Tableaux Vivants is a constellation of imagery, poses and language taken from the history of performance art. Beginning with an imitation of Vanessa Beecroft’s VB16 (1996), one of the models reaches down and pulls a scroll from her vagina, evoking Schneemann’s seminal performance Interior Scroll (1975). This mashing up of old and new references continues throughout the piece as the models speak, gesture and dance for the audience. Carole Luby performs a Naked Action lecture, again in homage to Schneemann and in doing so explains the history that the models are enacting. Her lecture quotes Hermine Freed’s film Art Herstory (1974):
I can become this woman, but how can I relate my life to hers? How much does my time shape my life? Woman may be born free but she is forever tied to her time, place and circumstance…Was I not fulfilling my own fantasies in reliving these images? Role-playing, time-travel, instant space travel, as well as the recreation of history…
Performed by Sharon Bennett, Sarah Dadzie, Lucy Dear, Laura Eagland, Penelope Granycombe, Antje Hildebrand, Georgina Leahy, Carole Luby, Genevieve Maxwell, Kieghley Marsh and Lorraine Smith
Choreography by Katherine Shirley
Orange Flamenco Dress fabricated by Clare Amos, painted by Oriana Fox
Filmed by Richard Canham & Francesca Ungaro, Edited by Oriana Fox
Rehearsal photos by Manuel Vason
Performance photos by Christa Holka