WHAT NOT TO WEAR OUT MY SOUL | 2019
ART NIGHT 2019 | WALTHAMSTOW & KINGS CROSS | Curators Programme (Helen Nisbet)
The Mall, Walthamstow, London
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What Not To Wear Out My Soul was an atmospheric site-specific performance which took place after shopping hours on a stage installed on top of a Costa Coffee in the middle of Walthamstow Shopping Mall. It included pre-recorded and live feed projection, a live musical score with contrabassoon, violin, piano and singing combined with material recorded during a training session between the protagonist (myself) and a Method Acting coach talking through the experience of shopping for a pair of shoes to wear to a job interview they hope to have. The coach’s prompts and provocations are then recited live by an actress alongside filmed footage inside Walthamstow Mall shops that illustrate the shopping experience. The conversation flips between therapy, interrogation, interior dialogue and slides across a spectrum of subconscious musings and self-awareness, acting and non-acting. The subject of buying a pair of shoes is on the surface banal, but given too much attention in this existential re-encounter it becomes both ridiculously intense and intensely ridiculous — revealing emotions of guilt, pleasure, regret, desire, buyers remorse and the phycological impact of aspiration and consumption under late capitalism; and in return the yearning for and commodification of authenticity.
Performers Alice Theobald, Penny Klein and Thomas Stone
Dialogue developed in collaboration with Tilly Blackwood (Audition Doctor)
Soundtrack and lyrics written by Alice Theobald and developed in collaboration with Thomas Stone and Penny Klein
What Not To Wear Out My Soul Again, 37 minutes, is the film is a film itteration of the performance
*Full film available upon request.
The Mall, Walthamstow, London
MORE INFO
What Not To Wear Out My Soul was an atmospheric site-specific performance which took place after shopping hours on a stage installed on top of a Costa Coffee in the middle of Walthamstow Shopping Mall. It included pre-recorded and live feed projection, a live musical score with contrabassoon, violin, piano and singing combined with material recorded during a training session between the protagonist (myself) and a Method Acting coach talking through the experience of shopping for a pair of shoes to wear to a job interview they hope to have. The coach’s prompts and provocations are then recited live by an actress alongside filmed footage inside Walthamstow Mall shops that illustrate the shopping experience. The conversation flips between therapy, interrogation, interior dialogue and slides across a spectrum of subconscious musings and self-awareness, acting and non-acting. The subject of buying a pair of shoes is on the surface banal, but given too much attention in this existential re-encounter it becomes both ridiculously intense and intensely ridiculous — revealing emotions of guilt, pleasure, regret, desire, buyers remorse and the phycological impact of aspiration and consumption under late capitalism; and in return the yearning for and commodification of authenticity.
Performers Alice Theobald, Penny Klein and Thomas Stone
Dialogue developed in collaboration with Tilly Blackwood (Audition Doctor)
Soundtrack and lyrics written by Alice Theobald and developed in collaboration with Thomas Stone and Penny Klein
What Not To Wear Out My Soul Again, 37 minutes, is the film is a film itteration of the performance
*Full film available upon request.
10 minute edited excerpt of What Not To Wear Out My Soul Again
Buyers Remorse (from the Photographic series What Not to Wear Out My Soul, edition of 3), 2019
What Not to Wear Out My Soul, 2019, Performance installation shot
Affluant Desires (from the Photographic series What Not to Wear Out My Soul, edition of 3), 2019
What Not to Wear Out My Soul, 2019, Performance installation shot
What Not to Wear Out My Soul, 2019, film still
What Not to Wear Out My Soul, 2019, Performance installation shot
What Not to Wear Out My Soul, 2019, film still
Piano, Organ and Vocals........................................................ Alice Theobald
Contrabassoon........................................................................ Thomas Stone
Violin and Voice....................................................................... Penny Klein
Technicians............................................................................... Steve Wald, Roswitha Chesher, Andy Downie
Sound engineer........................................................................ Christian Mock
Camera...................................................................................... Roswitha Chesher, Sam Campbell, James Smith
Sound and Video Editing......................................................... Alice Theobald
What Not To Wear Out My Soul was commissioned by Art Night, 2019
Originally premiered as a performance at The Mall, Walthamstow, London 22.06.2019
curated by Helen Nisbett
produced by Amy Budd