Performance and art
Evening lecture series
26 September 2023 6.30 - 7.45pm3 October 2023 6.30 - 7.45pm10 October 2023 6.30 - 7.45pm17 October 2023 6.30 - 7.45pm24 October 2023 6.30 - 7.45pm31 October 2023 6.30 - 7.45pm7 November 2023 6.30 - 7.45pm14 November 2023 6.30 - 7.45pm21 November 2023 6.30 - 7.45pm28 November 2023 6.30 - 7.45pm
Wolfson British Academy Room | Burlington Gardens
£480 full course / £290 half course
Friends of the RA book first
Marina Abramović
As we stage the UK’s first major exhibition of the works of performance artist Marina Abramović, join us to uncover the rich and entwined global histories of art and performance.
The use of live performance amongst artists is nothing new. For centuries, performance has been used to express conceptual ideas, create spectacle, and render the artist tangibly present in their work.
Whilst the concept of Performance Art emerged as recently as the 1970s, this course delves into the fascinating relationship between art and performance throughout art history, from the classical to the contemporary. We explore performance in its broadest sense; from historical performance practices, to the ways in which the visual arts have captured and preserved performance, to Performance Art as we know it today.
We consider:
• What is Performance Art, and how is it different from theatre or "performing arts"?
• Why is performance often missing from the histories of art?
• Where in art history can we find the precursors to contemporary Performance Art?
• What were the factors that contributed to the emergence of Performance Art in the 20th century?
• How is performance both preserved and conserved?
• What is Live Art, and where does it fit in the contemporary art world?
This is a series of evening lectures and seminars, based at the Royal Academy in London. Participants are invited to attend the full 10-week evening lecture series, or to book separately for weeks 1-5 or weeks 6-10.
Weeks 1-5
We begin by looking at performance in the classical world, and consider the changing nature of identity in relation to performance practice. Actors in the classical world were often depicted on ancient Greek vases with their faces indistinguishable from theatrical masks – whilst another kind of masque, that of the Elizabethan courtly performance, blurred the line between the courtier and the actor.
We learn about Emma Hamilton’s Neapolitan tableaux of ‘Attitudes’, and study their impact in the 18th century. We consider the Impressionist painters, working at the turn of the 20th century, and their importance in recording and contributing to the creativity of Paris fin de siècle nightlife.
Weeks 6-10
In the second half of this lecture series, we move into the 20th century and trace the development of Performance Art as we know it.
In 1909, the Futurist manifesto was published, beginning a century that would see an explosion in performance. From Dada, with its origins in the anti-war movement, to Diaghilev storming the Paris stage with his Ballets Russes, to the success of performance artists like Marina Abramović, we examine art and performance in the modern era.
Studying a range of artistic movements including the Bauhaus, the ‘happenings’ of the 1960s, Fluxus, body art and the contemporary practice of Live Art, we look at themes of identity and display. We also delve into the movements that went hand-in-hand with these new practices such as Feminism and political protest.
Minimum age 18. If you have any access requirements that you’d like to discuss, please contact public.programmes@royalacademy.org.uk.
£480 full course / £290 half course
Friends of the RA book first
Marina Abramović
About the speakers
Week 1: Performance Art as Recalcitrant Form: Histories and Theories of a Sensibility with Professor Dominic Johnson
Professor Dominic Johnson is a writer and curator. He is a professor of performance and visual culture at Queen Mary University of London. He is the author of four monographs, including most recently Unlimited Action: The Performance of Extremity in the 1970s (2019), and the editor of five books, including Pleading in the Blood: The Art and Performances of Ron Athey (2013). His essays have been published in Art History, Art Journal, Porn Studies, Contemporary Theatre Review and elsewhere and he is a frequent contributor to Art Monthly.
Week 2: Performance and the Classical World with Professor Fiona Macintosh
Professor Fiona Macintosh is Professor of Classical Reception, Director of the Archive of Performances of Greek and Roman Drama (APGRD) and Fellow of St Hilda’s College, University of Oxford. Her books include Dying Acts (1994), Greek Tragedy and the British Theatre 1660-1914 (2005 – with Edith Hall), Sophocles’ Oedipus Tyrannus (2009), and Performing Epic or Telling Tales (2020 - with Justine McConnell). She is the editor of nine volumes, the most recent of which include: Epic Performances (2018), Heaney and the Classics (2019) and Mapping Medea: Revolutions, Transfers 1750-1800 (2023).
Week 3: Lifting the Masque: Re-imagining dance and performance in Seventeenth-Century Court Masques with Charlotte Ewart
Charlotte Ewart trained in classical and contemporary dance. She has a BA in History and Dance and an MA in Dance; her thesis concerned the research and reconstruction of the 13th century Estampie. Charlotte has been an Associate Artist for Historic Royal Places, lectures in Performing Arts at Crawley College, and teaches Period Dance at the London Dramatic Academy, a college of Fordham University, New York. She has worked with English Heritage; Bristol, Brunel, Teeside and Cambridge Universities; The National Theatre, Time Will Tell Theatre, The History Channel, and on a number of BBC productions.
Week 4: Proto Performance Artist? Presentation and representation in Emma Hamilton’s Attitudes with Will Iron
Will Iron is a cultural historian with particular interest in the fashion, art and literature of the eighteenth century. He is Public Programmes Manager at the Royal Academy of Arts, where he leads the ongoing series of art and cultural history courses, lectures and academic conferences. Previously he worked at the British Fashion Council. He studied at Central Saint Martins and King’s College London.
Week 5: From Celebrity Performer to the 'Rats' of the Ballet: Nineteenth-Century Theater and Visual Art in France with Dr Marika Takanishi Knowles
Dr Marika Takanishi Knowles is a Senior Lecturer in Art History at the University of St Andrews, where she studies French art of the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries. She is interested in the relationship between art and theatre and more recently, the social world of the marketplace. In 2020, she published her first monograph, Realism and Role-Play: The Human Figure in French Art from Callot to the Brothers Le Nain (University of Delaware Press). A second book, Pierrot and his world: art, theatricality, and the marketplace in France, 1697-1945, will be published by Manchester University Press in late 2023.
Week 6: Serge Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes. Art, music and dance in performance with Jane Pritchard
Jane Pritchard is curator of dance for the Victoria and Albert Museum where she co-curated Diaghilev and the Golden Age of the Ballets Russes, 1909–1929 and edited the accompanying book. She was previously a dance company archivist and has curated numerous other exhibitions and seasons of dance films. She was the author of Anna Pavlova Twentieth Century Ballerina and has contributed to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, The Annual Register, Dance Chronicle, Dance Research, and The Dancing Times. She was awarded an MBE for services to the arts in the 2014 New Year’s Honours.
Week 7: From Performance Art to Live Art: Artists, Institutions and Practices in the UK from the 1980s to the Present | Lois Keidan in conversation with Professor Dominic Johnson
Lois Keidan co-founded the Live Art Development Agency (LADA) in 1999 and was its Director until 2021. She was Director of Live Arts at the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA), London from 1992 to 1998. Prior to the ICA, she was responsible for national policy and provision for Performance Art and interdisciplinary practices at the Arts Council of Great Britain, and before that she worked at Midland Group, Nottingham and Theatre Workshop, Edinburgh.
Professor Dominic Johnson is a writer and curator. He is a professor of performance and visual culture at Queen Mary University of London. He is the author of four monographs, including most recently Unlimited Action: The Performance of Extremity in the 1970s (2019), and the editor of five books, including Pleading in the Blood: The Art and Performances of Ron Athey (2013). His essays have been published in Art History, Art Journal, Porn Studies, Contemporary Theatre Review and elsewhere and he is a frequent contributor to Art Monthly.
Week 8: Acting out: Performance art in the 20th century with Andrea Tarsia
Andrea Tarsia is Director of Exhibitions at the Royal Academy, overseeing the delivery and development of a world-renowned exhibitions programme. He trained in Art History and Film, specialising in post-war and contemporary art. Andrea previously worked for the Institute of Contemporary Arts and the Whitechapel Gallery, among others, and curated many critically acclaimed international exhibitions. He has also contributed to numerous publications and scholarly catalogues and, whilst at the Whitechapel, he helped devise and taught on an MA Course in Curating, in conjunction with London Metropolitan University. He has been a guest lecturer at several universities and art colleges across the UK.
Week 9: Body Politics: Feminist Performance Art from the 1960s to Today with Lotte Johnson
Lotte Johnson is a curator at Barbican Art Gallery, where she has recently curated Carolee Schneemann: Body Politics. At the Barbican, she has also curated solo artist commissions by Toyin Ojih Odutola, Jamila Johnson-Small, Yto Barrada and Bedwyr Williams, and has contributed to a number of major exhibitions, including Into the Night: Cabarets and Clubs in Modern Art, Basquiat: Boom for Real and The World of Charles and Ray Eames, editing and authoring publications for many of these projects. She previously worked at The Museum of Modern Art, New York.
Week 10: Present and Future Performance: Everything and Everywhere all the time with Harold Offeh
Harold Offeh is an artist working in a range of media including performance, video, photography, and social arts practice. Offeh is interested in the space created by the inhabiting or embodying of histories. He has exhibited widely in the UK and internationally. He lives in Cambridge and is currently a Tutor in Contemporary Art Practice at the Royal College of Art, London.
Our courses and classes programme
Our varied programme of short courses and classes provides an opportunity to explore subjects ranging from life drawing to the history of exhibitions and arts management, led by expert tutors and practising artists. These courses introduce traditional art-making processes, as well as perspectives on art history, theory and business.
Give this course as a gift
All of our courses can be purchased as a gift for a friend or family member – giving the gift of education and a remarkable experience. To arrange a personalised Gift Voucher, please contact the Public Programmes Team by emailing public.programmes@royalacademy.org.uk
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