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OPERFORMANCEF
: a magazine of performance
Issue 02, May 2025, London
In this issue: Chiara Bersani, Petr Davydtchenko, David Liebe Hart, Samra Mayanja, Maria Metsalu, Rafal Zajko
Table of contents
Editors' letter
Chiara Bersani
Petr Davydtchenko
David Liebe Hart
Samra Mayanja
Maria Metsalu
Rafal Zajko
Credits
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Editors' letter
Some notes: thanks to everyone who came to our packed first live event, and to the incredible performers: Moritz Tibes, Jaya Twill, William Joys, Luuzr, Smelliott, and David Varhegyi. Shoutout to Greatorex gallery for letting us use their space.
We think performance is the most exciting medium at present (what a comeback!), and we will organize more events in London to balance out our text-text-text magazine. Feel free to send us recommendations for artists - plus we also have a newsletter to subscribe to.
And now the second issue, as promised. Thanks for reading.
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Chiara Bersani, as an interpreter and as a director/choreographer moves through different languages and visions. Her works, presented in international circuits, are born as creations in dialogue with spaces of different nature and are mainly aimed at a “neighbor” to the scene. Her research as an interpreter and author is based on the concept of the “Political Body” and the creation of practices aimed at training its presence and action. The “manifest” work of this research is Gentle Unicorn, a performance included in the Aerowaves platform. For the rigor in embodying this study she is awarded the UBU Award for best new actress / performer under 35 for 2018. In August 2019, during the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Gentle Unicorn and Chiara Bersani won the first prize in the dance category of the Total Theater Awards. Chiara Bersani is an artist of apap – Advancing Performing arts project – Feminist Future, a project co-funded by the Creativnde Europe Programme of the European Union, until 2024. In 2023 the Kunsthaus Baselland, hosted Deserters, Bersani’s first solo exhibition in a European institution in collaboration with Gamec in Bergamo and with the support of the 11th edition of the Italian Council, promoted by the Directorate General for Contemporary Creativity within the Italian Ministry of Culture. For the three-year period 2025-2027, she is an associate artist of Triennale di Milano.
#--1 Have you ever had an experience that made you rethink what performance could be?
I can't isolate a specific experience because my relationship with the act of performance is deeply intertwined with everyday life — both in its routine moments and its extraordinary ones. I am obsessed with the world and with human beings; I am utterly seduced by them, and the thought that I will never live long enough to truly understand what surrounds me terrifies me. I believe that, for me, performance is an attempt to create some form of order. Every now and then, something from the world strikes me, and I try to isolate it, to zoom in on it somehow. And yet life goes on, and anecdotes and the passage of time keep hitting the "performative object" like meteors, continuously reshaping and evolving it.
#--2 Do you have a favorite among your performative works?
Yes, I do, and as often happens, it’s a work that almost no one has seen. It was titled Tell Me More, a performance I began working on in 2013, which debuted in 2015, and after the first show, it was never presented again. At that time, we were emerging from the major economic crisis that had begun in 2006 in the United States and then spread globally. I had come of age during that crisis, and it was then that I realized all the promises made to me when I was younger were collapsing. I would have none of the things I once believed in, none of what a 1990s education had promised me. I was a young woman with everything to invent from scratch. At first, I wanted to create a work in which I would become the director of a choir — a way, like any other, to try to "make decisions" again or to "regain some form of control." But the research process ended up being stronger than the initial idea (just like the asteroids we talked about in the previous answer). Roberto Casarotto, the producer of the performance, introduced me to a choir of eight male voices. They were all much older than me — men, mostly right-wing, and some even coming from fascist movements. We began a long process of working together, at times resembling a silent battle, and at other times feeling like an exhilarating journey. I had to work hard to claim my authority and to earn their trust. By the end of the two-year research period, the original idea of me conducting a choir had completely disappeared. That was only a beautiful image — but if you work on crisis and the loss of certainties, then you have to actually enter into the crisis. The performance happened without me: the choristers only sang at the very end of the action, and throughout the rest of the performance they simply stayed with the audience, lingering in a state of indeterminacy that disoriented everyone, provoked embarrassed laughter, and led them to joke in their local dialects. Today, I still consider Tell Me More my most radical work. A few months after the debut, one of the choristers died suddenly of a heart attack. I decided not to restage the performance without him — it was a human work, made by human beings. If one was missing, it was as if a brick in the house was missing.
#--3 How to end a performance?
Are we sure that a performance must actually end? I mean: at a certain point, the action stops — and that is always an author's decision, based on different kinds of reasoning. But are we really sure that this is when the performance ends? What do we call everything that happens afterward? Let me give an example. My colleague Marco D’Agostin ends his show Best Regards with an original song — quite a pop melody — shared just long enough to stay in the audience's ears. After several performances, I often heard people humming the song to themselves or to another spectator, trying to remember the lyrics, laughing together. My partner, even years after seeing the show, still hums it from time to time. What do we call this "time"? These actions that continue to operate like traces, beyond our control and knowledge? Every time I restage my performance Sottobosco, I hold a workshop for people with disabilities, where we create a secret language made of gestures, glances, and nonverbal signs impressed into the air. Two years after the premiere, I still meet participants who greet me using those secret signs. Isn’t that still my performance at work?
#--4 Have we moved beyond the screen?
I'm not sure I understand what this question is pointing at — and I'm not even sure I like it. Every time I sense a hint of judgment, I tend to stiffen up. And yes, this question reaches me with a slight tone of judgment. But judgment toward what? What screens are we talking about? Are we talking about a surface-level aesthetic? About the screens of our phones and computers? Yet, many times, a "surface aesthetic" can be an interesting channel to reach audiences whose gaze is not accustomed to radical imagery. And often, the screens of phones and computers allow us to reach people who cannot physically attend performative events — those who are bedridden, disabled, lacking the economic means to travel or buy a ticket, or those who live on islands or in mountain villages. I believe an artist must be very careful about the critical posture they choose to adopt. It’s essential that we exercise our role as observers of society — questioning political choices, power structures, disturbing social customs — but at the same time, we must remember that we are speaking to people, and that audiences are many and diverse in background. The only idea of "moving beyond the screen" that truly interests me is the one where we question the systems of art production and try to sabotage a market that instrumentalizes us according to available funding.
#--5 Can performance be documented? Are there best practices, or pitfalls?
It depends on what you are aiming for. If we agree that performance, by its very nature, is ephemeral — that it happens in its present time only to disappear into nothingness, never to be repeated in the same way (not even simply, because even the audience would have changed) — then we can think in two different directions: Attempting to record everything, like a documentarian. In this case, aesthetics must be set aside in favor of methods (video, audio, written records...) that can capture as much information as possible. The goal is not beauty, but completeness — to provide the tools that might one day allow for a reconstruction or restaging of the work. Attempting to capture the atmosphere, the soul, the pulse of the performance. Here, one must quickly abandon both the idea of a chronological narrative and the ambition to fully document the work. If what we want to preserve is the unease, the fire, the longing that drive the piece, then perhaps the best way is to collaborate with artists working in other mediums — creating "derivative artworks" that embody the spirit, rather than the form, of the original performance.
#--6 Is performance the answer?
Absolutely not. If anything, performance is a way of searching for the question — and even then, it often falls short. An artist who no longer dwells within the terrain of great, unresolved questions is an artist I find deeply unsettling..
#--7 What's a question we didn't ask?
What can we do while a genocide is unfolding in Palestine? As an artist, how can I avoid limiting myself to being just a two-dimensional statement? And then, as fascism rises again across the world, we artists — who are called to suggest complex, non-obvious reflections — what can we do? How can we become thunderous voices without it being pure fiction? What does it mean to be radical in today's world? What does it mean to take a stand, here and now?
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Petr Davydtchenko (b.1986) is a multimedia conceptual and performance artist whose work explores themes around consumption, survival, waste, capitalism, and societal and environmental collapse. He has worked internationally, completing his studies at the Royal College of Art in London before living and working in France for severalyears. During that time, he cohabited with urban scavengers in the catacombs of Paris and subsisted off of rats and roadkill. His work has been the subject of shock, controversy, and even legal action, as he was detained by Brussels police following his live vaccination piece, PERFTORAN. He recently completed his residency at the Catalyst Gallery in Hong Kong, where he has exhibited past works and performance pieces while developing the recipes included in Death Book. His recent exhibitions include Palazzo Lucarini Contemporary, Trevi, Rua Red, Ireland andBPS22 Museum, Belgium. His work features in museum and private collections including: Municipal Museum of Contemporary Art (S.M.A.K.) in Ghent, Wroclaw ContemporaryMuseum, Poland, BPS22 Museum, Charleroi; Palazzo Lucarini Contemporary, Trevi and A/POLITICAL
#--1 Have you ever had an experience that made you rethink what performance could be?
In 2016 I took part in a performance workshop by Franko B. This took place in central Italy at the Palazzo Lucarini Contemporary. During 10 days of training in harsh conditions with exercises like looking into each other's eyes for hours or eating a plate of rice for a whole day. Some people broke down and even gave up. At the end of the workshop, each of us got to make our own performance and present it in the public square of the city.I made a performance in which I was humiliated, spat on and beaten by a group of young men dressed in military uniforms. It was this performance, or rather the dissatisfaction with the aftermath, that made me realise that I wanted to go further, that the act/experience taking place should be more real and immersive. Since then I have been working on erasing the line between art and life. The duration of the pieces has also increased significantly, with some projects lasting several years.
#--2 Do you have a favorite among your performative works?
If I had to choose one of my performance pieces, it would be Immersion, 2014. Where I have three stripes tattooed over my spine and the back of my head. The piece lasts about two hours. We drink vodka to numb the pain. This was a response to Santiago Sierra's 250 cm line tattooed on 6 paid people -a work that deeply impressed and fascinated me.
#--3 How to end a performance?
I am in favour of the complete work and the catharsis it achieves. For the purposes of illustration, I would like to use the following paradigm: the experiment involved human subjects attempting to teach monkeys about creativity. For a period of four years, the team dedicated their efforts to an educational project involving the training of monkeys in drawing techniques. Ultimately, one primate demonstrated empathy towards humankind by creating a drawing.
#--4 Have we moved beyond the screen?
A pornographic film is presented for my view. Irrespective of the point in the film at which the scene occurs (i.e. whether it be the middle or the end, depending on the duration of time that has elapsed since the conclusion of my most recent intimate relations), all physiological reactions are extinguished. The only remaining activity is a blank stare at the screen. This painting is a paradigm of the ideal.
#--5 Can performance be documented? Are there best practices, or pitfalls?
I am currently investigating the potential for transforming performance or body art into enduring works of art. The primary consideration that comes to mind is archiving. It is always advisable to keep an archive.
#--6 Is performance the answer?
Urban residents tend to have a less than flattering appearance. They have poor skin quality, are covered in spots and are overweight. This is largely due to their unhealthy supermarket diets. They are born in stone coffins and live and die within them. Following death, the deceased is placed in a wooden coffin, which is then buried in the ground. I would like to know whether it is worth living in order to be transferred from one coffin to another?
#--7 What's a question we didn't ask?
Is it possible that, as a civilisation, we are living through a crash of all stereotypes, including dietology?54, 18, 76, 92, 31, 72, 72, 82, 35, 41, 87, 55, 81, 44, 49, 38, 55, 55, 31, 84, 46, 54, 21, 13, 78, 19, 63, 20, 76, 42, 71, 39, 86, 24, 91, 23, 17, 11, 73, 82, 18, 68, 93, 44, 72, 13, 22, 58, 72, 91, 83, 24, 66, 71, 62, 82, 12, 74, 48, 55, 81, 24, 83, 32, 94, 57, 44, 64, 21, 78, 42, 98, 53, 55, 72, 21, 15, 76, 18, 18, 44, 69, 72, 98, 20.
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Best known for his roles on Tim & Eric Awesome Show Great Job! and other Adult Swim series, David Liebe Hart is an outsider musician, actor, puppeteer, UFOlogist, and train buff. David’s vast and eclectic catalog includes songs about aliens, food, trains, and failed relationships, yielding such cult hits as "Salame," "Father & Son" and "Puberty."
#--1 Have you ever had an experience that made you rethink what performance could be?
Yes, going through a divorce. My UFO experience, being abducted. Buying things I didn't need.
#--2 Do you have a favorite among your performative works?
I love singing and writing and creating songs. And I love doing religious music as well. My songs are with CCLI, Christian Copyright Licensing, that are being used in Europe in London, England, Germany, France and Sweden.
#--3 How to end a performance?
Getting people to want more.
#--4 Have we moved beyond the screen?
Wow, that's a question. I moved beyond the screen, myself. I left the screen. I'm playing different characters.
#--5 Can performance be documented? Are there best practices, or pitfalls?
Yes, you've got all the new technology, the computers, the cell phones. They can be recorded. I've done a lot of movie and television work. Sometimes mistakes are made and they have to be edited. I used to do the Junior Christian Science Bible Lesson Show, and I had to edit things out of there.
#--6 Is performance the answer?
Performance is the answer to all art and all talent and all music.
#--7 What's a question we didn't ask?
Well, a singer paints the stories of life and a picture with melodies and harmony of what a person goes through or what a person has experienced or what a person likes. Acting is another painting of drama and gladness and sadness. The key to acting is like driving a car. You have to know when to come in and have perfect timing and perfect balance, when to go out and come in as a musician would do on the back of instrumental music.
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Samra Mayanja is an artist working across performance, installation, film and writing. Her practice considers the illegibility of the body and the absurdist impulse to seek what is irretrievably lost.
#--1 Have you ever had an experience that made you rethink what performance could be?
Yes - two weeks in Vancouver watching people die in the streets. Then we’d go to this performance intensive and talk about performance as if people weren’t literally dying in the streets. But then the whole thing became emotionally unmanageable and I thought - oh yes!
#--2 Do you have a favorite among your performative works?
SCREAM (2020)
#--3 How to end a performance?
A clear gesture with the hand.
#--4 Have we moved beyond the screen?
Never - I love em.
#--5 Can performance be documented? Are there best practices, or pitfalls?
Yes, of course. The experience of the audience is a bit more tricky to do.
#--6 Is performance the answer?
Call me to find out. +44 0 7912 604478
#--7 What's a question we didn't ask?
A performance artist, person or tradition that you return to.
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Maria Metsalu (b. 1990, Estonia) is a performance artist creating visual performative works that, regardless of the chosen medium, place her own body in the epicenter. She often employs bodily and physically loaded means of expression that challenge spectator roles, striving to destabilize or even abolish their passive position. In addition to her solo work, she is one of the founding members of the performance group Young Boy Dancing Group (YBDG). Her solo works have been shown, for example, at ICA Art Center in London, TINA gallery in London, Les Urbaines festival in Lausanne, and Impulstanz festival in Vienna. Young Boy Dancing Group’s work has been shown, amongst others, at Performance Space NYC, Schinkel Pavillon in Berlin, O'Flaherty's Gallery in New York City, and Mendes Wood DM Gallery in São Paulo
#--1 Have you ever had an experience that made you rethink what performance could be?
No, because it doesn’t need rethinking. Performance is already a very elastic thing. It was never a fixed shape for me to begin with.
#--2 Do you have a favorite among your performative works?
Not in a linear or logical way. Usually the best ones happen when I’m in some uncomfortable bodily state- freezing and furious—two excellent states to perform in. Comfort is not very interesting on “stage”.
#--3 How to end a performance?
Like I leave the party, without saying goodbye to anyone. A little rude, but elegant. Definitely no bowing, never really understood the purpose of it.
#--4 Have we moved beyond the screen?
Hm, I don’t even fully understand the question which probably means no. The screen is like air now—we barely notice it until someone points at it.
#--5 Can performance be documented? Are there best practices, or pitfalls?
Documentation is its own medium.It shouldn’t try to replace the experience.
#--6 Is performance the answer?
Definitely not but it’s a decent way to phrase something with your entire body. I don’t need performance to solve anything—I just need it to feel true and not boring while it’s happening.
#--7 What's a question we didn't ask?
Maybe one that is not meant for interviews.
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Rafał Zajko multifaceted practice embodies a singular type of speculative fiction - at once visceral , darkly humorous and inherently queer.
His recent institutional show “Spin Off” at Focal Point is a critically acclaimed, must see and to-die-for lucid dream.
#--1 Have you ever had an experience that made you rethink what performance could be?
Growing up catholic. Popping to a church with my grandmother each Sunday and wondering what is this bit about the blood, wine, flesh, blood and when I’m finally gonna see that Lamb of God. Performative campiness of those moments stay with you forever.
#--2 Do you have a favorite among your performative works?
Recent “Denim”. Working with seniors of the Contemporary Elders group at Focal Point in Southend. In the process I wasn’t sure who is learning more from this experience - them being Introduced to performative work for the first time or me having this completely new experience working with such a large, interesting (and interested) group.
#--3 How to end a performance?
In the way that the audience will be left wanting more.
#--4 Have we moved beyond the screen?
Nope - I’m responding to those questions on it.
#--5 Can performance be documented? Are there best practices, or pitfalls?
Documentation is as important as the actual performance. Get someone with different vantage point to yours. Alongside your ideas - they might pull some meaty stuff out of it.
#--6 Is performance the answer?
Aren’t we bored of figurative paintings? Shall we burn them all and dance around the fire?
#--7 What's a question we didn't ask?
Who is my favourite performer of all time. But the answer will have to wait to another interview.
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Uploaded from Whitechapel, London by Dani Marcel and George 'Geo' Stuart.
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