InDialogue 2019

hancock & kelly An Extraordinary Rendition, Nottingham Contemporary. Photograph by Massey Photography 2019

InDialogue 2019 took place over 3 days at various cultural venues (Derby Theatre, Déda, Mansions of the Future and Nottingham Contemporary) in 3 cities (Derby, Lincoln & Nottingham) within the East Midlands. It attracted a variety of participants and researchers at varying stages of their careers (students through to established practitioners, professors and directors of major cultural programmes and venues) from a wide geographical spread (UK, EU, Scandinavia, South Africa and USA) and included presentations, installations, film and performances from artists, curators, designers, artistic researchers, photographers, film makers, live Art, performance and theatre practitioners, composers and those working within the fields of socially engaged art, art history, linguistics, music & social science. Some presenters had participated in previous events and others were newcomers. The event included 3 UK premieres hancock & kelly’s (Germany) Extraordinary Rendition at Nottingham Contemporary, Marianna Maruyama’s 
(Netherlands) Permissions A.K.A. Loving with Both Hands at Derby Theatre and Johanna Hällsten (Sweden/UK) with Juxtavoices Choir Rupture & Flow. It also included S.H.E.D. (Social Higher Education Depot – a mobile arts venue, designed and curated by InDialogue Co-curator Rhiannon Jones to support & commission artistic practice and research within the public realm), at Nottingham Contemporary which hosted exhibitions, performances, and a site for participation and listening to Third Angel’s, Co-director Alex Kelly read his creative account and reflections on the 3-day InDialogue event as part of his Inspiration Exchange, an account of which can be read on his blog: https://thirdangel.co.uk/blog/inspiration-exchange-at-indialogue.

Cally Trench Original playable board games

Hospitality has always played an important part at InDialogue, with refreshments and food during breaks and at meal times creating a space for dialogue. There were also artists who devised interventions between venues – whilst in transit – with a walk with Hackett & Woodcock across Derby City Centre, on day 1, and a sound piece by Bill Aitchson on the InDialogue bus from Lincoln to Nottingham on day 2. The presentations on day 3 took place around Nottingham Contemporary and included performances in S.H.E.D., a nomadic art space, the café and The Space.

 

Day 1 – Derby Theatre & Deda – 19th November 2019

Derby Theatre am:

S.H.E.D & notions of place-shaping panel

The event began with a welcome from Sarah Brigham, Artistic Director, Derby Theatre and Professor Keith McClay, PVC/Dean of the College of Arts, Humanities & Education, University of Derby. Followed by S.H.E.D & notions of place-shaping, a panel by Dr Rhiannon Jones (Post Doc Researcher, UoD)  co-curator and artistic director of S.H.E.D. in conversation with Dr  Victoria Barker (Research Impact Officer), Professor Alex Nunn (Head of the Centre for Social, Cultural & Legal Research, UoD), chaired by Dr Cara Courage (Curator & Director of Tate Exchange) who also presented her own work and research at the Tate.

 Permissions AKA Loving with Both Hands, 2019, Marianna Maruyama.

This was followed by the UK premiere of Netherlands based artist Marianna Maruyama’s Permissions aka Loving With Both Hands an immersive interactive art installation (Video projection, local phone hotline, audio, 34 min – short excerpt available: https://vimeo.com/372399961.

Permissions AKA Loving with Both Hands, 2019, Marianna Maruyama.

The video projected onto the stage accompanied by theatre lights and loud ambient sound, the audience was encouraged to use their phones during the performance, to text a number, which prompted the caller to respond to a series of questions and provided alternative scenarios to follow and interact with in real time. As the audience members began to follow these instructions the auditorium began to glow and vibrate, sound and light from the phones became part of the installation – it’s ebs and flows. It was unclear who was leading who, who was in control and whether there was someone responding to you in a live, personal interaction and opened up lots of questions for the audience. A more comprehensive description of the work by Isabelle Sully can be found at: https://www.neroeditions.com/those-who-handle-it/

Heather Connelly talking with Marianna Maruyama.

Immediately after the presentation, Dr Heather Connelly (Co-Curator of InDialogue, Artist, Researcher & Senior Lecturer, UoL) engaged Maruyama in a dialogue about the work and how it related to earlier works with translation followed by an open discussion with the audience. Connelly had previously shown the work in progress at an exhibition Translation Zone(s): Hong Kong in July 2018. Maruyama gained funding from the Mondriaan Foundation for this work with a letter of support from Connelly..Connelly concluded the mornings proceedings with an overview of her own practice –based research Translation Zone(s).

 

Derby Theatre pm:

Dr Angela Bartram (& Oscar) Dogs and the Elderly: companionship as practice in practice 

The afternoon began with Dr Angela Bartram (Associate Professor & head of Arts Research, UoD) and her research assistant Oscar (a labrador) and Dr Edmund Hunt (Composer & Post Doctoral Research Fellow, Royal Birmingham Conservatoire), Dr Stephanie Vos (Post Doctoral Fellow, Stellenbosch University).

Dr Edmund Hunt, Contemporary Music and Ancient Text: A Cross-Disciplinary Dialogue?
Dr Stephanie Vos. A Decolonial Take on Dialogue: Reflections on Jazz Conversations in Stellenbosch, South Africa

This was followed followed by a performative lecture and participatory performance by Dr Xristina Penna (artist/scenographer, researcher and lecturer, UoD)

Dr Xristina Penna, To You <-> To Me

 

Final Session: Unresting and re-verbing Panel

Unresting and re-verbing Panel: hancock&kelly , Ass. Prof. Mark Jeffery, Ass. Prof. Nick Lowe & Prof Jennie Klein

The day at Derby Theatre culminated in the Unresting and re-verbing panel comprising of hancock & kelly, (Dr Traci Kelly and Richard Hancock), Mark Jeffery (Associate Professor, Performance, SAIC), is the curator of In>Time and a former member of Goat Island; Nicholas Lowe (Associate Professor, Historic Preservation, SAIC) is the Curator of the Goat Island Archival and the exhibition, goat island archive – we have discovered the performance by making it; Jennie Klein (Professor of Art History, Ohio University) a leading expert on live art who is currently writing a book about hancock & kelly moderated the panel.

The Panel: This panel, scheduled on the on the first day of the symposium, was programmed to contextualise hancock & kelly’s performance in relation to debates concerning the tensions exists between performance and its residues. Unresting and re-verbing are understood by the panellists as processes of articulating response – a dialogical mechanism where detail that is gleaned from archival material is taken as a prompt, from which to produce new live performance work. Drawing upon the recent exhibition Goat Island Archive – We have discovered the performance by making it, residency, performance works and season as part of the In>Time, Chicago Triennial performance festival and the Chicago Cultural Centre the panellists reflected upon and responded to their dialogical ways of making work.

 

Day 1 – Evening Session

Inbetween: The evening began with a walk through Derby City Centre from Derby Theatre to Déda, led by Nottingham based artists Tom Hackett & Julian Woodcock.

Hackett & Woodcock A Song for Derby

Following welcome by Phil Hargreaves Déda, Creative Director, and supper of home-made soup, there was an evening of interactions with multiple exhibitions, interventions, performances, games, screenings and informal discussion by Prof.  Jane Bacon (Emiritus Professor at University of Colchester) & Prof. Vida Midgelow (Middlesex University),  Dr Phillip Harris (Researcher & senior Lecturer UoD), Gemma Marmalade (PhD candidate., Artist & Senior Lecturer, UoD), Nadya Monfrinoli & Robin Williamson (artists & UoL MA graduates), Annie Morrad & Andrew Bracey (PhD researchers & Senior lecturers, UoL) & Cally Trench (artist).

Andrew Bracey & Annie Morrad, Latent Image – Latent Sound

 

Day 2 – Mansions of the Future – 20th November 2019

; a place, of their own – The Eile Project

Dr Louise Atkinson (Artist & Independent Researcher) & Victorea Kortekaas, Rosa Cisneros & Marie-Louise Crawley (Choreographers, Researchers at C-DaRE Coventry University), Dr Sheelagh Colclough (Artist, PhD Researcher, Ulster University), Chiara Dellerba (Artist & curator UK/IT), Marta Discepoli (Designer & Research Assistant) & Dr Kirstie Jamieson (Deaf Heritage Collective PI – Edinburgh Napier University), Linda Duvall (Artist, USA), Maria Georgoula (Artist & Lecturer NTU), Sarah Horton (Artist, PhD Researcher & lecturer, Norwich University of the Arts), Delpha Hudson (Artist), Dr Hamish Macpherson (MRes, Choreographer & Researcher & University of Westminster) ; a place, of their own., (Dr Paula McCloskey Research Fellow at UoD and Sam Vardy Artist), Susanne Palzer (Artist & Independent Researcher), Rachel Parry (Artist & Curator), Dr Chris Wright (Artist & Independent Researcher).

Marta Discepoli, The Deaf Heritage Collective games & resources photograph by Kala Heatherson

The final parallel sessions attempted to  with Emma Cocker (Artist, Writer & Associate Professor NTU) and Dr Neil Maycroft (Associate Professor, UoL), Dr Jim Shorthose (Senior Lecturer, UoL) leading a with input from Mansions of the Future’s Artistic Director Kerry Campbell, Dr Rhiannon Jones (Artist & Curator, Post-Doctoral Research Fellow, UoD).

Rachel Parry with Sam Vardy photograph by Kala Heatherson

Dr Bill Aitchison (Artist UK/China) adapted In the Middle an audio work, originally commissioned and presented by Allenheads Contemporary Arts 2016,  to be listened to on the InDialogue bus between Lincoln and Nottingham. the text explores the topic of the regional, national and global connectivity of a small village in rural Northumberland. It does this by looking at the village’s past and present and, it being made in 2016, Brexit plays a significant role in shaping this context. Can be downloaded here: https://soundcloud.com/user-686221128/in-the-middle-final-mix/s-ZjxAC (Duration 30 minutes)

Chris Wright, Encountering  (Sound Installation). photograph by Kala Heatherson

The evening ended with a meal at Desi Downtown in Nottingham, where delegates were able to continue their dialogue over a curry and bear and get to know each other better.

 

Day 3 – Nottingham Contemporary – 20th November 2019

Entrance to Nottingham Contemporary photograph by Heather Connelly.

The final day was hosted by Nottingham Contemporary which has hosted every InDialogue event (2012, 14, 16 & 19) unlike previous years The Space was not available for the whole event and so we were provided with the meeting room for most of the day and InDialogue co-curator Rhiannon Jones, installed the S.H.E.D. on the terrace outside of the café area, which provided an alternative space for performances Dr Michael Pinchbeck (Writer, Theatre Maker & Reader in Theatre at Manchester Metropolitan University) & Ollie Smith (Theatre Maker, Performer & lecturer UoL and De Montfort University), exhibitions, Simon Burrows (Artist),  participatory workshops and sharings Dr Alex Kelly (Co-Director of Third Angel & Lecturer Leeds Beckett University), and discussion with an additional pod situated on the stairwell housing a number of changing exhibiotions on ipads from Professor Neil Powell (Artist, Writer, Curator, Chair of Art and Design Education and Pro Vice-Chancellor (Academic), Prof. Huw Davies (filmmaker & curator, UoD & Hebei University) & Philip Ranjit Basi (producer & director, Lecturer UoD) for the delegates and general public to interact with.

Dr Andrea Milde Linguistics in the Arts: Collaborative artistic communication processes

The meeting room featured presentatons and discussion from Patricia Azevedo (Artist, Brazil) & Clare Charnley (Artist),  Steve Dutton (Artist, Curator, Head of Art and Director of the Art Research Centre at Bath Spa University),  Dr Andrea Milde (Applied Linguist & Ethnographer, Researcher & Lecturer, NTU),  Dr Deniz Soezen (Artist & PhD Researcher, CREAM, University of Westminster), Dr Annie Xu (PhD graduate & curator, UoL). This was followed by a dialogue about ‘where & what next for InDialogue’, with delegates, to enable us to reflect and build upon what we have achieved and how we may mark the 10 year anniversary of InDialogue’s conception in 2021, where Heather met Rhiannon  on an art walk commissioned by Connelly, led by Alison Lloyd – an extension of Connelly’s New Research Trajectories Network (Beyond Text) AHRC programme.

Clare Charnley & Patricia Azevedo Games of distance

The final evening began with a wrap up in the S.H.E.D. by Alex Kelly, Third Angel a culmination of the Inspiration Exchange his 3 day engagement in the symposium.

Alex Kelly, Inspiration Exchange, S.H.E.D. Nottingham Contemporary. Photograph by Heather Connelly

This was followed by two UK premiers & live performances, the first Dr Johanna Hällsten’s (Artist & Senior Lecturer Loughborough/London Metropolitan University) Rupture & Flow performed by Juxtavoices (Choir) in the café. Musican and conductor Martin Archer led the anti-choir in replicating the sounds of Hekla (Icelandic volcano) from the visual score devised by Hällsten, which was projected onto the bare concrete walls.

Johanna Hällsten Rupture & Flow performed by Juxtavoices and conductor Martin Archer

InDialogue 2019 drew to a close with hancock & kelly’s An Extraordinary Rendition, InDialogue’s 2019 artists in residents work in progress performance, which was funded by an ACE grant, awarded to Connelly on behalf of InDialogue, and supported by Dance4.

 

hancock & kelly performance & InDialogue Residency 2019

hancock & kelly An Extraordinary Rendition, Nottingham Contemporary. Photograph by Massey Photography 2019

An Arts Council England grant enabled us to bring International performers hancock & kelly (Germany) to the UK as InDialogue’s 2019 artists-in-residence, hosted by Dance4, to develop their work in progress performance Extraordinary Rendition for The Space at Nottingham Contemporary – the closing performance. The performance that was originally commissioned by Goat Island Archives as part of In>Time festival, Chicago and was the impetus behind a panel Unresting and Reverbing on the first day of the symposium. The performance and residency also included opportunities for the public, those not attending the event/symposium to engage with the work, artists and InDialogue. These were coordinated by our partners InGood Company: Islands and Continents with Hancock and Kelly (23rd Nov) and Dance4: Sunday Supplement: hancock & Kelly In Dialogue (24th Nov). Thus expanding our audience and reach.

hancock & kelly  – An Extraordinary Rendition, work-in-progress performance

InDialogue 2019, Nottingham Contemporary 21st November 2019

hancock & kelly An Extraordinary Rendition, Nottingham Contemporary. Photograph by Massey Photography 2019

An Extraordinary Rendition is a response to the highly influential performance/dance company Goat Island’s performance Soldier, Child, Tortured Man (1987)[…] hancock & kelly’s response takes on the original work’s themes of masculinity, militarization, athleticism and spectacle, and draws a line through power, complicity, and the violence of whiteness. Drawing on a string of references from fraternity hazing rituals, and abstracted cheerleader routines, to the archetypal white liberal fantasies of JFK and Jackie Kennedy, they inhabit and explicate an architecture of systemic violence’ (h&k artists’ statement)

hancock & kelly An Extraordinary Rendition, Nottingham Contemporary. Photograph by Massey Photography 2019

hancock & kelly developed the performance especially for The Space, at Nottingham Contemporary, paying particular attention to the scale, shape and size of the venue, pacing and rehearsing so that they could inhabit the space and interact with the audience as they witness this powerful performance. Their training as visual artists was evident in the careful consideration of the image, carefully choreographing the event and framing the image…the tension was palpable created through the sound, the pace, the silence, the whipping of a wet towel onto bare skin, the sound of their breath, the audience donned the face masks as smoke filled The Space. InDialogue ended as soon as the performance finished – without discussion participants left the building and went on to discuss their experiences elsewhere.

hancock & kelly An Extraordinary Rendition, Nottingham Contemporary. Photograph by Massey Photography 2019

The performance attracted a further 21+ guests many belonging to internationally renowned performing arts organisations, International artists, curators, producers, artists and art groups such as: Gob Squad and Goat Island. The Sunday Supplement event at Dance4 served both as a and an opportunity to evaluate the significance and impact of hancock & kelly’s performance, practice, career and long term relationship with the East Midlands and Dance 4.

Audience during hancock & kelly An Extraordinary Rendition, Nottingham Contemporary. Photograph by Massey Photography 2019
InDialogue 2019