Julia Bardsley is an artist working with performance, video, photography, sculptural objects and the configuration of the audience.[1] Her work challenges definitions of theatre and has been described as 'a major force in British experimental theatre and live art'.[2]
Education and career
Bardsley was a founder member of dereck dereck Productions; other stage performances in the 1980s included Marie-Christine in Ardele, Where the Rainbow Ends, Gaudette at the Almeida Theatre (where she won the Time Out award for direction), and Too Clever by Half and A Flea in Her Ear (Antoinette Plucheux) at the Old Vic. She was also the assistant producer for A Night at the Chinese Opera with Kent Opera.[3]
She began her career in theatre directing, writing and adapting works for the stage,[4] and was joint artistic director of the Leicester Haymarket & Young Vic Theatres (1991-4).[5] She was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from Middlesex University in 2007.[6] Bardsley lectures at Queen Mary, University of London, and Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London.[7] Her work has become known for its experimental use of character, solo performance, and elaborate video and set work in a performance art/visual art context.[8]
Bardsley's work is significant in its disruption of traditional understandings of theatre;[9] her hybrid practice first developed in collaboration with designer Aldona Cunningham in the 1990s through their innovative work on Hamlet at the Young Vic, which in turn led to a five-year long creation process combining theatre, performance and photography, resulting in the work 12/Stages/3 (a Memory Theatre) as part of the British Festival of Visual Theatre in 1999.[10]
From the late 1990s onwards her film and video works have been selected for film festivals internationally, [11] collected and represented in collections such as Lux Artists Films[12] and the University of the Arts British Artists' Film and Video Study Collection.[13] She has also created video art work for theatre productions including An Ocean of Rain, at the Almeida Theatre, London, 2008,[14] and Suenos composed by Simon Holt,[15] premiered at Queen Elizabeth Hall, London in 2007 .[16][17]
Selected works
The Divine Trilogy (2003-2009)
Presented in London, Glasgow, Portugal, Spain, Slovenia, Croatia, Belgium, and Italy.[18] The three parts of which are:
- Trans Acts used religious imagery, combining video, installation and performance, premiered at The National Review of Live Art (2006),[19] and went on to show at Shunt, London (2007)[20]
- Almost the Same (feral rehearsals for violent acts of culture) a performance in three sections titled Nigredo, Rubedo and Albedo[21]
- Aftermaths: A Tear in the Meat of Vision (2009) Commissioned by the SPILL International Festival of Performance[22] uses the character of a cowboy evangelist to evoke apocalyptic and catastrophic visions of a world in chaos.[23]
Improvements on Nature: a Double Act (2009)
Produced for Chelsea Theatre, Sacred Festival, Improvements on Nature: a Double Act explored themes of science using imagery of amputations. 'It's the science of Charles Darwin incubated by the traumatised imagination of Mary Shelley.'[24]
meta_Family (2010-11)
A modular ensemble piece, the meta_Family, presented in Teresina & Rio, Brazil & Outside AiR - QMUL, London. In 2012 editions of the project were presented at Trouble#8 Festival, Brussels & City of Women Festival, Ljubljana.[25]
Medea: dark matter events (2012 - )
A performance project inspired by the Medea myth; drawing on themes of sexuality, eroticism and electricity.[26]
References
Further reading
- Glendinning, Hugo (2009). Artsadmin 30. London: Artsadmin. ISBN 978-0-9524337-6-7. OCLC 609533968.
- Johnson, Dominic (2016) Critical Live Art: Contemporary Histories of Performance in the UK ISBN 9781134907434
- Johnson, Dominic (2015), "The Skin of the Theatre: An Interview with Julia Bardsley", The Art of Living, Macmillan Education UK, pp. 219–236, doi:10.1007/978-1-137-32222-7_11, ISBN 978-1-137-32220-3
- Johnson, Dominic, (2014) The Subtle Aggressors; a conversation with Julia Bardsley and Simon Vincenzi, in Theatre and Adaptation: Return, Rewrite, Repeat, edited by Margherita Laera, Bloomsbury Publishing, ISBN 9781408184721
- Pacitti, Robert; Ghelani, Sheila (2010). SPILL festival of performance: on agency. Great Britain: Pacitti. ISBN 978-0-9565447-0-4. OCLC 751752908.
- Pacitti, Robert; Walker, Lucy (2014). Think Tank Workbook. PACITTI Company. ISBN 978-0-9565447-1-1. OCLC 975029157.
- Staranje [Aging]. Silič, Melita. Ljubljana: City of Women - Association for the Promotion of Women in Culture. 2012. p. 100. ISBN 978-961-92182-6-6. OCLC 875322290.
- Bardsley, Julia, (2014) "'U' See the Image of her "i"', (London: BopBardsProjects: An Eye Eye Gym book).