Rose English
12 Dec 2015 - 06 Mar 2016
Rose English: A Premonition of the Act, installation view, Camden Arts Centre, 2015. Photo: Mark Blower
ROSE ENGLISH
A Premonition of the Act
12 December 2015 - 6 March 2016
Rose English’s reputation for humorous and highly analytical performance began within Britain’s vibrant feminist scene in the 1970s. An influential figure for many artists, her work has crossed boundaries between performed installation, vaudeville, film, spoken drama and opera in a mix of philosophical, aesthetic and political commentary.
At the core of this exhibition is a new sound work, Lost in Music - an operatic piece for ten voices and percussion, scored by composer Luke Stoneham for English’s libretto. A chamber opera for Chinese acrobatics past and future, the music traces trajectories of their movements; the body and the breath, singing and glass-blowing, shattering and flying, together concertina time and space in a close investigation of the capacity for metaphysical embodiment of physical objects. English places her audience at the still point of the split between word and image, making songs solidify and objects sing.
On Friday 11 and Saturday 12 March Rose English and Luke Stoneham present Music for Lost in Music, a live performance of the musical element of Lost in Music. This is part of the Postscript series of events. Read more.
Rose English has been writing, directing and performing her own work for over thirty five years. Her productions feature a diversity of co-performers including musicians, dancers, circus performers, magicians and horses. Rose’s shows range from her site-specific performances and collaborations of the 1970s including Quadrille, Berlin and Mounting, her acclaimed solos of the 1980’s including Plato’s Chair and The Beloved, to her large scale spectaculars of the 1990’s including Walks on Water, The Double Wedding and Tantamount Esperance. Abstract Vaudeville – the Work of Rose English, a monograph by Guy Brett with scripts by Rose English and interviews by Anne-Louise Rentell was published by Ridinghouse in 2014.
A Premonition of the Act
12 December 2015 - 6 March 2016
Rose English’s reputation for humorous and highly analytical performance began within Britain’s vibrant feminist scene in the 1970s. An influential figure for many artists, her work has crossed boundaries between performed installation, vaudeville, film, spoken drama and opera in a mix of philosophical, aesthetic and political commentary.
At the core of this exhibition is a new sound work, Lost in Music - an operatic piece for ten voices and percussion, scored by composer Luke Stoneham for English’s libretto. A chamber opera for Chinese acrobatics past and future, the music traces trajectories of their movements; the body and the breath, singing and glass-blowing, shattering and flying, together concertina time and space in a close investigation of the capacity for metaphysical embodiment of physical objects. English places her audience at the still point of the split between word and image, making songs solidify and objects sing.
On Friday 11 and Saturday 12 March Rose English and Luke Stoneham present Music for Lost in Music, a live performance of the musical element of Lost in Music. This is part of the Postscript series of events. Read more.
Rose English has been writing, directing and performing her own work for over thirty five years. Her productions feature a diversity of co-performers including musicians, dancers, circus performers, magicians and horses. Rose’s shows range from her site-specific performances and collaborations of the 1970s including Quadrille, Berlin and Mounting, her acclaimed solos of the 1980’s including Plato’s Chair and The Beloved, to her large scale spectaculars of the 1990’s including Walks on Water, The Double Wedding and Tantamount Esperance. Abstract Vaudeville – the Work of Rose English, a monograph by Guy Brett with scripts by Rose English and interviews by Anne-Louise Rentell was published by Ridinghouse in 2014.