The History Bois Practice as Research residency: a queer-historical take-over at The Spire
3rd May 2020 - 7th May 2020
Please note that this event has been postponed in response to
government advice about the coronavirus outbreak. We hope to rearrange
it later in the year.
SL Grange and E.M. Parry (UoB, Techne) are taking over The Spire in Brighton for a week of
temporality-queering research, practice and play. Our research is concerned
with the challenges of historicising queerness and gender non-conformity, which
we use as a jumping-off point for a range of playful and performative artistic
practices attempting to contact the queer dead. The History Bois take-over,
staged as part of the 2020 Brighton Fringe Festival, is centred on Performance
as Research, and encompasses an exhibition, durational performances, workshops,
and two nights of queer cabaret, employing a range of embodied and performative
methods to explore themes including masculinity through the ages, meeting the
queer dead, and self-fashioning Elizabethan-style. Particularly relevant for
researchers engaged in PaR and multi-disciplinary creative practice, queer
history and historiography, performance studies, gender studies, queer theory,
plus any drag king fans; the take-over is free to attend for Techne students
and offers various access support options. Some events do require booking as
spaces are limited. Please contact s.grange@brighton.ac.uk
to book your place.
We Elizabethans, 3-7 May (all day) An exhibition of visual and live artwork by E.M. Parry.
Drawing on their professional background as a scenographer and drag performer,
and their own experiential history of transness, Parry engages the aesthetic
vocabulary of theatre to stage dialogues with past and future, tracking queer
and trans embodiments in the negative spaces of the historical archive.The
exhibition is available to view, free of charge and without booking whenever
The Spire is open. E.M. Parry will also be performing some live durational and
participatory artworks during the week – please check social media links for
updated times and info. https://www.facebook.com/events/594439547803896/
Meeting the Unruly Dead, 4&5 May (afternoon/evening) These workshops run by SL Grange explore creative ways in
which we might connect with queer tr/ancestors, part of her research into how
improvisatory (performance) practices can provide a more ethical way to ‘do’
history and think through/with the queer dead. These workshops will incorporate
writing, mark-making and some performative elements. If you already have a
historical figure in mind that you want to work with, please bring any research
along. Otherwise, there’ll be a range of folks to explore at the workshop.
Basic art materials provided, or bring your own if you already have a creative
practice you’d like to incorporate. Free to attend but booking required
as spaces are limited. Email s.grange@brighton.ac.uk
to book. https://www.facebook.com/events/2525368391034455/
The History Bois: Adventures in Drag King Time-Travel,
6&7 May (evenings) The Bois are back in time! Come and play with
the space-time-gender continuum at this epic Drag King cabaret, as SL Grange
and E.M. Parry put their performance into practice. Two unruly nights of
historically-themed cabaret performed by a succession of legendary kings
time-travelling direct to Brighton Fringe 2020, bringing you a queer
crash-course in masculinity as performed through the ages. Whether you like
your manhood ruff-and-ready, Boi-Georgian, sweet-as-funk 70s style or
post-apocalyptic robo-camp, the Bois have one hell of a history lesson lined up
for you… To book your place, please email s.grange@brighton.ac.uk https://www.facebook.com/events/474734660117060/
Additional details,
more events and performer announcements etc to be posted on social media in the
following months: please follow @historyboisdrag on twitter and Instagram.
