Turning
Antony and the Johnsons with Charles Atlas
31 Oct-10 Nov 06
31 Oct & 1 Nov, Auditorium Parco della Musica, Romaeuropa 2006, Rome IT
4 & 5 Nov, Barbican Hall, London, UK
7 Nov, Olympia Hall, Paris, FR
8 Nov, Palacio Municipal de Congresos, Madrid, ES
10 Nov, Theatro Circo de Braga, Braga, PT
For full tour details visit www.forma.org.uk
Turning combines the haunting and dramatic music of Antony and the Johnsons with a vivid visual backdrop provided by award-winning film director and video artist Charles Atlas. The live performance features an a simple yet moving orchestration from an ensemble of eight musicians alongside Antony, as well as video footage of fourteen NYC Beauties, whose intimate and hypnotic portraits whilst slowly turning onstage are captured, processed and projected by Atlas.
By combining Atlas innovative live video processing with Antonys vocal stylings, which have been compared to the likes of Nina Simone and Lotte Lenya, Turning explores issues of innocence, metamorphosis, and transcendence in a visually dramatic and highly compelling format. Turning was first performed at the Whitney Biennial at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, 2004.
Antony graduated from NYUs experimental theatre programme before going on to receive an N.Y.F.A. fellowship for performance art and emergent forms. After a series of solo cabaret performances at the East Villages Pyramid Club, he assembled the Johnsons and the band recorded its debut album in 1997. His harrowing voice, which Laurie Anderson called the most exquisite thing that you will hear in your life, has continued to gain the group acclaim, with the album I am a Bird Now (2004) winning the Mercury Music Prize, 2005. Over the past year the group has toured extensively across Europe, The States and Australia. Antony has toured with Lou Reed and appeared on his albums The Raven and Animal Serenade. He has also made various film appearances with directors such as Steve Buscemi and Sebastian Lifshitz.
Charles Atlas, an award-winning filmmaker, video artist, and pioneer of the medium of media-dance, has created work for film, theatre, television and such prestigious museums as the Whitney, NY and the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris. Best known for his acclaimed collaborations with choreographers, dancers and performers such as Michael Clark, Leigh Bowery, Diamanda Galas and John Kelly, Atlas spent ten years as film-maker in residence for the Merce Cunningham Dance Company; his feature-length film Merce Cunningham: A Lifetime of Dance won the Best Documentary Award at Dance Screen 2000 in Monaco. Recent dance-related pieces are Rainer Variations (2002), a video portrait of Yvonne Rainer, and two collaborations with Merce Cunningham: Views on Camera (2005) and Views on Video (2005).
Further projects featuring the work of Charles Atlas, November 2006, London:
Hail The New Puritan, a survey of Charles Atlas’s work in film and video, Tate Modern Starr Auditorium, 16 -20 Nov 2006, details at www.tate.org.uk.
Instant Fame, an interactive video installation at the Vilma Gold Gallery, London, from 23 Nov 3 Dec 2006, details at www.vilmagold.com.
Turning is produced by Forma and International Music srl and is co-commissioned by The Barbican & Fondazione Musica per Roma & Romaeuropa 2006
The first presentation of Turning in New York was co-produced by Arts at Saint Ann’s, True Love Productions, UCLA Live! and Pomegranate Arts
Forma Arts and Media Producers is one of Europe’s leading contemporary arts agencies specializing in the production of cross-artform projects. Pioneering new hybrid forms of music, visual art, film, new media, dance, theatre and live art, Formas international touring programme for 2006/2007 includes projects with alva noto [carsten nicolai]; Antony and the Johnsons; Charles Atlas; Gina Czarnecki; Ryoji Ikeda; Ryuichi Sakamoto and Lynette Wallworth.
For further information visit www.forma.org.uk
