Tag: We Could Break Performance

LAB #1: We Could Break Performance
A podcast by Vanessa Godden and James Knott

We Could Break Performance is a podcast hosted by artists Vanessa Godden and James Knott investigating the question: “How do we evaluate the substance of tropes enacted in performance art?”

Each episode of will We Could Break Performance will feature a local performance artist and ourselves in conversation, to help us tackle our dilemma and provide perspective on the values of performance art tropes that we may share or disagree on. Does performance go harder if the performer gets harmed? Or is that negligence in disguise. Is endurance awe-worthy? Or is it sometimes used to unpoetic ends? Does nudity really bare all? Perhaps by the end this series’ run, we could break performance.

Episode 1: Francisco-Fernando Granados
Episode 2: Archer Pechawis
Episode 3: Erika DeFreitas
Episode 4: Mikiki (coming soon!)
Episode 5: Kiera Boult (coming soon!)

Canada
https://vanessagodden.com

Vanessa Godden (they, them) is a queer Indo-Caribbean and Euro-Canadian artist, educator, and curator. They are based in Tsí Tkarón:to/Toronto, the traditional territory of the Anishinaabe, including Mississaugas of the Credit, Chippewa, Haudenosaunee, and Wendat peoples. Godden’s transdisciplinary practice explores how personal histories and the body in relation to geographic space can be conveyed through oral and somatic storytelling in art. They draw from their multi-ethnic diasporic experiences to build multi-sensory performances, videos, sound installations, book art pieces, and net-art that unfurl the impacts of trauma on the body, connections to community, and tethers to culture.

© James Knott, Legs Toronto, 2023. Photo Henry Chan.

Canada
www.knottart.com

James Knott is an emerging, Toronto-based artist. Their performance-based practice employs tactics of self-mythologizing as a means to bridge personal narratives into communal ones. Combining theatre, video, and audio their work places an emphasis on movement/gesture to create immersive and emotionally resonant experiences, exploring themes of queer identity, archetypes of desire, and the commodification of the femme body.

A member of the 7a*11d Toronto Performance Art Collective, and alumnus of The Roundtable Residency and Buddies In Bad Times Emerging Creators Unit, they’ve exhibited/performed at Xpace Cultural Centre, Trinity Square Video, the Toronto Feminist Art Conference, FADO Performance Art Centre,  the 7a*11d International Festival of Performance Art, Montreal’s Festival Phénomena, the Art Gallery of Hamilton, and the Art Gallery of Ontario.