Anti-Heroine Collapse Generator

BETAnovella

PERFORMANCE

An Encounter with the Supernatural is Imminent

To Dream and Die in America Part 1&2 from More Soup & Tart

Orphee Carbon Copy, Diamond Panaflex

INSTALLATION

Untitled/Headless

Installation of 13 lenticular prints in circular box frames accompanied by a soundtrack

Tai Shani’s Orpheum Theatre presents ‘An Encounter with the Supernatural is Imminent’ a live, holographic performance – a science fiction, psychedelic story about an actress who cannot awake from a never ending dream.

The Orpheum houses an intimate encounter with an, immersive experience that combines analogue and digital technology to magical effect. Fantastical and dreamlike, the work offers a moment of intensity and impossibility produced by the interplay between images real and imagined, present and to come.

Part of Thames Festival, commissioned by up projects in partnership with Shangri-La, Glastonbury Festival with support from Arts Council England.

More Soup and Tart was a sell-out evening in the Barbican’s main Theatre on April 15th, held in the spirit of artist Jean Dupuy’s legendary 1974-5 Soup and Tart events at the Kitchen Gallery in New York. Audiences were served a light meal of homemade soup and tart, which was followed by a ‘menu’ of contributions by around 30 practitioners including Charles Atlas, Matta-Clark, Hannah Wilke, Arthur Russell, Steve Reich and Richard Serra. Each contribution lasted no longer than 2 minutes.

This re-imagined version keeps the format of the original: 2 minute contributions in the form of film and live performance from 33 of the most interesting practitioners across dance, art, music and film. The line-up featured Christian Marclay, Martin Creed, Simon Bookish, Ryan Styles, Mark Aerial Waller, Tai Shani, William Cheshire, Tom Woolner, Penny Arcade, Jennifer Walshe, Edwina Ashton, Dog Kennel Hill Project, Vicki Bennett (People Like Us), Frauke Requardt, Mikhail Karikis, Rosemary Butcher, William Cobbing, Marcia Farquhar, Nicoletta Tiberini, Andrew Kotting, Sam Lee, Simon Vincenzi, Stewart Home, John Butcher, Tim Etchells, Lucy Beech & Edward Thomasson, Holly Slingsby, Marcia Farquhar, Jeremiah Day, Catalina Niculescu, Hilary Koob-Sassen, with a filmed contributions from Charles Atlas and Michael Clark. Live documentation by LuckyPDF.

Documentation LuckyPDF

Tai Shani’s video ‘Anti-Heroine Collapse Generator’ is a dark homage to the French New Wave cinema of the 1950 and 60’s. The video and lyrics depict a tragic romance viewed from multiple perspectives. Set simultaneously as a staged drama and in a cinema, the line between viewer and actor is blurred. The “music” in Anti-Heroine Collapse Generator is in three parts, first an introduction played on an organ then a spoken word dialogue and finally an a cappella ballad.

For the first time in Barcelona, acclaimed British artist Tai Shani, will present a brand new performance specially commissioned by the FRAC Nord Pas de Calais for LOOP 2011.

Anti-Antigone End Time evolves around Antigone’s death. The end of the classic tragedy, first written by Sophocles in the fifth Century BC (followed by countless subsequent versions), is the centre premise for this new piece.

Tai Shani proposes a fractured science fiction adaptation of the play that ends where it begins, and takes place in the impossible and expanded time of Antigone’s self-annihilation. It will propose Antigone both as true, a character within the play, and as a self-aware meta-character which deconstructs itself.

Caught in kaleidoscopic temporality, and in the cinematic interiors of her tragedy, Antigone’s constructed identity dissolves through encounters with different versions of herself from various historical adaptations (Jean Cocteau, Sophocles, Jean Anouilh, and Schlöndorff). In this adaptation, the narrative is told entirely through Antigone’s subjectivity with all the other protagonists, such as her unburied brother Polyneices, appearing as anthropomorphic manifestations of abstract notions such as time, love, etc.

Anti-Antigone End Time combines a film in which Antigone’s memory is replayed, with a live performance and incorporates by an original score by David J. Smith. The heroine is delivered into a  ‘time machine’ which also operates as a ‘tragedy vessel’ suspended in time. A space that is activated by Antigone’s actions and where she remains forever held in the moment of her destruction.

Tai Shani’s performance for LOOP 2011 is supported by the British Council.

For the first time in Barcelona, acclaimed British artist Tai Shani, will present a brand new performance specially commissioned by the FRAC Nord Pas de Calais for LOOP 2011.

Anti-Antigone End Time evolves around Antigone’s death. The end of the classic tragedy, first written by Sophocles in the fifth Century BC (followed by countless subsequent versions), is the centre premise for this new piece.

Tai Shani proposes a fractured science fiction adaptation of the play that ends where it begins, and takes place in the impossible and expanded time of Antigone’s self-annihilation. It will propose Antigone both as true, a character within the play, and as a self-aware meta-character which deconstructs itself.

Caught in kaleidoscopic temporality, and in the cinematic interiors of her tragedy, Antigone’s constructed identity dissolves through encounters with different versions of herself from various historical adaptations (Jean Cocteau, Sophocles, Jean Anouilh, and Schlöndorff). In this adaptation, the narrative is told entirely through Antigone’s subjectivity with all the other protagonists, such as her unburied brother Polyneices, appearing as anthropomorphic manifestations of abstract notions such as time, love, etc.

Anti-Antigone End Time combines a film in which Antigone’s memory is replayed, with a live performance and incorporates by an original score by David J. Smith. The heroine is delivered into a  ‘time machine’ which also operates as a ‘tragedy vessel’ suspended in time. A space that is activated by Antigone’s actions and where she remains forever held in the moment of her destruction.

Tai Shani’s performance for LOOP 2011 is supported by the British Council.

TO DREAM AND DIE IN AMERICA

15 April 2011 Barbican Theatre 7:30pm

http://www.barbican.org.uk/artgallery/event-detail.asp?ID=11727

For one night only! 30 of the most exciting artists working across visual art, film, music, dance and theatre each give a two-minute performance that follows a light dinner of soup and tart, in the spirit of Jean Dupuy’s legendary 1974–75 events at The Kitchen, New York.

Line up of artists include:

Bad-girl performance art legend Penny Arcade; pioneering artist Christian Marclay, whose work explores the connections between visual and audio cultures; Turner Prize-winning artist Martin Creed; investigatory pop/electronic composer and performer Simon Bookish and the spectacular contemporary dance choreographer Frauke Requardt.

Artist Edwina Ashton whose work includes illustration, film and home-made insect costumes also contributes along with mime artist and alternative drag scene favourite Ryan Styles; visual artist/fantastical performance-maker Tai Shani; artist and film-maker Mark Aerial Waller and dance and performance collective Dog Kennel Hill Project.

Also performing is artist and founder of makeshift troupe ‘The Archimboldo Singers’ Tom Woolner; composer, performer and visual artist Jennifer Walshe; audio visual artist Vicki Bennett (People Like Us); genre-challenging artist and musician Mikhail Karikis; dancer, choreographer and icon of the UK’s dance scene Rosemary Butcher.

The night also includes works by sculptor/performer and installation video artist William Cobbing; performance artist Holly Slingsby; performance sound and video artist Marcia Farquhar; acclaimed film-maker, artist and writer Andrew Kotting, artist Jeremiah Day whose work spans photography, installation and storytelling; and collaborative performance duo Lucy Beech and Edward Thomasson.

Also just announced are award-winning folk singer Sam Lee; counter-cultural writer Stewart Home, experimental composer and saxophonist John Butcher; theatre director, choreographer and designer Simon Vincenzi; artist, writer and artistic director of cult experimental theatre company Forced Entertainment Tim Etchells and text, song, sculpture, film and performance-maker Hilary Koob-Sassen.

Plus a special filmed contribution from Michael Clark and video artist Charles Atlas, who was a participant in the original Soup and Tart.

On and Off Stage: Experimental Theatre and Visual Art Performance

Barbican 21 April 2011 Cinema 2, 7.30pm
Hear insights from some of the most interesting practitioners and thinkers across theatre and visual art performance. With Forced Entertainment’s Tim Etchells , Prof Joe Kelleher, Tate Curator of Contemporary Art/Performance Catherine Wood, sculptor and performance maker Bruce McLean and artist Tai Shani .

Complements the Barbican Theatre’s SPILL season of experimental theatre and live art.

The Problem with Theatre (panel discussion)

ICA 28th April 2011

An expedition to the edges of the inchoate territory of non-observed fictions, to the oscillating rooms where the afterlives of heroines deteriorate, swell and gush, to the fractured streets where the interiors of imaginary characters and that of their creators overlap in impossible ways. A ringing echo, a forever reflection between two mirrors creating infinitely nestled fictions that become reflex, gossamer body doubles of each other, ceaselessly interchanging artist with creation through filters of fiction and mythology, erasing and voiding the original forever.

Live score by David J. Smith and paintings by Allison Katz.

Part of the Great British Art Debate

Tate Britain Room 9

SOUNDTRACK

Photographer: Jim Hanner