Artist
Agnes NedregÄrd

© Agnes-Nedregard, Workshop: Performance As Encounter, 2010. Photo Henry Chan.

Norway

Agnes NedregĂ„rd is a Norwegian performance artist based in Scotland and Norway. Her working practice is primarily based in live performance, while exploring a bodily language in other mediums like video drawings and sculptural installations. She holds a Masters of Fine Art from the Glasgow School of Art (2005), and has since showed her work in festivals, galleries and screenings in Europe, USA and Asia. Frequently she engages in  collaborative practice with other artists, among these Scottish visual artist Moray Hillary and Brazilian performer Raquel Nicoletti. She teaches performance art workshops to students of art, film, theatre and architecture in Europe. NedregĂ„rd is the editor of Nordic Tantrum, a web magazine for Nordic performance art.

Performance
Even Out The Pressure by Agnes NedregÄrd

Curated and presented by FADO Performance Art Centre in the context of the 9th 7a*11d International Festival of Performance Art.

Even Out The Pressure by Agnes NedregÄrd

A visual image, one performer, pressure from the inside, pressure from the outside. One or several actions, the audience is invited, what are you carrying? We meet, we share, after it is over, what do we have left? It remains to be seen.

“Norwegian artist Agnes NedregĂ„rd’s performance, on the other hand, was all intensity. A board hanging on a rope from the ceiling and a board with two holes on the ground, she began by placing a mouthpiece in her mouth that held it open grotesquely, her tongue poking out. A metronome ticked to one side. She blew a whistle. She took her rubber boots off and prowled past the audience in stockings full of dirt and rocks, scowling. She then took her jacket off, revealing an old shirt ripped loose down the front between her breasts. Using needle and thread, she then began sewing the flaps of the shirt to the sides of her breasts and chest. She approached individual audience members, staring at them intensely, the pieced the needle through her skin, pulling the thread tight. She blew the whistle again. The metronome continued to tick. She fit her legs through the holes in the board on the ground and set herself on the one hanging from the ceiling, gazing, again, with a blank intensity at the audience. Then she suddenly leaped off the board, and it snapped back up toward the ceiling, swinging. The performance ended with her putting her jacket and boots back on and stopping the metronome, whose ticking by then permeated the room. Nedregard’s performance might seem to be about the denial of the body, and of women’s bodies in particular, but it struck me as too physically intimate and present for that; it seemed to me more about the fragility and instability of the body as it exists in time, where time, through the metronome, has become an active, physical, literal part of the performance.

Daniel Bard

The Toronto Performance Art Collective (TPAC) is a not-for-profit, artist-driven collective that curates and produces the 7a11d International Festival of Performance Art—English Canada’s oldest ongoing biennial of performance art. 7a11d was established in 1997 by a group of performance artists, collectives, and organizers, eager to develop a forum for performance art in Toronto. The first 7a11d International Festival of Performance Art took place in August 1997 and presented the work of 60 local, national and international artists. The 8th edition of the festival takes place from October 21–31, 2010.

Performance Art Daily: Artist Talk with Agnes NedregÄrd
October 28, 2010 @ 12:00pm–2:00pm
Toronto Free Gallery, 1277 Bloor Street West, Toronto

© Agnes Nedregård, Even Out The Pressure, 2010. Photo Henry Chan.

Performance As Encounter with Agnes NedregÄrd

FADO Performance Art Centre is pleased to offer a 5-day performance art workshop facilitated by Norwegian performance artist and educator Agnes NedregÄrd. This workshop is offered leading up to the dates of the 7a*11d International Festival of Performance Art taking place October 21-31, 2010. Workshop participants will present short works in early afternoon sessions and in the public realm on the first two days of the festival for festival audiences and visiting artists, organizers and curators.

This workshop will focus on the performance as an encounter in real time.
Encounter with space
Encounter with material
Encounter between performer(s) and audience

Question: You might know something about what you are bringing as performer, but what does the audience bring to the performance?

There will be an emphasis on process through exercises, using our bodies and creating material, trying to get a bit further in how to be present in a performative encounter. The students will work individually and in groups. Students are asked to bring an open mind and wear loose clothes.

Programme:
Day 1: Encounter between body and space
Day 2: Encounter between body and material
Day 3: Encounter between bodies
Day 4: Encounter with time and memory
Day 5: Encountering yourself in meeting with the other

Dates: October 16-20, 2010
Location: Toronto Free Gallery, 1277 Bloor Street West, Toronto
Cost: $250 (does not include food, materials or accommodation)
Maximum of 8 participants

FADO will not turn anyone away due to inability to pay the full fee for the workshop. If you have financial concerns, please contact us. If you are traveling from outside of Toronto, we can help you to find accommodation to fit your budget.

TO PARTICIPATE
Please send a short description of your experience as it relates to the workshop, performance art or related interests, including a brief statement of what you hope to gain from this experience. If you have a CV, artist bio and images of previous work, you are welcome to send those as well. The workshop is open to students, visual artists, performance artists, as well as non-artists, non-students, and non-performance artists.

Workshop: Performance As Encounter, 2010. Photo Henry Chan.