Performance collage



Hester Reeve hunched over skeleton
Iris Moore bent over angry
Victoria Singh lying on stomach letter block behind her
Scott Tate manipulating raw chicken at grunt
Sheri D Wilson declaiming poetry

"I've got my foot on the 'too much' pedal but don't worry my hands are on the wheel."
- Iris Moore, Our Precious Motifs (1991)

Performance, as an aesthetic practice, is often about pushing boundaries. This eclectic collection shows something of the range of forms in which performance artists work - challenging the boundaries between theatre, poetry, music and dance, among others. That sense of experimentation extends to the content of the work, - where conventional ideologies about consumption, life and death, and the role of pleasure, for instance - are questioned in search of a richer human world.

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Scott Tate, untitled (1990)

Scott Tate waving finger and talking to audience Scott Tate demonstrates how identities are constructed and contained by the powerful influence of biotechnology, media informatics and capitalist institutions. He makes absurd use of power tools and food (including a watermelon and a raw chicken) to illustrate anecdotes about growing up and auditioning for the CBC.


Sheri-D Wilson, Statistics (1991)

Sheri-D Wilson in front of microphone with guitarist in shadow to her left Sheri-D Wilson's spoken word performances combine poetry, music and simple staging to express a range of human experience. In this excerpt about the "post-departure blues," she explores the feelings of dislocation and alienation while on the road.

Satina Saturnina, Sector X (1999)

Satina Saturnina squatting onstage with a toy animal between her legs Alternative punk band Satina Saturnina blurs the line between performance art and experimental music in Sector X. In this show, Saturnina (Victoria Singh) and her lingerie-clad "droids" (Derek Champion, and various other, ever-changing members) stage a surreal, child-like world full of flat eroticism, bubbly electro-sound, and a narrative about the "mental blocks" to pleasure.