Artist
Dominic Johnson

UK
www.dominicjohnson.co.uk

Dominic Johnson is a Lecturer in the School of English and Drama, Queen Mary, University of London. He has performed at festivals in London at SPILL Festival of Performance, National Portrait Gallery (as part of Gay Icons) and Chelsea Theatre; and also at Fierce! (Birmingham), National Review of Live Art (Glasgow) and Sensitive Skin (Nottingham). He has performed internationally in Austria, Croatia, Denmark, France, Slovenia, and the US. Other performance work has also been shown at clubs including Torture Garden (UK, Italy and France), Duckie, Gay Shame, and elsewhere. In collaboration with Ron Athey, Incorruptible Flesh (Perpetual Wound) was presented at various performance festivals in 2006-2007. He received a Grant for the Arts from Arts Council England to develop Departure (An Experiment in Human Salvage), a touring performance using live tattooing, with Alex Binnie; it premiered at Fierce Festival in Birmingham in April 2011. Johnson is the editor of Franko B: Blinded by Love (2006), and Manuel Vason: Encounters (Performance, Photography, Collaboration) (2007), and publishes widely on performance and visual culture. His forthcoming books include Glorious Catastrophe on the work of Jack Smith (Manchester University Press) and Theatre & the Visual (Palgrave Macmillan).

© Dominic Johnson, Transmission, 2011. Photo Henry Chan.

Performance
Commitment Issues curated by Jess Dobkin

ARTISTS
Alicia Grant (Toronto)
Cassils (Montréal / USA)
Dana Michel (Montréal)
Dominic Johnson (UK)
MC Coble (USA / Sweden)
The Pole Club (Toronto)

Curated by Jess Dobkin and FADO Performance Art Centre

Commitment Issues presents the work of five artists and one collective who use their bodies as primary source material to investigate qualities and dimensions of commitment—to ideas, to performance, to audience and to the artists themselves. Through play, risk, intimacy and sexuality, these artists transcend fixed social, psychological, physical and spiritual notions of commitment.

Further confounding the interplay of fixed notions of commitment, the venue for Commitment Issues is Oasis Aqualounge, home to Toronto’s preeminent swinger’s club. Performance sites will include the outdoor heated swimming pool, steam room, hot tub and locker room. Audiences are invited to stay late and enjoy all of Oasis Aqualounge’s amenities which also include a sauna, two bars and multiple lounges. Locker and towel service provided. Bring your bathing suit or birthday suit. Admission restricted to patrons 19+ years of age.

PROGRAM & EVENTS

Performances
November 16, 2011 @ 7:00pm to 10:00pm
Oasis Aqualounge, 231 Mutual Street, Toronto

Processing: Artists Panel & Reception
November 17, 2011 @ 7:30pm
Studio Theatre, Helen Gardiner Phelan Playhouse, 4 Glen Morris Street

The panel is co-sponsored by the Graduate Centre for Study of Drama at the University of Toronto and the Mark S. Bonham Centre for Sexual Diversity Studies at the University of Toronto.

© Dominic Johnson, Transmission, 2011. Photo Henry Chan.

Performance Yellow

This fragrance opens us to the question, has the show started? It's winter, the theatre is colder than the street and the room is filled with people and all their winter smells: wet faux leather, down, too much shampoo, and beer breath. The atmosphere is a trickster. Am I late, am I early?

Top Notes

yellow mandarin, mimosa

Middle Notes

honey, chamomile, salt

Base Notes

narcissus, guaiac wood, piss, beer