderment about modern feminism and ideas of what she should become. It should offer no real representation of the right way to be or the ‘good’ woman but offer an alternative view on contemporary feminism bashed up against the honest truth of Hannah’s own views.

Hannah Stephens (Steve – girl-band meister) is an artist making out-of-the-ordinary interventions, creative encounters and joke scenarios. She has just finished the Drama BA at Queen Mary University, London.

Priya Saujani and Kate Spence / From Visions

Welcome to the temple of the Goddess and the Whore. Join the congregation. There will be rites of passage, meetings with the Goddess in an exchange of the ultimate height of love. As either participant or onlooker we welcome you.

Priya Saujani and Kate Spence are two live artists working with the alter feminine as a way of integrating feminine sexuality into powerful works, that confront the audience with their own perceptions, projections, fears and desires.

Emily Underwood-Lee / Titillation Grade 3

A humorous look at the post-operative body and who and what can be revealed after breast cancer. Warning, this performance will feature dancing breasts, prosthesis puppetry, sparkly scars, surgical imagery, gratuitous nudity and lots of jelly. Choreography by Kylie Ann Smith, Film by Sean Tuan John

Emily Underwood-Lee is a performer and academic based in South Wales.  She creates autobiographical work and is principally concerned with the construction of gender and how the female body can be presented and represented in performance.  

Jess Williams / Woman With Salad

This performance tries to question some of the tropes and complex visual assemblages associated with contemporary women and the internet. The work slows down time allowing a minimal accumulation of images and movements on stage.

Jess Williams makes work that teeters on the edges of dance and live art. Playful and probing. Complex and simple. She makes live work in a digital world. She makes live work to question the digital world. Jess throws up glitter in the name of feminism…

Fem Fresh is supported by the Centre for Public Engagement at Queen Mary and is part of Peopling The Palace(s) Festival. 

Details of past Fresh and EEC events.