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4 shhmith@yahoo.com
Over ten years I have collaborated with the performance art
company Max Factory. This project examines frame. Building
frames in which the bodies of these artists might exist asthey-are, rubbing against the frame, contradicting, breaking
and bleeding out of it. The performances were about this and
attended to by the mode of presence the artists employed. The
frame and the presence in dialogue with each other. Max
Factory has created installation and performances involving
dance, theatre, writing and film for diverse venues and sites
and worked within the bigger frames of theatre, gallery,
nightclub, park, lecture theatre etc.
Since 1996 I have worked with the Amsterdam based
improvisation company MAGPIE www.magpiemusicdance.com. Working
within the area of improvised performance has informed my
politics of presence as a performer. MAGPIE always improvises
performance. What I understand through this practice is that
no matter how set or structured a work is, however much I am
playing a character, 'being myself on stage', executing
something task based etc, my body is existing in real-time in
infinite situations that are co-existing with the one I have
set up. Any performed action is a one-time-only gig. A one
night stand.
I am theoretically informed by post structuralist feminism.
This writing gives a literal shape to my politics of
performance. I gained a PhD from Nottingham Trent University
in 2003. The paper is called Something in the way She moves:
Politics of Presence in the Performance Act. The research
articulates a performance presence that considers self as
'part-of' and works against the manifestation of belief in the
self as separate/singular. The practice seeks fluidity within
dense structures as a performing 'attitude'. The thinking and
the doing of performance completely inform each other. This is
a balance I am very keen to maintain.
My present research is within the vehicle THE BLUE STOCKING
SOCIAL CLUB. This project wants to explores artist as curator
and borrows from performance the fictional frame, colluding
the audience inside this fiction. The whole event is the work.
The events function like cabaret (lower bodied, carnivalesque,
eclectic, lo-fi). The individual artists agree to allow their
work to be framed, to co-exist with other work, blur with it.
They also agree to let their work exist within this bigger,
looser fiction.Within this structure I hope to invite other
artists, performers and ‘acts’, particularly ameteurs, part
time local stars who frequent the thriving arenas of working
men’s, social, conservative and labour clubs. I am interested
in the fibre of personal narratives, how they weave, connect,
construct, lie and sometimes move right through the truth. I
am interested in writing lives and writing live.
Publications/Productions
The Blue Stocking Social Club - funded by The Arts Council of
England and supported by Liverpool Hope University. - world
premiere - Cornerstone Festival - Dec 03
The Do - Bluecoat Commission - Liverpool biennial Festival November 04
T.W.A.T.S - Interdisciplinary Landscapes Conference Northampton University, Sep 04
Margaret McDonnell in the Company of Friends - Bluecoat
Commission, Liverpool, June 04
'1-2' Suspect Culture Devisor and performer.
Travers 2 - Edinburgh Festival. Aug.03, Tron - Glasgow Oct.03,
Arts Ctr - Paisley Oct 03, The Byers - St Andrews Oct 03, Arts
Centre - Sterling Oct 03, Lemon Tree - Aberdeen Oct.03, MAC Birmingham Oct03, Contact Theatre - Manchester Oct 03,
the max factory comedy sit down.
The Klinker - London N1 - (run of 8) February and March 01,
Battersea Arts centre, London SW1 - March 01, 333 Club (OMSK),
London EC1 - March 01, The Blue Club, Oslo - (run of 3) April
01 , Film Society, Amsterdam - (run of 7) April 201, Arcola
Street (OMSK), London N7 - June 01, The Spitz, London EC2 (run of 3) April and May 01, The Amused Moose, -(run of 2)
London W1- August 01, The Guilded Balloon, Edinburgh - August
01, The Bongo Club, Edinburgh - (run of 7) 01, The Windmill,
London Sw2 - (run of 5) September 201, Duckie, London September 01
themaxfactorywill, Commissioned by Atomsk (supported by
Eastern Arts and the A.C.E.)
333, London, March 00, Cambridge Dark Room, Cambridge, April
00, Blue Club, Oslo, October 00
Across the Line - Transactions commission (A.C.E and N.W.
Arts)January-March 00
A project developed over one month and three residencies
including Bluecoat Arts Centre, Liverpool; Arnol Fini, Bristol
and Warwick Arts Centre, Coventry
Hypnosis Project, Chisenhale Dance Space commission Residency
, December 1999
A large empty room, Interactive Performance (hypnosis part II)
Festival of Moving Image, Tilburg, October 99, Liminal
Institute, Berlin, October 99
Mocks, Performance installation
Lion and Unicorn Pub theatre, London, July 99, Battersea Arts
centre, London, March 00, Catalyst Arts, Belfast, April 00,
Dock 11, Berlin, September 00
We have been drinking in spite of what your people say Lion &
Unicorn . May 99
TARGET performance/installation
Liminal Institute, Berlin, October 99, Bluecoat Arts Centre
and paradise St. Bus Station, Liverpool, March 99, Prema Arts
Centre, Gloucester, Feb 99, Jacksons Lane Dansbase, London,
Dec 98, Expo Festival, Nottingham, Nov 99, Oval House, London,
Oct 98, B.A.C. Festival of Visual Theatre, London, Oct 98
I.C.A., London, Oct 98, Diskurs Festival, Germany, Oct 98, Red
lion, London, March 98, 333 Old Street, London, March 98,
Derby Playhouse, Derby, May 98, Muiderport Theatre, Amsterdam,
May 98
SCREAM (stay seated) performance installation with film and
video
the lux centre, London August 99, Bluecoat Theatre, Liverpool,
March 98, Tramway, Glasgow, Feb '98, The Place Theatre,
London, Feb 98, Jacksons Lane Theatre, London, Jan 98, Expo
Festival, Nottingham, Nov 97, New Works Festival, Y Theatre,
Leicester, Sep 97, Amsterdam Theatreschool, Sep 97, Mosaics
Festival, Jacksons Lane, London, August 6th 97, Questioning
Office of Art, St Ives, June 97, 333 Old Street, May 97
F i l m Work
A series of Disasters - Desperate Optimists - 2003 (digital)
'of Camera' -Independent film by Steven Eastwood 2002 (16mm)
'Night bus' - Desperate Optimists 2002 (digital)
'slightly downward and a little inward' - Max Factory and
Nicolas S. 2001 (digital)
'SCREAM (stay seated)' - Max Factory and Louise Stevens 1999
(digital)
'Baby Girl', - with Louise Stevens 1996 (16mm)
www.map.50.com, Internet series of nine with The Desperate
Optimists
Solo Work
Something in the way “she” moves - The Cube, Bristol ,
February 2003, Liverpool Hope University, March 2004, The
Bluecoat Arts Centre, Liverpool, March 2003
Tend -“er” Chisenhale dance space, London, 1999, Institute
contemporary art , 2000, Bluecoat Arts Centre, Liverpool, 2001
EMPLOYMENT HISTORY
01.09.03 - presently Liverpool Hope University
Since being at Hope I have written and implemented a minor and
a major pathway in dance and designed their first
interdisciplinary arts and contemporary performance modules.
10.01.02 - 30.06.03 Continental Drifts performance production
agency.
Sole control of accounting for the company.
Other responsibilities include: Liasing as agent and booker
for artists and clients, Producing and stage managing large
and small scale events for a wide range of contexts such as
festivals, community projects and corporate events, working
closely with local councils, re-generation projects, community
arts projects and product advertising.
04.02 - date - OMSK arts collective
Responsibilities include: Fund raising - which includes
application writing, outreaching, budgeting and report
writing. Curating and co-ordinating OMSK events. The biggest
to date being an event on the HMS President moored at Black
friers on the Thames, as part of the LIFT festival in July
2001. My job was to produce an evening of work which involved
programming, stage managing and comparing for 15 separate
performance groups within a very tight time scale and budget.
My work with OMSK also involves managing and mentoring young
artists, visiting schools and colleges informing students and
young people about the work that OMSK does, and inviting them
to utilise OMSK as a facility by which they can show new work.
I have organised international visits for OMSK members to Oslo
in Norway, and most recently to Prague and to Athens.
ACADEMIC/CONFERECES/TEACHING
06.01 Practising Presence Conference - Chisenhale Dance Space
2nd/3rd Nov.
Producer/Co-ordinator
A weekend event, that brought together nine practitioners from
the U.K and Europe to give presentations, performance-lectures
and workshops around notions of presence.
08.01 - The stochastic elastic Body - Les Baines - Brussels.
02.01 - Brighton University
10.01-01.02 - Nottingham Trent University. Contemporary Arts
11.99 - Animax New Technology Centre, Bad Godesburg, Germany.
03.99-04.99 - School For New Dance Development, Amsterdam
02.99 - Nottingham Trent University
09.98-12.98 - Barnet Btec College, London
08.98 - Dance Institute - Arhuus, Denmark
02.98 - Priestly VI form College, Warrington, Cheshire
10.97-11.97 - School for New Dance Development, Amsterdam
12.96 - George Washington University, Washington D.C.
08.96 - Labin Art Express, Labin, Croatia