Bristol-based performance artist Jo Bannon premieres her new work, We Are Fucked at Arnolfini on 31 August/1 September prior to performances at the SouthBank Centre’s Unlimited Festival in September 2018.
We Are Fucked explores desire, sexuality and neo-liberalism in a visceral performance featuring Jo Bannon, Louise Ahl and Rosana Cade, tackling the modern feminist experience of personal, psychological and political penetration.
Describing the work, Bannon said “Imagine a melodramatic opera but instead of virtuosic Sopranos in fine dress you will see 3 women working hard, using their bodies and voices and an assortment of utilitarian domestic objects to create an operatic sound storm full of shaking bodies, shrieking voices and penetrating emotion.
In creating this piece I was interested in the idea of uncovering the hard work it sometimes takes to live in a world which is not designed for you. An ableist world, a patriarchal world, a neoliberal capitalist world, designed to reward submission, adherence and unquestioned labour. I also wanted to celebrate the nutty, uncomfortable but ultimately heroic efforts of people finding ways to unseat this way of living, and so in the studio we began to sing and to shake; sometimes with rage, sometimes as euphoric release and this movement vocabulary used in the work becomes a proposal to the audience to shake with us and build enough energy to perhaps penetrate and break apart the structures we live in.…”
The performance is commissioned by Unlimited – the arts commissioning programme that enables new work by disabled artists to reach UK and international audiences. Opening at Arnolfini at the end of August for two performances only, We Are Fucked will then journey to London to be part of the prestigious Unlimited Festival at the Southbank Centre in London on 7 and 8 September.
