Laura Ryder is a performance artist and dancer from Derby. I met here originally as she is an enthusiastic performance goer, so I often saw her at Derby Theatre. She is currently developing The Bee Project, which has just got Arts Council funding, so I thought she would be ideal for PoPA .
We started our talks in the cafe at Quad, Derby, and the subject of ecology kept arising. That led us to the parks of Derby.
Continue reading “People Of Performance Art #17: Laura Ryder”
is half of the artistic collective Tin Can People, based in Preston, who’s shows I’ve seen on several occasions. There’s something about Tin Can People that I instantly connected with, a simplicity of visuals, and dramatic text. We decided to do our PoPA somewhere neither of us knew very well, and we picked Sheffield.
The use of a pub or so was decided fairly early on, so we had a nice trip out to The Fat Cat & The Riverside.
Continue reading “People Of Performance Art #16: Rob Gregson”
Charlotte Louise Berry is half of the artistic collective Tin Can People, based in Preston, who’s shows I’ve seen on several occasions. For our PoPA, we decided to meet somewhere in between, in Hayfield, Derbyshire where we found Millie’s Tearoom & Chocolatier to talk in.
Our conversation was far reaching, but we didn’t settle on a subject, so we went for a walk round the village. It was on the walk that Charlotte pointed to the mist covered hills, and said “I don’t know what we’re doing, but I want to do it there”. And, so we did.
Continue reading “People Of Performance Art #15: Charlotte Louise Berry”
I saw Matt Smith’s piece “Splintered” which he created with Meg Ullah. It impressed me with it’s simplicity and power. It’s mixture of the personal and impersonal and tempting failure. So I knew he would be a good subject for PoPA.
I returned a couple of days later. It had all disappeared, but you could tell where the flour had been, as there were patches, covered in snail trails.
Continue reading “People Of Performance Art #14: Matt Smith”
Kirsty Mealing does a lot of acting, and she’s artistic director of Scufflebox Theatre Co, but she’s also a performance artist, which is why I thought she would be an ideal subject for PoPA. Her performance often features existential humans in imaginary universes.
After endless tea, we found the ideal shoot locations within a few hundred yards of each other. Kirsty’s local knowledge led us to exactly what we were looking for.
First, a portrait.
Continue reading “People Of Performance Art #13: Kirsty Mealing”
Ollie Smith is an artist, performer and theatre-maker, who makes contemporary performance work, on his own, and sometimes with others.
With Olwen Davies he’s one half of the creative partnership of LaPelle’s Factory.
Continue reading “People Of Performance Art #12: Ollie Smith”
Tetrad is an artist collective, who put on Us & Them, every so often at Attenborough Arts in Leicester, and I am lucky enough to photograph it. Us & Them can include performance art, dance, live art, spoken word, and a few other things. There is also a Tetralude, where the collective & performers improvise on a theme.
The Tetrad Collective:
Continue reading “People Of Performance Art #11: Sophie Swoffer”
Dan Nicholas is better known as a comedian, but he also has a bit of performance art in his blood. He’s a theatre maker/ writer/ creative producer as well as a member of the arts collective Tetrad.
One thing you notice about Dan, is, he likes to explore. Finding new ways to present comedy, and mixing his various mediums. That’s why I thought Dan would make an interesting subject for PoPA
Continue reading “People Of Performance Art #10: Dan Nicholas”
Amy Nicholson is a puppeteer, musician and set designer for film and theatre. She also creates wonderful kids interactive theatre with Handmade Theatre.
I don’t usually write about the subjects that we are trying to convey in PoPA, but this one was a bit different. Amy wanted to try some surrealist poetry, and use that to give us the themes for the day. So we sat in Lee Rosy’s, drinking unusual teas, with odd names, and created weird poetry.
One of the phrases that came up was ‘ping pong ball’. That gave us our location for the day, as Das Kino, with it’s ping pong tables, seemed to be an obvious choice, and they kindly let us photograph the whole shoot there.
Here’s Amy with some of the poetry we created:
Continue reading “People Of Performance Art #9: Amy Nicholson”
