Saturday 31 October 2015, 11–22h
Tate Modern
Bankside
London SE1 9TG
For the final event in the BMW Tate Live 2015 Talks series, we are delighted to present a programme of diverse public moments set throughout the galleries at Tate Modern over one day, exploring the relationship between art and theatre.
Taking inspiration from the performances BMW Tate Live: Paulina Olowska The Mother An Unsavoury Play in Two Acts and an Epilogue, artists, curators, actors, theatre directors and writers will create unique situations for the public to engage ideas around the museum and its collection as a stage for performance, speech, choreography and dramatisation. Building on the legacies of Surrealism, Futurism, Dada and Fluxus, join us for a playful journey into the staged and the theatrical.
This series is developed by Sandra Sykorova and Joseph Kendra, Curators of Public Programmes at Tate Modern, in collaboration with artist Kate Tiernan.
BMW Tate Live is a partnership between BMW and Tate, which focuses on performance, interdisciplinary art and curating digital space.
Events in this series include:
Rehearsal: Words and Gestures in Motion
Tate Modern, Turbine Hall Bridge
Saturday 31 October, 11–13h
Ticket price: 3 GBP
Led by visual artist Kate Tiernan and theatre director Katie Mitchell
Book now
In what ways is the performer’s body a dynamic set of rules and signs? Can we read gestures as a language? How are the territories of performance and theatre blurred through the site of the gallery and how does this impact on the “image” it creates?
Taking the work of Austrian novelist and playwright Peter Handke as a point of reference and inspiration, this performative workshop invites you to engage actively with different modes of delivering a script through gestures, movements, and dialogue. Using the format of a rehearsal for a play, this is an opportunity to participate in a creative process of exploring the relationship between art and theatre in the context of a public gallery setting.
For this workshop, we work with a section from Handke’s Voyage to the Sonorous Land or The Art of Asking (1996), translated by Gitta Honegger, which writes of leading a group of characters to the hinterland of their imaginations, where they search not for the right answers, but rather for the right questions. Over the course of two hours, artist Kate Tiernan and theatre maker Katie Mitchell guide you step-by-step through the processes involved in an open rehearsal set up, inviting you to engage with the script through physical exercises, visualisation techniques, small group activities and discussion.
This workshop is open to anyone interested in the practical aspects of theatrical rehearsals. No previous experience of acting required.
On Stage/Off Stage: Performance and the Theatrical
Tate Modern, Starr Auditorium
Saturday 31 October, 14–16h
8/5 GBP concessions
Book now
Taking inspiration from the BMW Tate Live: Paulina Olowska, The Mother An Unsavoury Play in Two Acts and an Epilogue, join artists, curators, theatre directors and writers for a discussion exploring the relationship between art and theatre.
The panel examines the dualities of the stage and the gallery as sites of narrative, looking at the shared methodologies of theatre-making and the artist’s practice as performance, beyond the traditional conventions of the stage and studio.
This event touches on questions including: What is the relationship between art and theatre in relation to liveness, the audience and the site of the theatre/museum? What role does performance and live art play in increasingly blurring the boundaries between art and theatre? How do the discourses coming out of theatre, performance studies, art history, and related disciplines differently frame and understand these art practices? To what extent can the artist be considered a dramaturge/actor or director?
The event is chaired by Rebecca Schneider. Speakers include artist Paulina Olowska, author and theorist Michal Kobialka, and Thomas Oberender, Director of Berliner Festspiele.
Absence and Hope
Tate Modern, Level 4 East (Energy and Process gallery) Room 10
Everyday Alchemy: Contemporary sculpture
Saturday 31 October, 11–14h and 16–18h
Performance: 19.30h in East Room, Level 6
Free
Poetry and Dream is closed! All hail Absence and Hope!
Tate Modern is transforming. After nine years of loyal service, the popular Level 2 West gallery Poetry and Dream has now closed. Inspired by questions of the spaces that open when things go missing, and who you are—unwittingly—carrying around with you when you go to a gallery, on Saturday 31 October, we invite you to come and join us to imagine a temporary and ephemeral new display titled Absence and Hope. Throughout the day, theatre-maker Rachel Mars invites you to join her for a ten-minute session, using the artworks in the Energy and Process gallery on Level 4 as a point of reference to initiate conversations about people, memory and invention.
The diverse conversations will contribute to the evening launch of Tate Modern’s most temporary of displays in a form of a performance folding in the public’s newly created cast of characters and artworks, both real and imagined. The performance will take place in the Level 6 East Room at 19.30h.
Absence and Hope: We need you. No knowledge of history, art, theatre, poetry or dreams required.
Rachel Mars is a performance-maker borrowing from theatre, live art and comedy. She is currently interested in inherited cultural behaviours, familial interactions and the language of pop and politics. Most recently she has been commissioned by Home Live Art, Fuel Theatre and Ovalhouse London.
This event has been developed in partnership with The Royal Court Theatre.
