A few Ghost House and Disciplinary Institutions pictures curated into Gallery 202’s online show “Matter. Place. An other.”
Tricyclic Transform at Cinema Museum London, part of Wotever DIY Film Fest!
Screening at the Cinema Museum on Saturday August 22nd at 19:30, part of the Gender Riot program of short films that explore, play, sing, dance, celebrate and experiment with gender.
The Cinema Museum
2 Dugard Way
London
SE11 4TH
Tricyclic Transform touring the US with Gender Reel Film Fest!
Tricyclic Transform will tour the US as part of Gender Reel, a Film Festival showcasing film and video by gender non-conforming, gender variant/queer and transgender people. Events are currently scheduled in Minneapolis, Omaha, Houston, Boston and Durham for autumn 2015, and New York University in spring 2016. More info and dates to come!
Usurp Zone 5 Film Festival 14-17 August, London.
‘Ghost House’ and ‘Disciplinary Institutions’ will be screened at Usurp Zone 5 Film Festival.
Showing with other films on multiples screens, 3 to 6 pm every day between 14-17 August. Free entry!
Usurp Gallery
http://www.usurp.org.uk/
140 Vaughan Road, London HA1 4EB
Brighton Trans*formed website now live!
www.brightontransformed.org.uk
Brighton Trans*formed is a oral history project documenting the lives of transgender residents of Brighton and Hove , organised by community publisher QueenSpark Books and funded by Heritage Lottery Fund. A book was published in September with edited versions of the interviews. The website holds each participant’s full length unedited interview, currently in transcript form, with the audio being added as they are processed.
The website is my first freelance project. It is a fully responsive WordPress website, with a custom theme inspired by the book design, and putting the focus on each participant’s portrait. It looks beautiful and scrolls effortlessly on an ipad, so you can enjoy it like an ebook. It resizes to a functional text based website on a smartphone but, given the content-heavy nature, this is honestly not the best platform to enjoy the website.
I am proud to have been part of such an important project, with the website ironically launching the day after Stonewall finally announced they would include Trans* people in their campaigning efforts…
I am keen to work on more digital projects for clients at the crossroads of arts/culture/heritage and LGBTQI community. I will be attending Justin Vivian Bond’s concert at Brighton Dome on Wednesday 18th, and the Brighton Trans*formed event on Thursday 19th at the Marlborough (8pm). Do not hesitate to come and talk to me if you would like to collaborate on a project!
‘Tricyclic Transform’ screened at Deep Trash Italia
Saturday 31 January 2014
DEEP TRASH ITALIA #4 Carnivalism
at Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club, East London
£6 adv. / £8 door
h 19:30-02:00 (last entry midnight)
Deep Trash Italia exhibition-cum-performance-club night pairs up with the start of the Carnival in Venice to transform Bethnal Green Working Men’s club into a babel of masquerades, paradoxes and non-sense to celebrate the disruptive forces of carnivalism.
Carnival is the breaking of norms. Carnival is the carnal; the colour, the mask, the garments and the feathers. Carnival is Commedia dell’Arte, role-play and delirium. Carnival is dressing up and being undressed. Profanity, paganism and anarchy. Carnival is the erotic, the celebration of death and the force of the life-drive.
Drums, bells and cellos announce the first ever event of the year where Venetian Carnival meets London-Punk, joined by Brasil-samba, Japan-Noh, together with Bollywood and Afro-tribalisms. What are the limits of fantasy when reality is chaos?
PERFORMANCES Sisters From Another Mister, Eleanor Fogg, Vivian Chinasa Ezugha, Pi The Mime, Vera Bremerton + Monsterlune Freak Show, Giulio Baistrocchi, Ellie Flory Fawcett and Haus of Sequana. VIDEOS Banfield-Rees, Colette Copeland, Melanie Menard. COSTUMES Designguise and Monsterlune. HOSTING Lewis Burton.
MUSIC (Main Room) Benedicta and SUGO, pump the beats of international hits, with a twist of Italian camp classics and carnival tunes from all over the world.
(Boudoir) Justine and Bamboo Hermann, dig into quirky techno music, experimental beats, dirty house with a touch of kawaiii.
Tickets can be purchased online at http://www.workersplaytime.net/TICKETS.htm
Facebook event at https://www.facebook.com/events/618527778253133
Organised by http://www.cuntemporary.org/
New project ‘Tricyclic Transform’ at Instants Video, Marseilles, France
A draft cut of my ‘Tricyclic Transform’ video will play at Instants Video Festival in Marseilles (France). This year’s theme is ‘For a free circulation of bodies and desire’ (‘Pour une libre circulation des corps et des désirs’).
‘Tricyclic Transform’ will play on Saturday November 8th at 15h30, part of their gender-themed short film programme ‘Quel(s) genre(s) d’individus sommes-nous?’
‘Tricyclic Transform’ documents the creation and self-destruction of my ‘biologically-challenged drag-queen’ alter-ego Miss Liliane. ‘Tricyclic Transform’ theatricalizes the experience of being genderqueer: the character on screen tries to negotiate restrictive gender-roles by performing symbolic rituals, but the inability of their mind to comfortably inhabit any predefined role causes them to get trapped in an endless loop of repeated, pointless gestures. This mini-performance is a step towards a one-person musical cabaret show still in development.
Version Française:
‘Tricyclic Transform’ documente la création et l’auto-destruction de mon alter-ego “drag-queen biologiquement défaillante” Miss Liliane. “Tricyclic Transform” théatrâlise l’expérience d’être genderqueer: le personnage à l’écran essaie de négocier des roles de genre restrictifs par des rituels symboliques, mais l’incapacité de leur esprit d’habiter confortablement aucun rôle prédéfini les amène à se retrouver piégé dans une boucle sans fin de gestes inutiles et répétés. Cette mini-performance est une étape vers un spectacle solo de cabaret musical encore en développement.
*** Musicians wanted! ***
The video below is a draft cut and marked as ‘pending soundtrack’. The soundtrack is designed to be me singing ‘What makes a man a man’, but I’m held back by my complete inability to play an instrument.
If you are a musician (ideally a piano player, but anything goes, we can make it work together with a bit of creative thinking) into dark cabaret/jazz/queer performance, and interested in collaborating on video soundtracks and ultimately live performance, I’d love to hear from you!
*** Thank you! ***
Trailer for ‘Judy Speaks’ by Grégoire Aubert
I filmed and edited the trailer for Grégoire Aubert’s solo theatre show ‘Judy speaks’, based on the infamous confessional tapes Judy Garland recorded between 1961 and 1966.
Trailer for ‘Judy Speaks’ by Gregoire Aubert (short version) from Melanie Menard on Vimeo.
FEAT group exhibition – Rottingdean Windmill – 3-18 May
4 Photographs from the Ghost House series displayed inside Rottingdean Windmill, as part of the ‘Future Evolutionary Arts Turbine’ exhibition.
Weekends 3-4 10-11 17-18 May, 12 noon – 4.30pm
Private view on Friday 2 May, 6-9 pm, contact me for an invite. I’ll also be invigilating on Sunday 18th if you want to have a chat.
Rottingdean Windmill, Beacon Hill, A 259 Coast Road
Buses: 12, 12a, 14 & 27
Free entry
Press Release
F.E.A.T is an art/heritage organisation showcasing 14 contemporary artist’s work at Rottingdean Windmill to coincide with Brighton Fringe Festival. It promises a dynamic show of innovative ideas and artwork in an inspiring and challenging space. We are presenting a diverse range of mediums including, photography, painting, audio and visual works, sculpture, installation art, ceramics, embroidery, screenprinting and an exterior installation outside the mill.
F.E.A.T supports emerging and established artists in a unique site in a Grade II listed windmill, maintained by Rottingdean Preservation Society. The windmill is a black smock mill situated on Beacon Hill on the Brighton to Newhaven A259 coast road. It was erected in 1802 and the last miller finished work here in the early 1880’s. It was saved from demolition by the Marquis of Abergavenny who had the mill renovated in 1905.
Accompanying the exhibition are a number of events; a Windmill talk, Walk & Talk of Rottingdean and a performance by musicians Annie Kerr and Chris Parfitt See website for details.
Contact details: feat2012@hotmail.co.uk
Exhibiting artists: Christine Barnes, Rachel Cohen, Gen Doy, Jaime Etherington, Jim Foster, Jill Guillais, Melanie Menard, Matt Niblett, Kate Orton, Agata Read,
Sujo Remi, Julia Rowe, Helena Tett and Sandra Wright.
For further details:
Website: http://feat09.wix.com/feat09
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/feat09
Twitter: https://twitter.com/feat09
‘On the Wild Side’ showcased in Bellyflop mag open week
Also ‘On the Wild Side’ showcased in Bellyflop Mag open week. They placed an open call for any performance related work so I applied. Now I realise they are more of a dance blog rather than general performance but, well, as long as they don’t mind 🙂