Interview with Amelia Beavis-Harrison
Into the Never, Never. Photo: Istvan Virag
24.08.2014
Q: Why / when / how did you start to work with performance, what is your background, how did you arrive at doing performance?
Shortly after graduating my BA in 2007 I set up a studio group with some friends in Nottingham (UK). At the same time I was working for various arts organization and ended up discovering the art collective Reactor which began in 2002 in Nottingham. After years of development Reactor, which ironically also started as a studio group, had crafted an immersive performance practice that used the audience as players within the work. With another member of the studio group we began to develop projects highly influenced by Reactor and created the performance duo Exit Here using the same name as the studio group. Over time the studio group and performance collective developed separate identities and after two years of performances Exit Here separated. At the time I was feeling insecure about my own artistic practice and Exit Here inspired by Reactor was the start of my own performance trajectory. The next five years after Exit Here I spent time curating live art projects and working more with performance, founding the commissioning organization Lincoln Art Programme in 2009.
www.reactor.org.uk
www.lincolnartprogramme.co.uk
Q: What is your process like when you make a performance, from idea to actual work?
My work is for the majority rooted in an investigation into historical events, which means any art work begins in a period of research which could be reading court records or tracing historical maps. After gathering a body of information I then begin to turn the information into a visual translation, building up layers of context. Somewhere between the research and the performance things slide into place and I end up with sketches of costumes, installations, props which then need to be made. The choreography of the performance also often remains in sketches until the final moments, sometimes without rehearsal the performance happens and it is in these precarious moments of sketches turning into reality that the real performance is born.
Q: Can you talk about your latest project?
For the past twelve months I have been working with the Finnmark witch trials in Northern Norway, where 91 people lost their lives. I had previously touched upon the European witch trials in the 16th and 17th century through a piece in 2012 where I looked at the trial of priest Urbain Grandier in France. Moving to Norway I was keen to find out what Norway’s history with witchcraft was. Within the past twelve months I have made three pieces consumed within this subject and looking at particular cases that relate to the court records which have recently been published. I am making a fourth performance for the Festspillene i Nord-Norge next June which will look at one of the final trials where young children were accused of witchcraft and testified against others in a sequence of chain reaction examinations and executions. This subject area has become a passion for me, looking at human suffering and miscarriage of justice, parallels which I feel can be drawn alongside today’s society through contemporary witch hunts.
Q: What role does performance art have in your life / artistic praxis. Do you also work within other fields, like installation, sculpture, drawing, other expressions. How do they influence / inform each other?
I consider my whole practice to be an expanded form of performance, but it can really vary from highly theatrical work to subtle interventions. These two parallels often follow two particular areas of interest that I have, firstly as I mentioned earlier the translation of historical situations, and secondly an interest in costume and the transformation of the individual through the wearing of a garment. I have become quite interested in contemporary object theatre, which traditionally started as puppetry where the human performer is replaced by an object. Today object theatre is much more open and researchers Dr Daniel Watt and Sean Myatt recently created a research group to explore the potentiality of object theatre today. My interest in this area is in exploring the performance value of objects, particularly in my costume work where I see the costume as performing and the body underneath as a puppet for the costume.
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Q: Why / when / how did you start to work with performance, what is your background, how did you arrive at doing performance?
Shortly after graduating my BA in 2007 I set up a studio group with some friends in Nottingham (UK). At the same time I was working for various arts organization and ended up discovering the art collective Reactor which began in 2002 in Nottingham. After years of development Reactor, which ironically also started as a studio group, had crafted an immersive performance practice that used the audience as players within the work. With another member of the studio group we began to develop projects highly influenced by Reactor and created the performance duo Exit Here using the same name as the studio group. Over time the studio group and performance collective developed separate identities and after two years of performances Exit Here separated. At the time I was feeling insecure about my own artistic practice and Exit Here inspired by Reactor was the start of my own performance trajectory. The next five years after Exit Here I spent time curating live art projects and working more with performance, founding the commissioning organization Lincoln Art Programme in 2009.
www.reactor.org.uk
www.lincolnartprogramme.co.uk
Q: What is your process like when you make a performance, from idea to actual work?
My work is for the majority rooted in an investigation into historical events, which means any art work begins in a period of research which could be reading court records or tracing historical maps. After gathering a body of information I then begin to turn the information into a visual translation, building up layers of context. Somewhere between the research and the performance things slide into place and I end up with sketches of costumes, installations, props which then need to be made. The choreography of the performance also often remains in sketches until the final moments, sometimes without rehearsal the performance happens and it is in these precarious moments of sketches turning into reality that the real performance is born.
Q: Can you talk about your latest project?
For the past twelve months I have been working with the Finnmark witch trials in Northern Norway, where 91 people lost their lives. I had previously touched upon the European witch trials in the 16th and 17th century through a piece in 2012 where I looked at the trial of priest Urbain Grandier in France. Moving to Norway I was keen to find out what Norway’s history with witchcraft was. Within the past twelve months I have made three pieces consumed within this subject and looking at particular cases that relate to the court records which have recently been published. I am making a fourth performance for the Festspillene i Nord-Norge next June which will look at one of the final trials where young children were accused of witchcraft and testified against others in a sequence of chain reaction examinations and executions. This subject area has become a passion for me, looking at human suffering and miscarriage of justice, parallels which I feel can be drawn alongside today’s society through contemporary witch hunts.
Q: What role does performance art have in your life / artistic praxis. Do you also work within other fields, like installation, sculpture, drawing, other expressions. How do they influence / inform each other?
I consider my whole practice to be an expanded form of performance, but it can really vary from highly theatrical work to subtle interventions. These two parallels often follow two particular areas of interest that I have, firstly as I mentioned earlier the translation of historical situations, and secondly an interest in costume and the transformation of the individual through the wearing of a garment. I have become quite interested in contemporary object theatre, which traditionally started as puppetry where the human performer is replaced by an object. Today object theatre is much more open and researchers Dr Daniel Watt and Sean Myatt recently created a research group to explore the potentiality of object theatre today. My interest in this area is in exploring the performance value of objects, particularly in my costume work where I see the costume as performing and the body underneath as a puppet for the costume.
<< Back