Continue reading “People Of Performance Art #11: Sophie Swoffer”
Yu He Lin & Mauro Sacchi were studying at De Montfort University, Leicester when I managed to photograph them. I had seen them dance in a piece created by Yu He Lin, which was part improvised, but fluidly part of the piece. I knew I had to photograph them, seeing the way they both synchronised their creative movement, with playfulness and emotion.
They have both returned home now to Taiwan and Italy. There was something special happening while they were in the UK, and I’m privileged to attempt to capture it.
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”
Attenborough Arts, part of The University of Leicester, has a new gallery, and I was lucky enough to be asked to photograph the opening.
The late Richard Attenborough was the founding patron, who handed the patronage to his son Michael. Richard’s brother, Sir David Attenborough formally opened the new gallery.
Danni Spooner is a vegan, a feminist, a human who is currently indulging itself in the practice of movement. A gender fluid form who hates relying on politically correct terms. A plant obsessor and object empathiser. A human being who’s attention could only be satisfied by dance.
The shoot was ably assisted by Lorna Whitlock
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”
Jack Britton is a member of the arts collective Tetrad. As as a creator, he works on subjects as diverse as parkour and the paranormal, using the equally diverse mediums of dance and comedy, live art and devised theatre..
After the customary café discussion, we seemed to walk most of Leicester, experimenting with ideas, before settling in Peter Pizzeria, which proved an inspiring environment for our photos.
Continue reading “People Of Performance Art #8: Jack Britton”
Nicky Daniels comes from a theatre background, but decided to move from playing fictional characters, to expressing herself, so got herself a First Class BA Hons in Drama Studies from DMU, Leicester. She’s now pursuing an MA Arts, again at DMU.
I’ve photographed Nicky before, doing her piece ‘Nicky Daniels – Violet Persephone Marina and Me’, so knew that her visual approach would fit People of Performance Art. Although Nicky does live art, and I’m still learning the difference.
Continue reading “People Of Performance Art #7: Nicky Daniels”
Lewys Holt is a dancer & choreographer. He’s also one of the organisers of Tetrad, based in Leicester.
After an initial discussion in a café, we started by shooting in a park. Some teenagers on kids bikes cycled past, and one shouted angrily ‘Fucking queer’. Oddly, this lightened our mood for the rest of the day. I think it was the absurdness of it.
The park wasn’t working for the photos, so we decided to move indoors, where serendipity, once again, added a lot to the day.
Thank you to Two Queens for the use of the space.
It’s fascinating watching the creative process. Katherine Hall and I had finished for the day, we had talked of many subjects, but had nothing strong completed. We weren’t dispirited, though, as we would continue the following day. We parked up, to look at a potential location, and Katie stopped… staring at the road markings in a car park, it had triggered something. We quickly shot some bits, and both knew that that was what the day had been about. It unintentionally provided us with something that contained many of the themes we had discussed. Where did that come from?
Continue reading “People Of Performance Art #5: Katherine Hall”
