The Odd Shoes

I packed in a hurry. I didn't realise that the shoes I packed for my performance didn't match. They were both black shoes, work shoes, formal shoes, shoes I don't wear very often. I wore them anyway, no one would notice? I noticed the heals were slightly different heights, the leather on one of the shoes was softer than the other, one was more pointed - they both got scuffed during the performance.

The Red Carpet - images from Response, Landguard Fort, Felixstowe

The performance took place as part of a 3-day event at Landguard Fort in Felixstowe called Response, curated by Helen Lydia Green and Michael Lumb for GRIP. The Fort was an amazing setting, full of hidden corners and corridors, holes and history - standing strong against industrial backdrop of Felixstowe Port.

The performance involved working with costume designer Jo Brossman to create an exaggerated red cape which measured 2600 cm x 120 cm. With this cape concertinaed on my back I bowed before the audience at the opening to one of the long, narrow lamp corridors in the fort. The end of the cape was moved over my head and placed at the feet of the audience. I moved slowly backward along the narrow space, unfolding, covering and revealing - filling the space with a river of red. I heard voices - is there someone under there?

images, Emma Johnson

images, Karen

Preparation for The Red Carpet

Costume test for The Red Carpet performance at Response using the red cape/red carpet made by Jo Brossman.

Response - Friday 22nd - Sunday 24th October

Inside Landguard Fort - more possible corridor spaces

'Response' at Landguard Fort - Palimpsest (Scar)

I am developing a new performance work for 'Response', an event taking place in October at Landguard Fort, an English Heritage site on Felixstowe Harbour in Suffolk. Responding to the site, a stronghold, the work will approach themes of power, dominance and submission - referencing the king - the red cape of Caesar and domestic work, service and repair. Simultaneously healing and inflicting - smoothing over and opening an old wound.

I am interested in using the corridor spaces of the fort - the veins and arteries of the building. I am working with the title Palimpsest (Scar). The work will explore the idea of writing and re-writing, covering and revealing, the fort itself has undergone a number of architectural additions over the years, being re-written in stone. I have been thinking about the history of the place, a military history, battles fought by men, written in words on pages, now re-enacted - what is really told? What is lost? 

Unfolding, slowly, moving backwards and forwards in time, a welcoming and a warning, soft underfoot - a red carpet - a red river.