UNDERCONSTRUCTION 5 at Bistrotheque
Our favourite platform for new performance work, curated by the tireless Lisa Lee, returned this week to Bistrotheque for its fifth season. Pix here.
Beautiful Freaks Private View at Dalston Superstore
Thursday night saw Tony Hornecker and Ralf Obergfell team up for a one-night-only architectural/performance takeover of Dalston Superstore, for the private view of Beautiful Freaks, an exhibition of Ralf’s nightlife photos. Jonny Woo, Ryan Styles, A Man To Pet, Pia Arber, John Sizzle and Per QX were amongst the performers/participants. An amazing launch. Pix here.
Bistrotheque Annual Drag Ball 2009
Jonny Woo, Bourgeois & Maurice, and a well-deserved triumph for the House of Scottee, at the Royal Opera House. Pix here.
Film Noir 21st August
Featuring Helen Noir and Ben Pistor downstairs, with A Man To Pet, Dickie Beau and Nando Messias upstairs, and a literally pop-up performance by Ms Noir. Pix here.
Eat Your Heart Out at Field Day
Scottee’s fabulous night of alternative performance, teleported to a tent, Saturday afternoon, in a field, in the rain. Who would have thought?! It worked brilliantly. Performances from Scottee himself, Annabel Sings, Nando Messias, Masumi Tipsy Saito, Theo Adams, The Tenor Ladies… loved it. Pix here.
Yugen…
And yes, yugen… To achieve the end of yugen, art had sometimes been stripped of its color and glitter lest these externals distract; a bowl of highly polished silver reflects more than it suggests, but one of oxidized silver has the mysterious beauty of stillness, as Seami realized when he used for stillness the simile of snow piling in a silver bowl. Or one may prize such a bowl for the tarnished quality itself, for its oldness, for its imperfection, and this is the point where we feel sabi. […] The love for the fallen flower, for the moon obscured …
The Flower of Stillness
A fragmentary translation of Zeami [世阿弥 元清]’s The Nine Stages of the Noh in Order served as both inspiration and creative headfuck for me during my time in Tokyo. As an outsider to the performance tradition in which it’s founded, The Nine Stages is opaque, yet provocative: the image of the Flower of Stillness — snow piling in a silver bowl — abides with me, and in my work. The Nine Stages of the Noh in Order Higher stages Flower of the miraculous – transcends power of speech and working of mind due to the yugen of a master actor. …
Dickie Beau: Blackouts
Last night, Dickie performed all three of the performances which comprise his Blackouts series, at the RVT. Pix here.
Dickie Beau/Blackout @ the Royal Vauxhall Tavern
If you’ve been following my photos for a while, you’ll know how much I love Dickie’s work. He performed the latest of his ‘Blackouts’ at Duckie last Saturday night, Photos here. He is performing all three tableaux/performance on 11 June. Go.
Eat Your Heart Out
Relocated from the BGWMC to the much friendlier (not hard) Marie Lloyd Bar at the Hackney Empire, Scottee and some of London’s finest alt.performance stars presented an evening of Polari, poetry, dance, scatology and vomit: something for everyone. Photos here.