a spectacle of herself
Laura Murphy (UK)
Date: 30th of May
Time: 19.30
Venue: Åbne Scene (godsbanen)
duration: 60 minutes
About the performance
Join Laura on a mission to serve herself up [in]appropriately for your consumption, in a bold, cinematic, acrobatic odyssey through the frontiers of mental health, queerness, rage & the 21st Century space race. Directed by Ursula Martinez, with Laura’s critical and cheeky signature mix of autobiography, lip-sync, video and aerial rope, A Spectacle of Herself navigates the personal and political to seek out new worlds and ways to be seen.
Following on and zooming out from the occupation and commodification of the body explored in their debut show Contra, Laura Murphy presents A Spectacle of Herself - a vulnerable and deeply personal intervention into what it means to take up space, to spill out and be seen... Exploring mental health, queerness and rage alongside self-driving cars and the 21st Century Space Race,
A Spectacle of Herself will adventure through shape shifting identities and landscapes as we join Laura on a mission to serve herself up [in]appropriately - for your consumption. With layers of autobiography, lip sync, creative captioning, video and aerial performance in Laura’s critical and cheeky signature style, A Spectacle of Herself navigates between the personal and the political to create a moving, entertaining and politically committed ride.
“a powerful and empowering piece of work”
“Mesmerising!”
“wildly funny and deeply touching”
“a testament to the transformative power of theatre”
About the artist
Laura Murphy is a genre-defying queer performance maker from Bristol, who makes textdriven and dynamic physical performance about things that she thinks needs to be talked about. Challenging, intimate and spectacular, her work is a cross-disciplinary fusion of theatre, live art, aerial choreography, dance and verbal explosions.
Laura's methodology involves asking her circus technique to serve the work rather than lead it, helping her to push the boundaries of what is expected from aerial work and what aerial disciplines are able to communicate within a theatrical context.
credits
Performer & Writer: Laura Murphy
Director: Ursula Martinez
Producer: Nicole A’Court-Stuart
Lighting Designer: Jen Roxburgh
Captioning & Projection Designer: Ben Glover
Film maker: Holly Black
Production Manager: Dean Sudron
Devising Captioning & Projection Designer: Mark Morreau
Access Consultant: Max Sutherland
Lip Sync Supervisor: Dickie Beau
Trailer: Patch De Salis
Photos: Holly Revell
