Output details
35 - Music, Drama, Dance and Performing Arts
Middlesex University
After Kaprow – The Silent Room & Book of Journeys
After Kaprow represents an extension of Butcher's overall aesthetic trajectory, which emphasises the situation of bodies and their intensive movement qualities in site-specific contexts. Butcher's 2010 reinterpretation of Kaprow's 18 Happenings provided the basis for the concept that became After Kaprow. The resulting work has departed considerably from any direct reference point. What remains is the dialogue with architectural form, and the possibilities afforded by a juxtaposition of performance with film.
After Kaprow consists of two related works: The Silent Room and Book of Journeys. Conceptually, both works explore women inhabiting interiors and how these rooms are witness to their activities over time. Both elements of After Kaprow stem from this central notion, stripped down to a still mediation.
The Silent Room takes the form of a dual-screen installation in dialogue with two live performers. The interplay between the projected and the real suggests vectors of temporal transition. There is a sense of the moment and what simultaneously lies outside of it: we witness the past and present and construct from them potentials for movement in the future. Throughout, there is a focus on stripped-down and almost static movements of the body.
Book of Journeys is also a dual screen film, commissioned as part of South East Dance's Forward Motion scheme. Filmed during a one-week residency in Bassano del Grappa, the film draws on the history imbued in the rooms themselves‘ a monastery and ruined castle reminiscent of the Hammershøi interiors. The project has been documented at www.afterkaprow.com.
Supported by Middlesex University, ACE, British Council, Bloomberg LP, The Place, South East Dance and Centro per la Scena Contemporanea, Comune di Bassano Del Grappa.
After Kaprow was commissioned for Bloomberg SPACE by Bloomberg LP, 2011. Produced by The Place.
The residency was made possible by Centro per la Scena Contemporanea, Comune di Bassano Del Grappa.
