Sara Popowa

Website

2011-03-03T14:12:00.006Z

My website is now a bit fleshier, and has more systematic info on my work.

And is in constant progress of course...

www.sarapopowa.com

ink choreo grafik @ casa de brujas art house

2011-02-16T23:52:00.003Z

this is the result of my newest work, ink choreo grafik, a site & time-specific photographic process with graphic result forms the final result. An artistic response to the work of Bocanegra, founder and resident artist at Casa de Brujas, 'House of witches' in Liverpool, where I just finished a residency with an exhibition and performance on 12 Feb.

A work in progress, this could go on for quite a while i suspect....

image in 4 pieces and NEW WORK at Casa de Brujas

2011-02-05T20:23:00.004Z

OPEN STUDIOS

SAT 12 Feb doors 7pm

SUN 13 Feb doors 5pm

FREE

Casa de Brujas, 124 Duke Street, Liverpool

Exhibition opening: Live music, open studios, bar.

BOCANEGRA of Casa de Brujas exhibits her work created during her three year stay in Liverpool - a vast series of ink & coffee on paper.

'The line as the unique honest witness of a movement'.

I'm creating a new photographic installation, ink choreo grafik in response to Bocanegra's work during a residency at CdB and will also present a site-specific version of image in 4 pieces (Saturday), and possibly possibly the beginning of a new performance work (Sunday).

Also on the night:

REBECCA WHITING & JEWELLY MARTIN

project dan haag

performance installation

LEE ISSEROW

video projection

LAURA POWERS

live piano performance

Also featuring the work of resident artists

DR. SPARTACULA (Laura Spark)- Sparkreature, animation, still & active

PARABHEN LAD

LIVE MUSIC on SATURDAY:

BABADUB, THE ELFIN SPURS,

LOVE FINGER BANDITS, THE FLAMING MAMIES

+ LIVE SET by MASSSIVE

January 2011 Fresh from the oven!

2011-01-23T01:45:00.004Z

Documentary from Plateaux Festival

2011-01-10T16:36:00.003Z

...which I'm in, second half of the video. Interviewed about my participation as a Plateaux-production piece.. (yes it was saturday night after the shows and yes I was drinking wine!!)

http://www.mousonturm.de/web/Deutsch/PLATEAUX/

wishes for 2011

2011-01-02T04:19:00.004Z

Photo: Andy Towers

Starting a new year from a place of void

- absence of features

or maybe beauty in the dark?

Rest your head, dear

and you'll find

Millions and millions of stars appear

on a black draped sky

(s. popowa)

2010-12-24T04:12:00.003Z

Friday 31 Dec 2010

at The Nightingale Theatre

8pm - 1am - performances start 9pm

After an exciting debut at Coachwerks, Fresh from the oven celebrates the opening of 2011 and a new run of events at The Nightingale Theatre. We will offer our customary blend of live performances and installations adapted to the unique characteristics of the hosting space - with a party twist on this special evening!

Share a bottle of sparkling wine and get ready for the first night of the year!

£10 entry with the option of sharing a bottle of sparkling wine (£9 / bottle for 3 people), snacks included.

Places are limited to 50, so pre-book at freshfto@gmail.com if you know you want to come, pay on the door. There you will also be able to get your share of sparkly. The downstairs pub will be open through the night.

www.freshfto.blogspot.com/ for more + images of past events

Artists:

Mamoru Iriguchi

Simon Wilkinson

Inconvenient Spoof

Flying Eye

Laboratoro

Michail Mavronas & Iain Douglas

Touched Theatre

Linda Remahl

& Dr. Bramwell

surprise DJ

Fresh from the oven curators and artists:

Yael Karavan, Sara Popowa, Tamar Daly,

Marion Deprez, Rachel Champion

The Nightingale Theatre is situated above The Grand Central Bar, opposite Brighton train station.

map

Welcome!

White cuts Liverpool

2010-12-24T03:43:00.003Z

Image in 4 pieces - at Brickbox, Brixton Market

2010-12-23T02:46:00.002Z

On Thursday 15th Dec I showed a variation of Image in 4 pieces in Brixton, London, invited by Brickbox - an arts hub and cafe bar in a part of Brixton Village market with many creative, small enterprises - Brickbox being one of them. Lovely people, thank you Eleanor and Alex.

More impromptu than anything else, this showing gave me the wonderful recognition of having identified some performance elements which are mine - uniquely mine - which can be stretched, jumbled and remixed within the context of each other and through this find new meanings.

The fluffy paper head/cloud, the paper dress, the paper eye mask, the wearing of the different objects - and latest addition are the helium balloons which I found in the installation I made for the last Fresh from the oven.

The environment seemed challenging - around zero degrees in a semi-outdoor pre-christmas market arcade... but after my initial fret (which lasted till an hour before taking the train to London) the situation turned invigorating - I had not told anyone to come and the cold, openness and roughness of the space took the pressure off to make something very polished and 'perfect' (which i too often get stuck on) and instead I allowed myself to play with what I had brought with me, and with the space.

Looking at the images, I really like the fact that my actions are framed with evening-lit shopfronts. Feels pretty right for the season....

Photography: Alex Dermatis, editing Sara Popowa

A light through the Night - video documentation

2010-11-26T19:05:00.004Z

Performing as part of the Karavan Ensemble, White Night 30 Oct 2010.

If you imagine that during the actual shows, there was far more contrast between the blacked-out space and the points of light in it (we had some ambient lighting for the camera). Then watch the video :)

2010-11-23T03:14:00.001Z

We are

Ready for winter migration....!!

Saturday 27 November @ Coachwerks

This is the last time Fresh from the oven is hosted by Coachwerks and we welcome you to celebrate this transitional event with the Fresh team and very special guests including CiCi Blumstein and Jamie Wood.

We will serve up freshly baked live works which cross over dance, live art, music, theatre and film. And we serve nice hot food and have a cheap bar!

Next event is New Year's Eve and will be held at Nightingale Theatre, above the Grand Central bar opposite the Brighton rail station.

Fresh from the oven is co-curated by 3 performers / artists, Y Karavan, T Daly & S Popowa.

See you there!

Some documentation from residency at TAO Liverpool

2010-11-21T03:01:00.006Z

.. see more photos here ..

Performing as part of Karavan Ensemble

2010-11-20T13:45:00.006Z

Photo: Dan Childs

at Inhabit, Brighton Dome

Sat 4 December

11am - 4pm

Free

For one day only Brighton Dome can be seen from an entirely new perspective; local artists, writers and performers have responded to the normally hidden parts of this Grade I listed building to create installations, interventions and mini performances to reveal the building's hidden corners and best kept secrets.

Tours will take place on Saturday 4th December at various times throughout the day from 11am to 4pm.

Artists involved in the project include:

The Karavan Ensemble, Banbazi, Prodigal Theatre's Urban Playground Team Artichoke.

November Fresh from the oven coming up!

2010-11-19T18:04:00.003Z

Winter migration? We are migrating Fresh from the oven from Coachwerks, next one on New Year's eve will be at The Nightingale Theatre.

Acts are still being confirmed but there will be some live gems of performance and music, hot food, cosiness, and maybe some balloons!

Hope to see you there. xx

Liverpool day 2

2010-11-10T02:03:00.005Z

First try-outs in the space, International Gallery today. Armed with thermal leggings and the spirit of being in a new place, we did some improvisation with a score of viewing the camera as a person we have a relation with in real life, making some simple movements repeated in different parts of the space. We were using a soundtrack Tamar had prepared in Brighton with our lovely musician friend Tristan Shorr (also does sound for our project with the Karavan ensemble).

We still have many ideas to try out, and these are only first sketches but we definitely had some beautiful moments and made some starting images. Tomorrow we will make better use of the natural light in the gallery and also try some ideas of mine out working with the live body, paper and movement.

Liverpool day 1

2010-11-09T01:13:00.003Z

We arrived to TAO Liverpool tonight and it seem none of the darkish forecasts we had before coming here had much power - it feels great to be here, very welcoming, exciting and very abundant space, and several opportunities to show work as it seems :)

We all felt pretty content tonight after checking the spaces out, taking some heart time and pasta dinner.. ready to see what our first real day on this TAO residency, tomorrow, will birth!

Blackbird, pic and artificial grass

2010-11-07T23:37:00.004Z

All of next week I will be at a residency at TAO (The Arts Organisation) Liverpool, as part of their S.Q.U.A.T programme (part of Liverpool Biennial). I'm going up there with friends Tamar Daly and Marina Tsartsara, both dance/performance artists (or whatever you may call us!) to mash our latest works together and come up with something new, collaborative and exciting for us. We'll be showing the fruits of our labour Sat 13th in the International Gallery.

Latest news are that things at TAO have become more unorganised than we first thought - including zero heating in the gallery space (International Gallery) and not great support from the Biennial - they were apparently keen on bringing TAO in as part of their programme .. but now are not even including them in their publicity?? So apparently numbers are not great but we will do our best! Generally there's a sense of going up there with an open mind and a pair of dungarees (with tools sticking out of the pockets) and thermals, and see where it'll take us. The main thing for me right now is to be working away from Brighton, in a focused mood, with friends and collaborators who I know well.

A Light through the Night

2010-11-02T14:36:00.008Z

The show with The Karavan Ensemble on Saturday went well, I loved making the work, being directed, working in a group and performing! Had lovely feedback from audience afterwards (and a mention on the Guardian blog, below), generally people seem to have really got something out of it. Great turn up as well, pretty much full house all of the 4 performances we did during the White Night.

The work is very different from my solo practice, definitely more dancey, much more theatrical, more storytelling like - although fragmented - more 'poetic' and with a visual language which i can only describe as ... don't know, a bit vintage perhaps, quite like illustrations in a book of dark fairy tales?

It was fascinating to be in someone else's creative vision, an element of their focused process - we made the piece in 5 days - five performers on stage, one outside, one musician - artistically directed by Yael Karavan. I have taken part in Yael's workshops and classes at Coachwerks in Brighton before, and done the graphic design for her company. Working together towards a performance was the first time though. Enjoyed it! Found it challenging the first few days, before i found some sort of space within the group, who are all used to working with each other since crating 'Ship of Fools' a show for the Brighton fringe 2010.

Yael's process with us often made me think of painting an image, a sort of live 3d landscape using different strokes, colours, elements and textures .. and then swatching everything around, several times, and definitely improvising a lot, grab ideas immediately, making them into elements of the show - Marion's heart-light-outfit for example...

All of the improvisations which led to the content of the show were based on a few straightforward ideas: household lamps collected from local homes in a blacked out space, and use of sound and text both recored and live.

All photos by Dan Childs

review from The Guardian blog

"Next, Karavan Ensemble took us on an anarchic journey out of town to the venue Coachwerks, inadvertently recreating the uniquely unrestrained atmosphere of a nightbus. The mood swiftly became meditative, however, when we arrived and watched an avant-garde dance in which women with the long gowns and opiated stares of Edgar Allan Poe heroines performed with a series of household lamps donated by locals and salvaged from skips – anglepoises, standard lamps, LEDs. Sometimes they cradled the lights as if they were infants; sometimes they brandished them like weapons. Dreamlike as well as surreal, it suggested the sort of obsession that strikes in the small hours."

Of Photography at Frascati - Weds performance

2010-10-21T12:46:00.008+01:00

What can I say... some of the things I have said in the last few days are 'never again wi-fi technology in a live performance', 'enough of this demanding, self-gazing persona' and 'unless I have a revelation in Amsterdam I'm done with this show'.

A quiet revelation perhaps, then, my show last night.

Much was down to the audience being great - good numbers, focused yet pretty relaxed they got the swing of things quite easily and I saw several postshow-glow faces afterwards. That, and receiving some lovely and interesting comments afterwards proves it's all worthwhile...

It is a funny thing, this way of performing - rendering myself passive, blind and open while handing over lots of control / responsibility of the audience's own experience of the show back to themselves. I offer myself up, removing my vision and hence my ability to control - and satisfy - the audience based on 'keeping an eye' and responding to them. All i can do is trust that my setup/framing is strong enough, and that people find the set-up motivating enough to engage with it all. Then over to you, my dears.... thank you everyone who came and took part last night.

Comments and feedback very welcome.

Frascati programme...

2010-10-21T12:11:00.005+01:00

Theatre Frascati programme for 'Tender Fall' of which 'Of Photography' is part along with other performances and installations.

Love the venue, and their publicity design too.

It seems to be a dutch (Amsterdam?) thing - graphic design is generally more playful than in the UK. 'Unconventional' seem to be the convention... maybe the brits (me included) have the need for cooool and detached... I like this playfulness.

Performing 'Of Photography' - Shunt London

2010-10-12T23:41:00.011+01:00

Sunday 17 Oct

'Of Photography' at Shunt Bar, 42-44 Bermondsey Street, London SE1 3UD. Free. Doors open 8pm.

This will be the first public showing of the developed version of 'Of Photography', originally created at the beginning of the year and shown at / co-produced by Plateaux Festival.

The current version is prepared for Theatre Frascati, where it's showing next week as part of a triple bill.

Using technology, my body, paper and choreographed movement, I invite the audience to view and take part in a sensory, maybe slightly unsettling take on Spectatorship, Seeing and 'Visual identity'.

The piece's original concept was a reaction towards excessive photography of performances - or any event with some public 'photo-value'. I wanted to ask what responsibility the photographer, or the consumer of images, may have towards their subject matter.

In this version, I have chiefly kept the concept but shifted the 'everyday' minimalism of the original production to a more distinct visual style, choreography and dramaturgy.

Kindly supported by The Nightingale Theatre.

Performing Of Photography - Frascati Amsterdam

2010-10-12T23:16:00.005+01:00

I will show Of Photography as part of a Triple Bill in combination with Corbeau by Myriam Gourfink and Moth by Francesca Grilli at Theater Frascati, Amsterdam.

20 - 21 October 2010

More info + tickets

White Night - I'm performing as part of Karavan Ensemble

2010-10-12T00:03:00.001+01:00

A Light through the Night.

Saturday 30 October - White Night, Brighton.

The Karavan Ensemble invites you into a nocturnal journey through visual imagery, intimate encounters and absurd realities, inspired by the stories of lights and lamps collected from Hollingdean homes. A site specific live performance & installation artistically directed by Yael Karavan.

Image in 4 pieces - at September Fresh from the oven

2010-09-25T02:28:00.007+01:00

Video documentation of Sara Popowa's 'Image in 4 pieces' at Fresh from the oven at Coachwerks, Brighton, 25 September 2010. Work in development, kindly supported by The Nightingale Theatre, Brighton.

Camera Andy Towers

September's Fresh from the oven, coming up!

2010-09-15T01:08:00.006+01:00

OK it may not rain EVERY day this September.... but even if it does, on Saturday the 25th you can warm yourself with baked performances and hot food at Fresh from the oven - Live at Coachwerks!

Exciting acts are coming together... to be announced soon.

See you there!

Image in 4 pieces

2010-09-07T00:46:00.006+01:00

Documentation of performance at 'Wall into pieces', Phoenix Gallery Studios, Brighton, 4th Sep 2010.

The following photos were taken during the performance, as part of it, marking the key points of my choreographed actions.

.. See the full performance + images here ..

Performance at Wall into pieces

2010-08-30T01:43:00.006+01:00

Wall into pieces Saturday 4 September | 8pm – 2am

at Phoenix Brighton

A large scale art event with an amazing line-up of experimental performances and music documented by a team of writers and photographers to create a magazine in real time.

Curated by Boca2Mouth.

I perform 8.30, 9.30, 10.30, 11.30 in the Red Room, 'image in four parts' (work in progress)

The Red Room will be shared between 4 different artists/groups, each showing a short piece at the same time every hour.

My solo can be viewed both as individual parts and a succession of parts.

Possibly a chain of events, of actions and images where traces of what has happened before becomes part of the scene.

The material is new, still in progress and developed this summer at Nightingale Theatre, Brighton.

[thank u lovely nightingale people!]

2010-08-19T00:50:00.006+01:00

Vid from our launch of Fresh from the oven, our event at Coachwerks last month - next one is next week Saturday - 28th Aug!

The launch's involuntary theme of technical melt-down turned into an applauded feature in Tamar's performance, and into a huge element of distress in my own. People seemed to have appreciated what I was doing, but AHhh - the photos which people took of the scene/me through the window, with the cameras mounted to the glass were supposed to be printed out, one by one, reducing the window's cover of photo-paper and gradually revealing what's behind/inside - making a physical transfer of the audience's view (the photo) back to its source (ME!).

Well, the printer died completely after the second print.... and there I was, lost concept and turned into a sort of arty peep-show. All about the flesh as I was covering myself with the (very unprinted) white photo-papers, and in a very bad mood.

Friends tell me to take it as an experience, learn from it - yes what i learned is that I hate making a show which i don't get anything out of apart from stress, and in this case, no, I didn't. I felt objectified and simplified, and contrary to the sort of objectification I would impose on myself as part of the work, this was forced upon me by that one inflexible thing - 'technology'.

Take it to your bosom, make love to it and then get totally stressed out by it when it doesn't work...

print room @ Fresh from the oven

2010-08-10T10:54:00.010+01:00

Performance installation made in response to the enclosed, windowed screenprint studio at Coachwerks during our event Fresh from the oven.

Two small cameras were attached to the glass on the outside of the enclosed space. The window was completely covered with blank photo papers (with a sticky back) from the inside and the performer, wearing a paper dress, was inside on the print table with a printer.

The idea was for the audience to use the cameras to 'view' and capture the performer from the outside of the window, the photos taken would immediately be sent to print on the printer next to the performer. She would gradually remove the blank papers from the window, put them through the printer - printing the audience's 'view' of her - and then cover her body in these prints.

But ... the printer broke after the second print... aaaaaah! Instead I just carried on putting the white stickers on me while people took photos through the glass. Not quite what I expected but people seem to have enjoyed in anyway.... Here are some of the photos.

2010-07-28T01:49:00.006+01:00

Fresh from the oven - Live at Coachwerks,

a new monthly event of live performance, installation, poetry, music & food at Coachwerks, Brighton.

Launch night this coming Saturday 31st July, from 7.30pm.

My performance will be a site-responsive live installation, building on elements from 'Of Photography' and recent work developed at Nightingale Theatre. Technical assistant: Michail Mavronas.

Nightingale sessions no 11

2010-07-01T00:09:00.002+01:00

Performance sketch

'head'

Session no 9

2010-06-30T03:19:00.009+01:00

paperdress

head

Session no 5

2010-06-22T01:58:00.003+01:00

flashing

video still.

light effects captured by the video camera somehow...

Session No 4

2010-06-18T15:35:00.003+01:00

more images on flickr

dot movement studies

2010-06-16T05:21:00.015+01:00

more images on flickr

Session No 3

2010-06-14T01:48:00.010+01:00

more images on flickr

Session No 2

2010-06-10T01:27:00.008+01:00

'Other'

more images on flickr

Session No 1

2010-06-08T21:52:00.008+01:00

'Walking'

'Laying'

why stickers?

pixel
2D

surface

contour

Research & Development plans

2010-05-30T03:04:00.003+01:00

'Of Photography' is a solo-piece using technology, the body and the audience. It premiered in April 2010 at Plateaux Festival as a Plateaux co-production.

Score: The audience are instructed to photograph the performer who stands naked and still in the middle of the space, and then to place the photos on her. The audience uses three compact cameras and the photos wirelessly transfer to print on sticky photo-paper. At an improvised point in the performance, the performer unplugs the printer. She then walks up to individual audience members and offer them to peel one sticker off to keep before leaving the space.

For concept, see the post Of Photography.

The first ideas for the piece came over a year ago but the main development of the performance took place during a week's residency at Kunstlerhaus Mousonturm, Frankfurt.

One week to develop a live performance is not very much. Even for a conceptual, action based piece like 'Of Photography'.

I discovered a few things during my residency:

The audience is an exciting 'material' to work with but it's also a huge material. I feel I have only started scratching the surface...
With just one audience test prior to the performance, the actual performance experience felt compromised and limited for both performer and audience. This has not been a problem in earlier, intervention type work.
The audience needs to be part of the rehearsal process. This is tricky for several reasons. A 'real audience' rarely happens apart from at actual performances, and rehearsals with an initiated, small audience will only provide insight up to a certain point.
'Of Photography' has a strong concept. The challenge is to make it work as a live piece.

After feeling disappointed with how the performances went, it felt natural to begin a studio research once back in Brighton. My starting point will be this piece and its base concepts, and build on my work from the past year. I am not calling it anything yet, apart from perhaps 'Nightingale Sessions'....

With the kind support of Nightingale Theatre, my two-month research and development will start there on June 7th. It will be a time to experiment and play in a dedicated space, with great people to help me! See NEWS section for audience rehearsal dates if you want to join (just let me know).

Time has come to complement - and counteract - last year's over-used 'thinking about it'.

Of Photography . 02

2010-05-03T16:30:00.008+01:00

Live performance

1 May 2010

Plateaux Festival, Künstlerhaus Mousonturm, Frankfurt

Of Photography . 01

2010-05-01T01:05:00.021+01:00

Premiere at Plateaux Festival, Kunstlerhaus Mousonturm, Frankfurt am Main

Performance assistants: Sarah-Maria Martin, Phillipp Bergmann

Technical support: Michail Mavronas

Support in every possible and impossible way: Martin Baasch, Phillip, Mellie and everyone at Mousonturm

Review of Your Face, Your Fortune at NVT Theatre Jan 2010

2010-04-04T16:58:00.006+01:00

The play 'The Ugly One' was followed in the bar by 'Your Face, Your Fortune', a collaboration between performance artists Tamar Daly and Sara Popowa, where, through photography and masks, rather than surgery, the audience could change their own faces, explore their identities and further develop issues raised in the play.

Your Face, Your Fortune is stylish, well played and well choreographed. The energy and interplay between Daly and Popowa as performers, combines with a mix of technology and sticky paper to define and drive this work where photographs of the audience are printed onto masks with press-out, peel-off features.

How does it then feel to then see the results of moving your own features on a mask of you face, or exchanging your features with another’s? Build comic, or tragic, composite identities that would confuse the most sophisticated facial recognition software. Maybe even try to test the town centre CCTV operators’ skills on the way home?

It is reassuring that in these times of often over complex computer solutions, Daly and Popowa have brought together the very different components of Your Face, Your Fortune without letting the technology distract from the essential fun of their performance.

Andy Towers

February 2010

Read the review on the New Venture Theatre website here.

Of Photography

2010-02-19T02:53:00.007Z

Photo: Gabriel Harju

Of Photography is an audience-participatory performance which investigates the relationship between photographer, image and the image's subject matter.

This concept started as a reaction towards excessive photography of performances - or any event with some public 'photo-value'. In this piece, the general acceptance of and participation in documenting or recording of an event is isolated and turned into the performance itself.

Of Photography draws on life in a time of online social networking, mobile phones and digital cameras - where 'mediated' often equals or replaces 'first-hand' experience. Using our visual/social digital tools, our view seems infinite and with all the time spent on/with it, there is a sense of real engagement. However, this engagement or relation to the mediated does not involve touch, location, smell... nor direct responsibility towards what or who is at the other end.

In Of Photography, I aim to merge the mediated and the direct experience of the audience both visually and experientially by connecting photographing, the actual photograph and physical touching of a live subject. Maker, motif, observer and observed are blended together to possibly provide a situation where the audience may test... their own boundaries of those.

Premier at the Frankfurt Künstlerhaus Mousonturm Thur 29 April with a second performance Sat 1 May during the international live art festival Plateaux. Conceived by Sara Popowa and realised with co-production from Plateaux Festival and The Basement, Brighton, UK.

From the Plateaux festival programme:

Eine Performerin setzt sich einem weißen Raum aus, einem Publikum, einem Blick, einer Kamera. In „Of Photography" ist das Publikum aufgefordert, den Körper Sara Popowas mit den eigenen Blicken zu überschreiben, zu verhüllen, bloßzustellen, zu verändern. In Zeiten von Handycams und sogenannten social networks verschwimmen zusehends die Grenzen von Selbstwahrnehmung, Autorschaft und dem Recht am eigenen Bild. „Of Photography" nimmt den Ball auf und verhandelt Fragen nach gesellschaftlich determinierten Bildern, Kunstklischees und wechselseitiger Verantwortung für Wahrnehmung. Popowa führt in ihren minimalistischen Arbeiten eine Performancetradition weiter, die sich mit dem Verhältnis von Performerin und Publikum beschäftigt; unwiederholbar entsteht jede Aufführung aus dem Moment der Begegnung. Die Performance stellt Fragen nach Unmittelbarkeit und Dokumentation, einem kollektiven Gedächtnis performativer Momente und ob sich seit Yoko Onos „Cut Piece" wirklich etwas verändert hat in der Wahrnehmung von Räumen, Körpern und Sensationen.

Review and pics of Your Face, Your Fortune at NVT Theatre Jan 2010

2010-02-19T02:19:00.006Z

Andy Towers

February 2010

Read the review on the New Venture Theatre website here

2010-01-11T04:10:00.003Z

2010-01-06T00:45:00.002Z

An evening of drama and visual performance,

featuring the play ‘The Ugly One’, directed by Mike Stubbs

and continuing with

‘Your Face, Your Fortune’,

created by Tamar Daly and Sara Popowa in response to the play.

New Venture Theatre, Bedford Place, Brighton

bar opens 6 pm, show starts 7:45 pm

16, 17 (matinee 2:30), 19, 20, 21, 22 January

Premiere Saturday 16th

Tickets £8 or £9 final Fri/Sat. All tickets £6 on Tuesday.

Reserve online at www.newventure.org.uk or phone 01273 746118.

‘The Ugly One’ is a sharp and bizarre comedy on beauty, identity and getting ahead (or a face) in life. Lette thought he was normal. But to everyone else, including his loving wife, he is ‘unspeakably ugly’. When the extent of his ugliness is revealed he turns to a plastic surgeon for help. But after the bandages come off, Lette soon learns that there is such a thing as too beautiful. This play owes glancing debts to the Marx Brothers and Kenny Everett and laughs at our obsession with external beauty.

‘Your Face, Your Fortune’ extends the themes of ‘The Ugly One’ into a live happening. It toys with the possibility of changing one's fortune by changing one's face and invites the audience to participate in a 'photographic facial surgery'.

Be prepared for it to get a little sticky….

NEW YEAR FORTUNE

2010-01-01T22:52:00.001Z

I went to an amazing, happy party at Pop-up Studios, Lewes, organised by friends p&i (who are cycling to Japan in 2010-12, this night was their fun & fund-raiser). They spent weeks doing up an unused and junk-filled part of the studios, making it into a perfect party-space; two dance floors, a bar, two chill-out spaces and even a wardrobe!

I arrived just before midnight to do a 'anti-countdown-performance'. The night then continued into the next day, full of wonderful friends and people enjoying what may be the best new year party I've been to since my clubbing days in Tokyo (and that's more than a decennia ago!)...

After a snooze at the studios on New Year's Day, we went for an epic walk in the downs, climbing iced-moss-covered hills with clear sky and stunning views. Having no walking-shoes with me, I looked stylish on the hilltop in heels as pictured above :)

For the midnight performance I used the idea of o-mikuji, literally meaning 'sacred lottery'; fortunes printed on strips of paper, popular in Japanese shrines and temples.

By email I asked people I know to give me 10 words to use for the paper strips. The words were collected in the last 24 hours of 2009, printed, cut strips, and attached with yarn to a gorgeous white dress. 168 words in total!

Entering the main space of the party minutes before midnight, I wore a black detachable dress over the white one (have no photos..). At 12, in the middle of the space, i ripped the black dress off revealing all the paper fortunes hanging from the white dress. The next hour or so I moved around in the crowd, offering people to pick their fortune off the dress. Here are some of them:

Here are all the words people sent me.

I asked for words that make you happy or you wish for

18 participants (living in 7 different cities/towns, and 3 different countries)

Korg microphone holidays sun water dreams spring swim south music

warmth love intimacy pink lime green clean clear sparkle taste plant

mas fuerza, mas energía, mas amor, mas hacer el amor

yes friends too play remember soft love path today unfenced

お父さん、お母さん、すし、うなぎ、そばにうどんありがとう

Mesmerification Dodecahedonism Talismanagement Sausages Second rate Woody Grill Kinichiwa Singapore noodles Ember viridian

belong in the wind

belong in the snow

belong to the trees

the rain and your love

belong to the water

belong to the sun

belong to everyone

and no one at all

mountains flow dance faith clarity kisses love openess stars hope

ים שמש אהבה שלווה בריאות חברות יצירה הגשמה שלום חלום

chocolate charcoal skin eye lashes lips rain primavera planetas air landing

Blessing upon harmony of action and inaction reaching lasting beauty

transformation mysticism friends myth adventure growth enlightenment schpongle-juice doitch 'oh' wheels cranks fast cars & bitches loveguns pistonpower pistonlegs

tweek rising sun together regenerate east

amal, baraka, rahma, farah, iman, salam, wahab, ihsan, rachid, noor

Vårmorgonsgryning i skånsk skogsdunge. Dofter. Ljus.

Uppvaknande fåglars intensiva sång. Svensk naturromantik.

Hälsa, Pengar, Strand, Hav, Himmel, Sol, Växter, Min docksamling, Opera, Skönhet i alla former, Vackra ting, Lieder, Måla, Skapa

let your blossom blossom and everything else will follow too.

your passion will transcend into a flowering process within and outside of you

peanut-butter morning better later keys Earl Grey act car snow soup

YOUR FACE, YOUR FORTUNE

2009-12-09T19:17:00.004Z

Documentation of a live performance by Miss Daly & Miss Popowa: YOUR FACE, YOUR FORTUNE - a one-to-two performance.

This 5 min performance ran for two hours in a small closed space within Supperclub @ The Basement, a live performance venue in Brighton, UK. The theme for the night was 'Fortune'. During this time, Miss D & S read 26 audience members' faces/fortunes with their hands. The resulting reading - a printed portrait with peelable features - was given to the audience with the invitation to CHANGE their fortune by changing their FACE.

Concept and performance:Sara Popowa & Tamar Daly
Technical performance operator: Michail Mavronas
Camera: Ruben Woodin
Graphic design: Sara Popowa

'Your Face, Your Fortune' at Supperclub WHITE NIGHT Special, The Basement, Brighton

2009-10-20T19:01:00.004+01:00

A collaboration between Sara Popowa and Tamar Daly, concocted especially for SUPPER CLUB SPECIAL: FORTUNES OF WHITE NIGHT.

The Basement

24 Kensington Street, Brighton BN1 4NJ

In this one-to-two performance, Miss Popowa and Miss Daly offer a Facial Reading plus a Ticket of Fortune which gives you the opportunity to CHANGE your face and fortune on the night!

The fortune tellers will be available for two hours between

11pm - 1 am.

Fortune Tellers: Miss Sara Popowa and Miss Tamar Daly

Machine Magician: Mr Michail Mavronas

Base concept: Sara Popowa, developed in collaboration with Tamar Daly

SUPPER CLUB SPECIAL: FORTUNES OF WHITE NIGHT

FREE

6.00pm – 4.00am.

Cooked up especially for White Night, Supper Club presents a night of chaos. Leave your expectations at the door. They wont help you here. Indulge yourself in a frenzy of live performance intoxication, a 10-hour odd-athon for the fortunate few. With music, live art, video art, invisible art, explosive art, art that makes you go ‘what the hell was that?’ and art that shouts ‘Don’t just sit there, DO something’, Supper Club Special demands your presence.

Concocted from the most exciting new performance in the country by Basement Supported artists Janine Fletcher, Avis Cockbill, Victoria Melody and Luan Blake, Supper Club is fast building a reputation as night not to be missed.

You won't know what's on the menu until it's served…

Documenting Cloud Body 03

2009-09-29T16:03:00.003+01:00

Cloud Body 03 at Bristol University

2009-09-29T11:23:00.003+01:00

I spent 3 days in Bristol last week, attending a seminar on digital documentation of performance organised by JISC Digital Media (hosted at the Institute for Learning and Research Technology at the University of Bristol).

During this stay I made a version of "Growing Bodies from the Cloud" on Thursday 24th as part of Speaker's Corner at Arnolfini. The piece was very different from Lori's and my joined forces on Park(ing) Day on Friday and I don't think it worked quite as well. Apparently it seemed fine from 'the outside' but I think much more time needs to be spent on contextualizing the piece for each different time and location. I am still waiting to receive the documentation photos from this event, they will be up here soon!

On Thur night I was asked by JISC seminar facilitators Stephen Gray and Paul Clarke if I wanted to show the piece once more, during the lunch break the next (and final) day of the seminar.

After spending some time thinking and planning I agreed and this time I decided to make the piece into more of an intimate, introvert version - naked but crouched up and hiding my face in my hair, only seeing the sheets of stickers laid out in front of me, and sticking them to my own body. I also choose to place myself on a table as the space was a meeting/work type of room, and (with the help of the very helpful staff - thanks!) made use of the number of cameras the department has - four SLR's, which two on tripods.

This is an idea I have wanted to explore for a while - the documentation being integral to the live performance, and the audience participating partly by documenting, or seeing through the camera. Well, more could have been done in terms of me planning the event... Apparently not every audience member had managed to read the background/instructions - too discreetly stuck on the wall - they must have thought I was completely random! :) I also was made aware of how tricky it is to ask people to use SLR cameras - even with auto settings, most images came out blurry. Possibly an issue to do with lighting as well.

The bottom line is that despite having very little time I DID it, and this I am happy about. Again, great support from staff at JISC, thanks.

Photo documentation of CloudBody 02 at Arnolfini Speakers Corner, Bristol

2009-09-25T03:02:00.002+01:00

Cloud Body 02 showed at Arnolfini, Bristol as part of the 100 Days Countdown: a series of exhibitions, performances and talks highlighting climate change, social justice and art and activism, running between 29 Aug - 6 Dec 2009 - up to the Copenhagen climate conference. My friend and former course mate at Brighton University, Pablo Perezzarate, had the idea of one gig per count-down day, and is now organising a huge number of gigs through Climate350, a Bristol-based charity. He invited me to come and show some work and it luckily coincided with my plans to attend JISC's documentation seminar.

Working on my own made quite a different piece from the version shown at Park(ing) Day, where me and Lori O'Regan had three hours in an outdoor, public site with a mainly 'accidental' audience watching and taking part. On my own, and with much less time at hand, the piece felt rushed and with less defined borders than I would have wanted. Nevertheless, the feedback I had seemed ok. So, at the end of the day I have had a chance to practice a favourite way of performing - structured improvisation, and to use this in something different from movement work, which I would normally use it in. It was interesting to see the improv limitations of this more conceptual piece being different from a more movement orientated piece, where you can fall back on 'doing something dancy' when you run out of flow.

Arnolfini is 'one of Europe’s leading centres for the contemporary arts' according to their own website, and as far as I understand it is true. I ended up there all of my three days staying in Bristol and I enjoyed their open setting by the canal in a buzzing, stroll-friendly part of town, and the culturally minded, good-looking crowd who were casually hanging out in the cafe/bar.

All images by Pablo Perezzarate

Next Body happening on Thur 24th, Arnolfini, Bristol

2009-09-22T15:18:00.003+01:00

Another Body from the Cloud will be made by myself Thur 24th Sep this week in the foyer of Arnolfini, Bristol. 1 - 1.30 pm, as part of their lunchtime programme "Speaker's Corner": Performances, talks, presentations, recitals programmed in response to the 100 Days: Countdown to the Climate Change Conference (which takes place in December in Copenhagen).

This performance I envision being quite different from the one past weekend, although many elements stay the same.

I will be on my own, and I have 30 mins for the performance.

The space is the foyer of a respected arts venue and my space will be central, on a small vinyl circle. (?!)

My movements will more performative and probably silent.

I will outline my own body with crayon or similar, then get up and fill in my own outlines.

Documentation of 'Growing Bodies from the Cloud', Park(ing) Day Brighton 2009

2009-09-21T17:34:00.001+01:00

Thanks to all of you who contributed with pictures of hair, skin and ground to the BODY which grew and came alive on Park(ing) Day Brighton 2009. The live event on Friday went really well, we loved it and had very good response from audience/participants.

Today we are happy to feed these images back into 'the Cloud' - creating a sort of feedback, or dialogue.

This performance/event/installation is made for both a live and an online audience. And we like our audience to be part of the art - we still need photos, and for YOU to take part! :)

Keep sending them in to sara or lori or post to our facebook page.

The next body will be built by myself Thursday 24th Sep at 1pm in the foyer of Arnolfini, Bristol as part of "Speaker's Corner"

Park(ing) Day Brighton was organised by artist CiCi Blumstein in partnership with BLANK Studios Gallery. Publicity Design by Sara Popowa.

The live performance was made possible with the kind support of The Basement, Brighton. Thank you Sam!

The following text was displayed during the live event on Park(ing) Day:

Our idea is to collect digital 'pieces' of human bodies through our online social networks, using these pieces to create a “physical body’’, montage style. A small gesture to materialise our virtual connexions with our friends “in the cloud” (the cloud is a geeky metaphor for the internet).

This is an ongoing project and you can ‘grow’ with us too - give us photos of your skin, hair or the ground you are standing on. Mail or post on them our facebook group.

Thank you for taking part!

Sara Popowa and Lori O’Regan

Location: The Basement's private parking spot right in the middle of Brighton, Kensington Street - The Basement is visible opposite the street. Our own take on the open-source Park(ing) guidelines!

Duration: 2-5pm.

start. composites of images are printed on sheets of sticky labels and laid out in a 'parking square'

outlining Lori's body with small white stickers

the location. next to us are another two (unused) private parking spaces

the body is outlined and surrounded by what will become its 'content', the stickers

we start filling in the body

audience/participant

"finally i get to have hairy arms!"

eyes in place, put there by audience/participants

creating a 'scene' with passers by

the body coming into completion...

Lori, Sara and the Body of all of you are pleased with the result!

end

Friday, 7pm

Sat night, 3.30am

Sun, 5pm

First photos of Growing Bodies from the Cloud!

2009-09-18T17:49:00.001+01:00

making

Growing Beds and Bodies happening 18th Sep!

2009-09-18T01:10:00.002+01:00

these are some of your contributions! to be printed with many others on sticky label A4 sheets tomorrow morning..

"Growing Beds for Public Hair" which is the name for Growing Bodies from the Cloud's latest manifestation, will happen tomorrow Friday 18th Sep, as part of Park(ing) Day in the backstreets of North Laines, Brighton. Lori and myself will hunt down a park(ing) spot somewhere between Tichbourne St (where both the Buddhist centre and Arts Council offices are:) and Foundry St. There we will build a luscious life size body collage of the 'pieces' of your body that we have harvested through the net, straight onto the ground.

Come by if you are in town (I know not all of you are), we will be there between 1pm and 4pm.

Or see pictures of the result here in a couple of days, or on our facebook group.

Hope to see you there in the flesh, we will see the digital/paper version of you taking shape on our park(ing) spot ground...

Growing Bodies - prototype

2009-09-17T03:14:00.001+01:00

Mini-body to try and mini-publicity stunt (flyers stuck on) on Tichbourne St, Brighton earlier this evening. It looked interesting and felt great to do - somehow touching public property in an 'improper' way, gentle rebellion. We got some immediate responses from people - a neighbour peeking out his window and chatting (checking we were not vandals i suppose :) and when I passed later, I saw three traffic wardens passing by, looking and laughing.

Call out - we want pictures of your SKIN!

2009-09-16T14:58:00.001+01:00

Cloudbody / Park(ing) dayThanks for all your hair-photo-contributions for our Park(ing) Day project - we have had hair wired in from Canada, Australia, France, Sweden... and the collection is growing!

The idea is to collect digital 'pieces' of human bodies through our social networks, and use these pieces to create a final 'montage'. The images, taken by you, will be printed on sticky labels and constructed into the shape of a body, materialising our virtual connections with all of you! We will make our first body here in Brighton on Park(ing) Day, Friday 18t Sep. http://www.parkingday.org/

The latest development is that we want to include your SKIN and GROUND, so please give us a hand by giving us one or more photos of your skin or hair, and a snap of some natural ground near where you are (you can give us both or either).

Tell us your location, and mail the pics through to sara [at] gmail.com or l.oregan [at] yahoo.fr

or post it to our Facebook group page http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=136730178009

For our privacy policy, see the earlier post "We need your help with "Growing Beds for Public Hair".

Tell all you friends, we want as many pictures as possible!!

We have extend the project beyond Park(ing) Day so keep sending your photos in! :)

The name for this extended project is "Growing Bodies From the Cloud". The 'cloud' is used as a metaphor for the Internet, based on how the Internet is depicted in computer network diagrams and as an abstraction for its complex infrastructure.

I caught a bit of a very interesting symposium at Ars Electronica, the weekend before last, 'Cloud Intelligence' (link: Isaac Sasaki is recommended) and I would say this reinforced my belief that the internet ('the cloud') is a site for rapid human behavioural evolution (if I may be so profound!). This evolution comes with a fair amount of physical inactivity and body dis-connection though... which I find hard to cope with. So, our piece could be seen as a way of materialising a body, which originates from the body-less cloud and then is fed back into it, by uploading evidence of its physical making/existance, creating a sort of spiral which i hope will expand more and more.

Check back on the 18th to see photos of the physical Park(ing) Day piece, and come by if you are in Brighton - we will be in the back streets of North Laines, somewhere between Foundry St and Tichborne St.

Thanks for taking part!

Dear Adam

2009-09-13T18:19:00.002+01:00

My friend Adam died one year and a few days ago.

The past days he has been with me a lot.

Here is documentation of a private performance I did around the day of his funeral last year, which I couldn't attend as I was abroad.

Title: Adam, and having a body

29 Sep 2008, Corfu, Greece.

Preparing. A blue sheet of paper is painted white, and a cut-out of my own body is placed on top. White paint and clay is mixed in a mortar and used to outline the edges of the body, at the same time 'gluing' the edges down.

A light breeze animates the blue figure at times.

The figure is filled in with charcoal (carbon).

I undress, rub my body with oil and lay on top of the figure.

The charcoal leaves a print on my back when I get up.

I raise the figure and embrace it. The charcoal leaves a print on the front of my body.

I set fire to the figure and watch it disintegrate.

I leave the space.

thank you Adam

Launching our Park(ing) Day project at Grand Seed Ball at Blank Studios & Gallery

2009-09-13T01:33:00.001+01:00

Arrived last minute... and set my presentation up at Blank Gallery, where 'Grand Seed Ball' took place tonight.

The pic is taken with a phone-camera and no light... but in the middle there's a world map drawn on the wall, around it the hair pics I have so far, with location, printed onto sticky paper and connected with drawn lines. There are rows of smaller stickers with drawn green grass - or hair - around it as well. Above the map is a print of the call-out for hair pics, as posted in the Help us with 'Growing beds for public hair'! post

I really enjoyed the evening! Intimate, relaxed atmosphere and interesting work. Many people liked the Grow Bed idea, which felt great.

CiCi Blumstein had installed a great pile of green felt (back left in the first photo), and was inviting people to cut each other's silhouettes out. I liked it, funny feeling to lie on the soft felt on the floor and get cut around the edges of your own body... The results were beautiful and strange too.

The map I designed for park(ing) day was on the wall, I had printed it on two A0 sheets of paper and stuck them together. Looked good!

My friend and collaborator Lori O came later, we will now work together on how to present the hair images on the Day itself.

Blank gallery will be open as a 'lab' open to the Park(ing) day artists during this coming week. We will be there on Wed to see what we come up with with our (then) plentiful, human and digital material....!

Grand Seed Ball tomorrow 12th Sep!

2009-09-11T17:11:00.002+01:00

Arty Party at BLANK studios gallery with a installation growing during the evening, by CiCi Blumstein and also the launch of Park(ing) Day which happens next friday, 18th Sep, in which I am taking part with an installation happening on the day, and publicity design.

http://www.blankstudiosgallery.org/exhibitions/grand_seed_ball.php

http://www.parkingday.org/

PARK(ing) Day is an annual, one-day, global event where artists, activists, and citizenst collaborate to temporarily transform metered parking spots into “PARK(ing)” spaces: temporary public parks. Artist CiCi Blumstein is working in partnership with Blank Studios & Gallery and invited artists to pioneer the event in Brighton.

Dress up, theme 'foliage', if you wish, and bring a plant or seeds!

See you there x

Brighton Park(ing) Day 2009 flyer

2009-09-11T05:34:00.002+01:00

Park(ing) Day open source design (car designs on flyer front): ReBar

Brighton Park(ing) Day map and design: Sara Popowa

Help us with 'Growing Beds for Public Hair'!

2009-09-11T04:44:00.001+01:00

We need your help for our next project "Growing Beds for Public Hair" which hits the streets of Brighton next week during Park(ing) day: an annual, one-day, global event where artists collaborate to transform metered parking spots into “PARK(ing)” spaces: temporary public 'parks'.

The idea is to collect the material - your hair - through our online social networks.

Here are the instructions:

Take a picture of any of your own hair; can be body, facial, pubic or head. Any camera is fine.

Take the picture so that the hair shows as clearly as possible.

And no rude ones please! :)

Tell us your location.

Send the image(s) as jpgs to sara.popowa [at] gmail.com or post it to the Facebook events page http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=273226960112 or as phone-pictures to 07891396695 up until the 16th Sep, that's Wednesday next week. Keep the image size as big as you can easily.

In exchange, we promise that:

Your contribution will be anonymous and no-one else apart from us (Sara Popowa & Lori O'Regan) will use your pics. We won't use/keep your email addresses, apart from sending you a link with a photo of the physical result on Park(ing) Day.

We won't use whole or parts of anyone's face or any other distinctive features.

Your hair will 'grow', together with many others', on the streets of Brighton on Sep 18th!

You can view the development and documentation here on http://sarapopowa.blogspot.com/

Thanks for taking part!

x Sara & Lori

Stick Piece at SPILL National Platform

2009-04-20T17:01:00.003+01:00

"Enter with the audience

Make a circle of stickers in the middle of the space

Undress

Sit inside the circle and place one sticker on your body

Stay still until all stickers have been used

Leave the space"

Sara Popowa

Stick Piece

National Platform 19 April

Mediative and visually captivating, Stick Piece is a kind of reverse of Yoko Ono's Cut Piece, an interactive performance where the audience are invited to dress, or 'create' the performer in an unexpected and slightly unsettling way.

19/04/2009

National Theatre Studios

Photo: Andrew Downs

Programme entry on SPILL website here