Image Credit - Yomi Sode
V&A Performance Festival makes its return in April.
Lily Pattison
15/04/24
Catch a series of performances for free across 19-28 April!
The V&A kicks off its Performance Festival celebrating Shakespeare's birthday (making him a Taurus for those interested in horoscopes) with a chockablock program full of live performances, screenings, talks, and workshops. This year's celebrations mark the 100th anniversary of the festival with a remastered theme in a joint celebration of Record Store Day.
Highlights include: the Diva of Tomorrow digital costume try-on experience created by emerging designers. Unearthly, a dance-based installation inspired by Derek Jarman's film Blue, with the V&A explaining, “Once you’ve seen Unearthly, expect to view the colour blue in a new hue.” And INWRD, a collective of young artists who have created a series of performances inspired by Thomas J Price sculptures, navigating the themes of identity, visibility, connection, and representation.
Collaborator of INWRD, Yomi Sode, explains, “This is the second cohort of INWRD, the first round was 2022/23 responding to the Fashion in Masculinities exhibition. Which went really well so we were interested in doing it again.”
He elaborates, “INWRD is a play on words, responding in words to pieces and more introspectively looking into something deeper.”
“For example, Thomas J Price’s exhibitions and sculptures are just sculptures that occupy space but how they occupy space is important, and how we occupy space is important. How you can feel that you are not welcome to walk into a gallery with a hoodie on, the idea that we respond inwards, respond in introspection and move through that thought process at deeper levels and biases.”
He explains how the collective is about how, “Black people respond to this piece, how POC poets respond to this piece in this work.”
The collective is set to perform Saturday, April 27 at V&A South Kensington for free so be sure to check it out.
Check out the full timetable here.
Highlights include: the Diva of Tomorrow digital costume try-on experience created by emerging designers. Unearthly, a dance-based installation inspired by Derek Jarman's film Blue, with the V&A explaining, “Once you’ve seen Unearthly, expect to view the colour blue in a new hue.” And INWRD, a collective of young artists who have created a series of performances inspired by Thomas J Price sculptures, navigating the themes of identity, visibility, connection, and representation.
Collaborator of INWRD, Yomi Sode, explains, “This is the second cohort of INWRD, the first round was 2022/23 responding to the Fashion in Masculinities exhibition. Which went really well so we were interested in doing it again.”
He elaborates, “INWRD is a play on words, responding in words to pieces and more introspectively looking into something deeper.”
“For example, Thomas J Price’s exhibitions and sculptures are just sculptures that occupy space but how they occupy space is important, and how we occupy space is important. How you can feel that you are not welcome to walk into a gallery with a hoodie on, the idea that we respond inwards, respond in introspection and move through that thought process at deeper levels and biases.”
He explains how the collective is about how, “Black people respond to this piece, how POC poets respond to this piece in this work.”
The collective is set to perform Saturday, April 27 at V&A South Kensington for free so be sure to check it out.
Check out the full timetable here.