Schrei 27 (2010) by Davide Pepe and Diamanda Galás. Installation film still.
SPILL FESTIVAL OF PERFORMANCE
ON INFECTION
(2011)
Live • International • Artist-led • London
SPILL Festival 2011 - On Infection - took place site-wide across the Barbican and at the National Theatre Studio. Made up of 70 live events, the curation included the genuinely unsettling film and sound installation Schrei 27 by Davide Pepe and Diamanda Galás, the challenging On the Concept of the Face, Regarding the Son of God by legendary Italian theatre maker Romeo Castellucci, SPILL Commissions, the SPILL National Platform, the launch of the SPILL Tarot Exhibition, SPILL Onscreen, SPILL Thinker in Residence (Oreet Ashery), the SPILL Think Tank programme, SPILL Writing, SPILL Feasts, and SPILL TV & Photography.
SPILL Festival 2011 was curated around the theme of Infection, of which Robert wrote:
‘Performance presents us with multiple layers of ideas, images and politics, but how do we - the audience - receive these live transmissions? Does information simply arrive in straight lines, making the same sense to each of us? Or does it cross-pollinate with our own individual experiences, contaminating each personal reading to form new hybrid knowledge?’
This edition of SPILL took place site-wide across the Barbican - in the Hall, the Theatre, the Silk Street Theatre, the Pit, gallery spaces, cinemas, and across foyers and atriums. Opening with Ryoji Ikeda's Datamatics (v2), a bold programme of SPILL Commissions included the terrifying world premiere of Schrei 27 by Diamanda Galás and Davide Pepe, Rajni Shah's participatory musical Glorious, and Harminder Judge's confronting Do What Thou Wilt.
Romeo Castellucci's On the Concept of the Face, Regarding the Son of God divided audiences between those who could stand the stench of human shit permeating the auditorium and those who could not. Contaminated salons held by SPILL Thinker in Residence Oreet Ashery, contagious music and paranoid films were programmed around the SPILL Tarot Exhibition and the work of 12 early makers presenting in the SPILL National Platform, shown at the National Theatre Studio.
It was a good year to catch it.
Glorious (2011) by Rajni Shah. Photo by Pari Naderi.
I Guess If The Stage Exploded (2011) by Sylvia Rimat. Photo by Pari Naderi.
Hamlet (Tissues) (2011) by Jungmin Song Photo by Pari Naderi.
How 2 Become 1 (2011) by The Famous Lauren Barri Holstein. Photo by Pari Naderi.
This Rose Made Of Leather (2011) by jamie lewis hadley. Photo by Pari Naderi.
On the Concept of the Face, Regarding the Son of God (2011) by Romeo Castellucci & Socìetas Raffaello Sanzio. Photo by Pari Naderi.
Mucus Factory (2011) by Martin O'Brien. Photo by Pari Naderi.
Do What Thou Wilt (2011) by Harminder Judge. Photo by Pari Naderi.
Do What Thou Wilt (2011) by Harminder Judge. Photo by Pari Naderi.
Do What Thou Wilt (2011) by Harminder Judge. Photo by Pari Naderi.
Lady Kamikaze, SPILL Barbican Late (2011). Photo by Pari Naderi.
Penny Arcade, SPILL Barbican Late (2011). Photo by Pari Naderi.
SPILL Tarot Exhibition (2011). Photo by Pari Naderi.
SPILL Tarot Exhibition (2011). Photo by Pari Naderi.
SPILL Tarot Exhibition (2011). Photo by Pari Naderi.
Le Gateau Chocolat, SPILL Launch (2011). Photo by Pari Naderi.
DOCUMENTS
SPILL Festival 2011 - Brochure