#xavier de sousa

[xavierdesousaofficial]

Slow Cooking Live

Food-sharing is an act deeply connected to our ideas of home, nourishment and community.

Slow Cooking Live are two special ‘An Evening with…’ style live events, with home-made food sharing and conversations with artists Selina Thompson and Toni-Dee Paul (Fri 14th) and Sonia Sandhu (Sat 15th).

Hosted by Xavier de Sousa and video work directed by Richard Warburton, SCL is a live podcast-video art experiment, inviting artists who have a history of migration and also work with food-making and food-sharing as creative tools. Together, they will spend the day buying food from local markets and independent shops, cook together and then travel to Theatre in the Mill to share it all with you.

Cooking recipes that are relevant to the guests’ own creative practices (or their favourite foods), Selina, Toni-Dee and Sonia discuss the origins of the food, the impact on their communities and how they have incorporated it into their creative practices.

These events will were broadcasted live on HowlRound Theatre Commons website, and you can watch the post-live stream here: https://howlround.com/happenings/slow-cooking-live

The events were recorded as part of the Slow Cooking project, which will be fully edited and released as a 5-part series of video and sound art works on the performingborders platform.

Art work by Anna Corfa.

Slow Cooking Live is commissioned by Theatre in the Mill and performingborders. Broadcast by HowlRound Theatre Commons, and live captions by National Captions Institute. Produced by Lee Smith with support from The Uncultured, and Project Managed by Lydia Tissier. Sound art by Olive Mondegreen

[producergathering]

Producer Gathering returns to Edinburgh Fringe

VENUE: The Traverse Café,

TIMES: Monday 7th & 14th August, 13:00pm- 15:00pm

FREE EVENTS - BOOK HERE

Sally Rose and Xavier de Sousa return to host two Producer Gatherings at The Traverse cafe during Edinburgh Fringe. This year they are joined by producers Emma Beverley and Jen Smethurst who are both producing shows that are part of the Edinburgh Fringe programme this year:

Selina Thompson - Salt, Northern Stage, 2.30pm

Katy Baird - Workshy, Summerhall, 9.10pm

Louise Orwin - A Girl and A Gun, Summerhall, 6pm

Sh!t Theatre - DollyWould, Summerhall, 9:15pm

The Gatherings

Following on from discussions during Edinburgh Fringe 2016, and in London as part of The Sick of the Fringe festival in 2017, these conversations will provide a welcoming chance to meet other producers and artists and to share ideas around working sustainably and accessibility - particularly within the fringe context. There will also be time to reflect on strategies for a successful fringe, and to take some time out to think beyond the fringe.

As per PG tradition, Bloody Marys and Virgin Marys will be provided for free.

These sessions will be led by:

Sally Rose and Emma Beverley - 7th August

Emma Beverley: Executive Producer - Eclipse, Producer - Selina Thompson and Katy Baird, Programme Team - Leeds 2023 @ProducerBev  

Sally Rose: Producer - Sheila Ghelani, Rosana Cade, Vincent Gambini, Abigail Conway, Eugenie Pastor, Christopher Green - Prurience, Xavier de Sousa - POST, Dickie Beau - LOST in TRANS-, also working with Duckie & Kayza Rose. @sallychar 

Xavier de Sousa and Jen Smethurst - 14th August

Jen Smethurst: General Manager - Sh!t Theatre, and Producer - Louise Orwin, Annie Siddons @JenSmethurst

Xavier de Sousa: Chris Goode & Company, Ideal Foreigner Productions, Blank Billboard CIC @xavinisms

Producer Gathering is presented in Edinburgh in collaboration with The Sick of The Fringe 2017, The Traverse Theatre and Edinburgh Fringe

[thereisnogodwin]

YOUR BRAIN ON DRUGS / Synth Trap (Feat. Xavier De Sousa)

[xavinisms]

Thoughts on BUZZCUT

(Or the ridiculouslywarm feeling of an extended welcoming hug)

There are some people who make awesome art, thoughtful art, art that is intricate, delicate, welcoming, boundary-pushing and, above all, concerned with you, with me, and with the way we interact with the world around us.

That world can be the person sat next to you, the ever so present and dystopian-like overuse of mass surveillance, or the way we kiss one another. It can also be the grass you step on, the milk you drink from your mothers breast, or the incessant exploration of the self and their friends.

 I spent a week at BUZZCUT and it is an experience that I will not easily forget.

 In a world that is more and more demanding of box-ticking bullshit, of financial worries and over-bearing punishments of a crippling and antiquated capitalist structure, the advantages of spending time and working at a festival like BUZZCUT go way beyond the exposure provided (for free) to your work as an artist and producer.

 Sure, you will have heavy presence of the live art and theatre industries there. You will have delegates from the British Council, the Arts Council, the Month of Performance Art (Berlin), amongst others. You will also have fucking excellent artists from all over the world that know how to explore their craft more effortlessly than I know how to boil potatoes (and I pride myself in my cooking skills!).

 But the benefits go way beyond the future engagements with your work.

 Imagine this:

 You have been away from home for a long time. You miss your bed. You miss your parents/your flatmate/your partner (whatever your situation is). You miss the smells of your room. You miss your dog/cat. You miss your mates you grew up with. Life has not been easy in the past few months and GOD DAMN you need some comfort and good food to make you feel like a human being again.

 And just before your train arrives at its destination, you start going through everything in your head – Did I forget anything? Did I forget the presents? What’s the name of that distant cousin who is going to have dinner with us again? How will I tell my parents that perhaps I have not be as much of an adult  as I could be? How will I justify my lifestyle choices? How will I let them know that I will be ok? Will I be ok? Have I made the right career choices?! How will I face family dinner with the whole family asking me condescendingly how tough it is to be an artist, specially since they haven’t seen me on TV yet?!

 Well, the feeling of being at BUZZCUT is a 6-day long version of the warm embrace your mum gives you when she picks you up at the station.

That embrace that tells you ‘It’s ok. Everything will be ok now. ‘

 On top of that, it is also an embrace that says ‘Here you can be yourself, you can do whatever you want and you are welcomed for it. And remember to respect others so they do the same.’

 And as if that wasn’t enough, that embrace then shows that here is a place of action, a place of experimentation, a place of trying and succeeding but also of trying and failing. And that it is ok, they have your back. Your mates and colleagues have your back. And the handsome strangers that come through the door to see you also have your back.

 There is a strong focus on work in progress work, durational pieces and live art.

It is hard to imagine a better context for a piece of work in development to be shown and embraced in the way it is at this festival.

 Live art, with all its radicalness, seems to be perfectly at home here amongst the more stage-ready pieces. Helen Borrough and Philip Bedwell’s extremely beautiful and delicate Union seemed right at place on the Mary Barbour stage, with their shadows (a consequence of stage lighting and end on staging) providing a sense of extra visual depth, as if the bodies on the wall were providing a complimentary story to the one on stage.

 Nicola Canavan’s fascinating Milk was presented right in the middle of the main hall, on Friday night when most visitors were in and out of the theatre and some already a very alcohol fuelled banter. It could have easily get lost in the middle of the crowds and in between shows. But it didn’t. If anything, it seemed to provide a much needed moment of calmness, stillness and colour, allowing for the delicate elements of the mother/fem provider to shine and highlight the power of woman in a crowded and rowdy room.  

 There is also a big focus on community engagement and action. jamie lewis hadley’s Blood on The Streets played in a barber shop in Partick (apparently, a difficult part of Glasgow) to great effect. I know I am bias (I produce the show) but we had some of the best interactions  and reactions from local people ever since we embarked on this two-year long tour. There was a man from Saudi Arabia who was fascinated about the piece and whom I ended up chatting about how blood letting is still used in his country as a medical and religious practice. There was the local elderly woman who first asked what the fuck was going on but then stayed for the whole duration of the piece. There was the group of friends from the barber (also regular customers) who were just happy to be witnessing something new happening in their usual barber shop. And there was also the two massive fire brigade vehicles that stopped and watched as much as they could, intrigued by the random event on their street.

 I walked through the streets of Govan, behind Kris Canavan, as if I was following a procession led by a mad priest, with his mouth wide open and dangling ice cubes hanging from his pierced tongue. The piece, Dirge, was watched with amazement by some locals as we walked past. Others proceeded to say, often between their teeth, things like ‘eeewww’, ‘that’s disgusting’ or ‘that’s not right’. But such a visceral and well timed/paced piece often encounters strong reactions. And strong reactions are often long lasting, which is the point right?

 A lot of times, the festival asks you to consider your relationship to the natural and social elements around you. And it does so by focusing on the very land that it stands on, as a way to provide a platform for political discourse. There were the public and passer-by soap-box style interactions with Edward Crawley’s Who Owns This?, the extremely beautiful An Clutha: Change Rings Out by Nic Green and we all marched with soil covered in breast milk to return Nicola Canavan’s ‘birth place’ back to nature. The embodiment of mother earth, in all its’ might, in Between The Earth and her Skin.

 FK Alexander and Thomas John Bacon’s 1<4: Fire was so fucking wrenching that not only you could smell the burned remains all through the night, but the imagery is something that I will not forget anytime soon. Two human beings throwing themselves literally on a path of destruction and fire for their own survival (emotional, physical, natural, urgent and world-wide survival) had us all talking about the limited capacity of human strength, revealing the human body and mind as completely unadjusted to their natural environments. Sure, we are not always surrounded by fire. But we are surrounded by Nature. And against it, we are but mere playing pawns in a game of chess.

 But I will say this: it is a true testament to the cleverness and thoughtfulness of a festival, to have such different pieces such as Jamie McMurry’s visceral Soiled, Louise Orwin’s excellent A Girl And A Gun, Ira Brand’s intimate and delicate Be Gentle With Me and peaking into Joe Wild’s sex life (and ultimately studying his persona) in the seriously beautiful The Joe Wild Sex Tapes, all playing together, back to back, with space to breathe and to exist.

 There was even time for more FUN pieces, including the politically incorrect but ultimately poignant Eggs Collective Get a Round by those northern nutters Eggs Collective; The reflections on hook-up culture of Laurie Brown’s excellent The Daily Grind (still in work in progress mode, but already with a lot of – very sexy – legs); and who can forget the closing number of the festival with Sh!t Theatre’s WOMAN’S HOUR providing the perfect finale, rounding up the political, the fun, the questioning and the ‘no balls on the wall please, we talk shit but we mean it’ attitude.

We even had time to gather, although slightly hungover, around the living room area of the main space, and debate the adventures and tribulations of what it means to be an independent producer working with independent artists. It was mine and Sally Rose’s first public meeting in this capacity and we couldn’t be happier with the results. People came, people debated, people drank bloody mary’s and ate cookies. And new connections were made, new points were raised, new questions were debated. 

 There were many more moments and shows, of course, that I could expand on here, but I would be here all day and by this point I would be surprised if anyone is even reading this anymore.

Thank you Rosana and Nick for an amazing experience, you make us feel like proper human beings and I am glad I have you in my life. 

Thank you as well to all the volunteers and workers of the festival (including the amazing Becki Gerrard who fucking rocks!). I hope you have some well deserved rest and good night sleeps now. 

And to all the people who hosted artists in their houses – you are the world and you are the best. It is not every day that we get to stay in the comfort of homes as welcoming as those provided by yourselves. My host, Angie Dight, was such a star we ended up dancing and chatting throughout the final two nights of the festival! SO much love to you, you beautiful woman/mother/human/all of the previous titles.

We will all see you next year, for sure. And I personally can’t wait for that.

 Xav x

[needlessalleycollective]

We at Needless Alley are extremely happy and proud to present this delicate thing we are been working on with the very lovely girls of Oxjam Dalston and the camp fest that is Vogue Fabrics WHO THE FUCK IS ALICE | Friday 27th September | 7.30pm Curated by Needless Alley for Oxjam Dalston, in aid of OXFAM A gratuitous night of music and performance art. Based on our endless love (or hate) of pop music, we invite you to head down to Vogue Fabrics on 27 September to escape from your worldly woes into our decadent new world. The evening will be packed with performances, including some very special previews of new shows (from Louise Orwin and Foxy & Husk), collaborations (from Samuel and $hift$) and special DJ spots from the artists themselves. Live performances from: Foxy & Husk | Louise Orwin | Holestar | Samuel Kennedy | $hift$ | + SPECIAL GUEST DJ Jonathan Kemp Tickets for the show are £7 - and will give you free admission into the club night that follows. Club only - £5 All ticket sales + 50% of booking fee will go towards OXFAM TICKETS HERE: http://www.wegottickets.com/event/233923 For more information, and to keep up to date with info, do join the facebook event for this special evening: Who The Fuck is Alice? Facebook Page

[xavierdesousaofficial]

What Becomes…

When you move somewhere, is the onus on you to adapt or others?and what becomes of us, over time over all these changing landscapes? 

What Becomes… is a new multidisciplinary exhibition by Xavier de Sousa that explores and exposes processes of adaptation that us migrants go through when moving to a new place, to a new community. 

Created in collaboration with members of the local Peterborough community, the project looks into how we change (in our souls, in our behaviour, in our language, in our bodies) as a result of co-existing in a new place, in a new culture. 

Blending pottery work, performance, writing and sound art, What Becomes… invites the audience to immerse themselves, experience and also contribute stories of adaptation processes. 

What Becomes…. is Xavier de Sousa’s first exhibition and continuing the collaboration with the communities of migrants and people seeking asylum based in Peterborough and Leeds, which started during their performance project REGNANT (2021). This new art experiment advances the collective-narrative approaches of that project and re-purposes all the clay work created for it, giving them new lives, in new contexts. 

6th - 29th of June Thursdays to Saturdays only Westgate Arcade, Queensgate Shopping Centre, 27 Westgate, Peterborough, PE1 1PY

Access information, including Easy Read Guides, can be found on the METAL Peterborough website here: https://metalculture.com/whats-on/what-becomes-by-xavier-de-sousa/

Credits: Created by Xavier de Sousa Sound work by Nicol Parkinson

With participation by Judita Gru, Madhu Manipatruni, Roshannak and Siamak Rezaei, and other members of the local migrant communities and people seeking asylum of Leeds and Peterborough.

Hosted by Xavier de Sousa, Sean Dendere, Jasmine Kelly-Gobuiwang & Fiona Cifaldi

Materials exhibited include art works, objects and designs created for REGNANT (2021) by Hannah Sibai, Lydia Tissier and Emmy Lahouel. Instalation tech and support by Stuart Payn

Produced by Lee Smith Strategic Producing by The Uncultured

Commissioned and hosted by METAL Peterborough, with support from East Street Arts Graphic design by Paper Rhino. Main pictures: stills from REGNANT: A short film by Sable Studio.

Special thank yous to Ruth Campbell, Jack Wilkin, Sarah Steenhorst, Daniel Pinheiro and Mark Richards.

Funded by Necessity Fund, Migrant Artists Projects CIC and using public funding by Arts Council England

[xavierdesousaofficial]

performingborders e-Journal #2 Rallying The Commons

Curator, Producer

Rallying the Commons is here – we couldn’t be more excited to share our second e-journal! 

READ the e-journal HERE

The performingborders e-journal is a space to reflect on borders, live art, community, and resistance. Centering embodied knowledge and artists’ imagination as a space of knowledge production, the e-journal is a site to nourish and connect thinking and working practices. The theme of this year’s journal: Rallying the Commons stems from the process of rallying together, of commoning and communing, for the creation of something better and the maintenance of other ways of being. It is a movement away from disembodied discourse towards actions and gestures that let us consider what we can do when we harness our resources, time, bodies, and care, to collectivize them. 

In the e-journal, you’ll find contributions from artists and activists working across cultural and political spaces. We are excited to share sonic listening rituals by Ximena Alarcón-Díaz and Sheila Ghelani’s tender reflections on care in the art sector. Helena Walsh reflects on the role of feminist organising and art activist groups within an Irish context. Harun Morrison shares his collaboration with horticulturist Antonia Couling and their work The Anchor, The Drum, The Ship.Elif Sarican and Dilar Dirik write on hevaltî- revolutionary friendship reflecting  on the Kurdish Women’s Movement. Lara Khaldi from The Question of Funding  shares with us community-centered funding models and the use of Dayra within their project in Palestine. And we close with a Budget Commission by Jack Ky Tan who has been reflecting with us on  budgets, value systems and thinking beyond numbers. We hope that within these words, sounds, images, and gestures you find echoes of resistance that allow us to continue the necessary work of imagining other worlds. 

performingborders e-Journal #2 Rallying The Commons

Curated and Edited by Xavier de Sousa, Anahí Saravia Herrera and Alessandra Cianetti. Designed by Rodrigo Nava Ramírez Social Media and Design support: Anna Corfa

Thank you to our friends at the Necessity Fund and to Arts Council England for supporting this work.

[xavierdesousaofficial]

Rocio Boliver - Sweet 60th

Performer

With her recent body of work ‘Between Menopause and Old Age’ Rocio Boliver has created her own deranged aesthetic and moral solutions for the “problem of age”  exposing a broken society based on looks which has seen old age became synonymous with insult. Join Rocio to celebrate her Sweet 60th Birthday at this Birthday party of a life time.

Rocio Boliver’s practice is a sharp and focused critique of the many repressive ideologies that burden the lives of women. “In this pasteurized society, I prefer to cause disgust, hatred, rejection, confusion, weariness, anxiety, hostility, fear … to further promote mental asepsis.”

UK PREMIERE

FIERCE Festival Friday 20th October 2017

[xavierdesousaofficial]

performingborders | LIVE | Feb - June 2019

Curated and produced by Xavier de Sousa and Alessandra Cianetti

performingborders | LIVE aims at gathering live artists, curators and producers whose practice has been committed in working on, across, and against borders to invite one artist of their choice for a series of public open conversation events held in England.

Curated and produced by Alessandra Cianetti and Xavier de Sousa, performingborders | LIVE aims at exploring live events as a way to broadening the number of artists, art professionals, activists and general public involved in the online performingborders platform. The project creates a series of live events and new commissions to encounter the UK-based audience, its urges and perspectives while making sure those discourses feed into the international sociopolitical and artistic discourses.

All events are free and open to everyone, from all backgrounds.

LIVE EVENTS

6th February 2019 | Contact | Manchester (link) Artist Nima Séne & Curator Tuna Erdem - Istanbul Queer Arts Collective interview + open conversation as part of Queer Contact

19th Mar 2019 | Attenborough Centre for the Creative Arts | Brighton (link) A performative reading by Nobel Peace Prize photographer and artist Sim Chi Yin, who will be in conversation with curator Annie Jael Kwan from Something Human and Asia-Art-Activism.

April 2019 | Toynbee Studios | London A conversation between interdisciplinary artist Anti-Cool and curators osborn&møller (UK/Denmark). The evening is curated by osborn&møller in collaboration with Artsadmin as part of performingborders | LIVE. More information coming soon.

22 June 2019 | Live Art Development Agency | London Join performingborders | LIVE final event, Curating Borderless Spaces. A day of talks, conversations, actions, sharing at/across/against borders. The event will be the London premiere of the new performingborders | LIVE  performance to camera commissions by Istanbul Queer Art Collective and Tara Fatehi Irani & will present the two selected digital conversations on Live Art and borders. Artist and writer Season Butler will respond live to the event’s contributions, with the outcomes being shared on our website.

WORKSHOPS

21st March 2019 | Attenborough Centre for the Arts |  Brighton 6th July 2019 | Depford Lounge | London (tickets)

In the Embodied Social Change workshop by Camille Barton, dance, somatics and mindfulness are used to explore how oppression is rooted in the body and how we can shift its hold on our lives using mindful attention and movement. The work is intended to generate new approaches to activism that focus on the body, as well as the mind. After all, systems of power and oppression are reproduced by our bodies on a daily basis.

INTERNATIONAL PRESENTATION

May 2019 - Beyond the Wall / Más Allá del Muro Festival, Nogales, Mexico/US Exhibition + screenings of new commissions + UK-based live interviews screenings

Each event will be recorded and shared on the performingborders platform and at the Beyond the Wall binational Festival in Nogales (Mexico/US) for international audiences to connect with UK-based artists and art professionals’ work and critical thinking.

To bring the discussion further, 2 original performance to camera commissions will be produced and shown at the project final event in the UK, at the Beyond the Wall binational Festival in Nogales (Mexico/US), and also screened freely online and at other selected events.

CREDITATION

performingborders | LIVE is a programme of events and new commissions focusing on the exploration of artistic practices happening within the UK live art sector around notions of cultural, juridical, racial, gendered, class, physical and everyday borders. Curated by Alessandra Cianetti and Xavier de Sousa.

Presented by performingborders and Foreign Actions Productions in collaboration with Live Art Development Agency (London, UK), Contact Theatre (Manchester, UK), Attenborough Centre for the Creative Arts (Brighton, UK), Artsadmin (London, UK), Deptford Lounge (London, UK), and Beyond the Wall/Más Allá del Mur Festival (Nogales, US/Mexico). Supported by the Arts Council England.

performingborders.live

[xavierdesousaofficial]

REGNANT

In the on-going discourses around borders and identities, who gets a seat at the table?

REGNANT is a play in four acts - national identity, cultural borders, migration and the future - developed live with the audience.

A living room with a table at the centre. Six seats. A warmly lit room. Plenty of food, plenty of drinks. Special guests. A soundtrack composed live just for you. You. Friends. We want you to feel comfortable and well fed because today we will put the world to rights. Together.

Part theatre show, part dinner party, REGNANT is a new durational piece inviting you to join your host, performance maker Xavier de Sousa at the dinner table and get shit done. Together, we will get merry, make friends and explore nationality, presence, privilege and what the fuck we are going to do about our future.

REGNANT had it’s first outing at Live Collision Festival 2018, Dublin, and is currently in development, to premiere and tour in 2019.

Conception and performance: Xavier de Sousa

Sound Design: Yas Clarke

Dramaturgy: Deborah Pearson

Research Associate and co-collaborator: Andre Neely

Outside eye: Lewis Church

Developed with Live Collision Festival, Abbey Theatre - National Theatre of Ireland, Project Arts Centre (IR), mala voadora.porto (Portugal), Marlborough Theatre & The Spire (UK)

Supported by Arts Council England

[xavierdesousaofficial]

Nicola Hunter’s Lost Bodies on Tour

2016 TOUR DATES 24th July, Tempting Failure Festival, London 5th October, Live Art Bistro, Leeds 2017 TOUR DATES

15th February, Colchester Arts Centre 17th May, Norwich Arts Centre 3rd June, Jacob’s Wells Baths, Bristol 7th July, Artsadmin, London 23rd September, Marlborough Theatre, Brighton

For tour bookings and enquiries: xavdesousa@gmail.com

The painful beauty of the always inexplicable manifestation of being alive. Incident Magazine Her body transpired into the darkness that day. Her last breath grew wings: pulling the soul from beneath her bones to the next life. Grief births a visceral journey, which swells and tears the skin, spitting you out onto barren lands. There was death and it took me with it. The first few breaths of a new life, with a new voice, in new flesh. In ‘Lost Bodies’ live artist Nicola Hunter returns to performance to celebrate loss as a strengthening process, a metamorphosis and a return to the wild. Conceived and performed by Nicola Hunter Performed with Alison Brierley Sound design by Sarah Glass Lighting Design by Joseph Mercier Stage Design by Ant Macari Produced by Xavier de Sousa

[xavierdesousaofficial]

CURRENT PROJECT: code bend time by Evangelia Kolyra

Location: Lace Market Gallery, 25 Stoney Street, Nottingham NG1 1LP

Link: http://dance4.co.uk/nottdance/project/nottdance-2017/event/performance/2017-02-15/code-bend-time

In ‘code bend time’, Evangelia is interested in experimenting with the phonemes of the English language and finding movements that the body is inclined to make with particular sounds.                

Evangelia will investigate how this idea will be affected and formed by the parameters of long-duration performance and audience involvement.

You will be invited to experience the making of a performative gallery work and experiment with ideas following game-like instructions while taking the roles of performer, participant or viewer.

No booking required, viewers may come and go as they please.

This event is FREE and suitable for all.

Evangelia will be in residence at the Lace Market Gallery as part of Nottdance 2017 from Wednesday 15 February - Saturday 11 March.

Gallery opening times:

Monday - Friday 10AM - 4PM

Saturday 11 March 10AM - 4PM

Produced and commisioned by Dance4 and Lace Market Gallery in partnership with Xavier de Sousa and Steve Goatman.

[xavierdesousaofficial]

PROJECT: LOST BODIES by Nicola Hunter TOUR DATES: TBC MY BODY IS NOT YOUR WEAPON

My body is MY PLACE I educated it it is my tool I breathe I bleed I lactate I piss and I shit I did not come here for you to cover her up to tell me how to dress how she should feel what she should smell like or what she should look like. MY BODY IS NOT YOUR WEAPON

Grief births an emotional journey which swells and tears the flesh, and when you are spat out again, it’s onto barren lands. Everything that I thought I knew about my life was dragged from me and pulled deep into the ocean. There was death and it took me with it.

This new performance work is the first few breaths of a new life, with a new voice, in a new body. In ‘Lost Bodies’ live artist Nicola Hunter (formerly Canavan), will create a performance celebrating grief as a strengthening process for the soul, a metamorphosis and a labored fight in the darkness.

LOST BODIES is supported by Tempting Failure Festival 2016, Live Art Bistro, Colchester Arts Centre. Additional funding provided by Arts Council England.

NICOLA HUNTER

Born in North East England (UK), Nicola Hunter (formerly Canavan) has been performing and showing work nationally and internationally since 2007 within programmes such as Momentum Festival (Brussels), ]performance s p a c e[ (London), Inbetween Time Festival (Bristol), City of Women (Ljubljana) and SPILL National Platform (Ipswitch). She has collaborated with Predrag Pajdic, Manuel Vason (Double Exposures) and Ernst Fischer and has been awarded the Artsadmin Bursary, the Artists International Development Fund and has been financially supported and mentored by Unlimited, Live Art Development Agency and Pacitti Company.

Website: www.nicolahunter.com

Twitter: @huntress_nicola #LostBodies

PREVIOUS SHOWINGS:

Live Art Bistro, Leeds, 7th October 2016, 8pm

Tempting Failure Festival, 23rd July

[xavierdesousaofficial]

CURRENT PROJECT: Post by Xavier de Sousa

Tour bookings and questions: xavier@xavierdesousa.co.uk

What the fuck is a ‘national identity’?

We live in an ever shifting political and geographical landscape. As a generation that grew up into an open-doors Europe and the advances of the internet, we have been accustomed to travel, exchange, engage and collaborate with people from different nationalities from us. At the same time, there is a wave of nationalism arising across the world that threatens to change all of this and close our national borders.

POST is an exploration of what it means to be a migrant, of constantly inhabiting a ‘national limbo’ and failing to be adhering to border and identity-defining norms.

 This performance is extra-live and audiences are invited to respond to the show in whatever way feels natural; moving around, making noises and coming and going from the auditorium if needed. Latecomers are permitted.

POST has developed into a full production from Xavier de Sousa's FiRST BiTE work-in-progress piece Saudade, originally presented at Ovalhouse in 2015.

Conceived & Performed by Xavier de Sousa

Produced by Sally Rose

Dramaturgy by Ira Brand & Deborah Pearson

Lighting Design by Marty Langthorne

Sound Design by George Percy

Multimedia Design by Lucky Bert

Production Management by Alexandra Anzemberger

Commissioned by Ovalhouse Theatre and supported by Bike Shed Theatre, Camden People’s Theatre, Marlborough Theatre, Attenborough Centre for the Creative Arts and Tempting Failure. Additional funding by Arts Council England.

PREVIOUS SHOWINGS:

Premiere: Ovalhouse Theatre, 30th November - 3rd December 2016

(Work in progress)

22nd July 2016, 7.30pm, Tempting Failure Festival

18th June 2016, 4pm, Camden People’s Theatre, Being European Festival 2016

19th June 2016, 7.30pm, Bike Shed Theatre

18th - 21st November 2015, 7.30pm, Ovalhouse Theatre Upstairs

[xavierdesousaofficial]

CURRENT PROJECT: 10,000 litres by Evangelia Kolyra

Upcoming performances: Kalamata Festival, Greece, 16th July 2016

An average amount of 10,000 litres of air is circulated through our bodies every single day.

In 10,000 litres, three individuals take movement right back to its most essential function and use it to create an abstract reality where their strengths and weekenesses form their personalities and indicate their role in a fictitious society.

Exposing physicality with flair and sharp wit through a collection of absurd actions, Evangelia Kolyra creates unusual, quirky and remarkable work offering visceral experiences.

Conceived and choreographed by Evangelia Kolyra Performed by Joss Carter, Victoria Hoyland, Justyna Janiszewska Costume and set design by Sisters From Another Mister Lighting Design by Sherry Coenen Produced by Xavier de Sousa

10,000 litres is supported by a new artist development scheme at The Place which partners up and coming choreographers with independent producers.

Commissioned by The Place, funded by Arts Council England and with development support from Dance4, Citymoves and Chelsea Theatre.

[xavierdesousaofficial]

LOUISE ORWIN: Pretty Ugly 

For more information: www.louiseorwin.com/pretty-ugly

This show is about you rating me based solely on my looks...

It is also about a recent worldwide trend of teenage girls posting videos on YouTube asking viewers to rate their looks. And what happened when I tried it myself.

In 2013, I lived online as three teenage alter-egos. Pretty Ugly follows my trail of research into how Generation YouTube uses the ever widening field of social networking to reach others. It is about our obsessions, and pretensions, and teenage girls- but don't let that put you off. It is about you and me and the internet.

The project has received international media attention- it has been featured in New York Magazine, Wired Magazine, The Independent, The Daily Mail, The Telegraph and on Woman's Hour in the UK. Internationally it has been featured in El Pais, New York Magazine, Suddeutschezeitung, and in online publications in France, Chile, Germany, Italy, Russia, Argentina and all over the US and UK. You can find links to press mentions here.

The show is currently touring, and has previously been shown at Nottingham Playhouse, Camden People's Theatre, Buzzcut Festival, Southbank Centre, Forest Fringe Edinburgh, Marlborough Theatre Brighton, Tripspace London, Bush Theatre, Vogue Fabrics, Hatch Nottingham, Smashlab London.

Generously supported by Camden People's Theatre, The Basement Brighton, and Arts Council England.

Conceived and performed by Louise Orwin

Originally produced by Xavier de Sousa

Current Producer: Fergus Evans