DIY: 2014 – Ernst Fischer ‘THE HIVE’

A social gathering of, and discursive space for, mature performance/artists, art lovers and living works of art.

Project Summary:
Approaching ‘old age’ brings new challenges and opportunities, which need to be met and explored. How does growing old(er) influence our performances? Does their content change? Do we do less work or are we frantically trying ‘to beat the clock’? Do we turn to different disciplines or formats? Are we considering other audiences than before? Does documentation of our work (and/or life) take on a more significant role? Are we thinking of ‘retirement’ from performance altogether?

To engage with questions like these, we will meet on three consecutive weekends (Saturdays and Sundays), chat, drink coffee or herbal infusions and eat cake. We will entertain one or two guests at our table, talk to people even older than us, go on bracing walks, try some gentle ways of staying fit and healthy and endeavour to ‘embody’ our age and/or our relationship to it in the form of boxes (or other containers) and their contents, which we may or may not present to a non-theatre (or gallery)-going audience on the last day of the workshop.

Dates, times and location(s):                                                                                                                   
November 8 and 9, 15 and 16 and 22 and 23, from 2 – 5 pm at Chelsea Theatre, 7 World’s End Place, King’s Road, London, SW10 0DR (to be confirmed)

Application Procedure:
Please apply by email to Ernst Fischer cc'ing Aaron Wright, stating your age, practice or profession and (in no more than 300 words) your interest in the workshop. The target age is 55+, though exceptions may be made for younger applicants, if they can advance a convincing argument for their inclusion.

Deadline, noon, Monday July 21st.

The artist:
Ernst was born (in 1954) and brought up in Munich, Germany, where he studied chemistry, social work and puppetry and – for two years – was a member of Freies Theater München. His practice, at various stages of his career has included theatre, puppetry, dance (butoh) and live art. Between 1986 and 1997 he produced some thirteen performances in his rented flat in Brixton, South London, which, on these occasions, was known as Brixton heArt Room. He wrote his PhD thesis on ‘the queer space of living-room theatre and domestic performance’ at ROEHAMPTON UNIVERSITY (2004), where he is currently employed as Creative Research Fellow. For some time now, Ernst has been concerned with issues of documentation as performance and in 2013 decided to revisit his domestic performance practice in combination with his interest in ‘archiving’. The ‘new’ space (though still in his old flat) is called D:NA (Dust: Narratives & Artefacts); unfortunately, the project’s website (dnarchive.co.uk) is still in the early stages of construction.

Contact:
Ernst Fischer

This project is part of DIY 11: 2014 and is supported by Chelsea Theatre.