Just Follow These Instructions And You Will Be Fine (on the night).
2018
This work was created for the “History will be kind to me for I intend to perform it” traveling residency project which invited three artists, myself included, from Africa and three from the North. In response to this residency, the artists had to create a performance for each of the three performance art festivals in Stockholm, Bergen, and Turku. Continuing my interest in the act of listening, learning, and instructions as a score for performance, I worked with the five other performance artists in residence as well as the curators and producers in the creation of her piece. I was then invited to give a talk and workshop for Masters students at University of the Arts Theatre Academy, Helsinki.
I interviewed the artists/curators/producers of the project, asking them if they could respond to any of the following questions as provocations for instructions.
1. How to prepare for a performance
2. How to do a performance
3. How to recover from a performance
I then edited these recorded instructions together and created a score, which I then performed with the three audiences in Stockholm, Bergen and Turku.
For the Masters workshop, we reimagined the piece together in the workshop space performing how each might prepare, perform and recover. I have also used this piece as part of devising for performance workshops.
Watch the video of the performance in Turku here:
The work was performed at PALS festival in Stockholm, Sweden, PAB festival in Bergen, Norway and finally in Turku, Finland as part of the New Turku performance art festival.
Thank you to participating artists and curators: Leena Kela (Finland), Márcio Carvalho (Portugal), Christian Etongo (Cameroon), Serge Olivier Fokoua (Cameroon/Canada), Diana Soria Hernandez (Finland/Mexico), Gøril Wallin (Norway), Hiroko Tsuchimoto (Japan), Annette Friedrich Johannessen (Norway), Kurt Johannessen and Kirsty Kross (Australia/Norway). Photographers: Julius Töyrylä and Jussi Virkkumaa
