current work

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current work This page details works and projects by hancock & kelly live whoch are currently active and, unless otherwise stated, available for touring. Any enquiries regarding availability and booking information should be addressed to: Lisa Urwin Company Co-ordinator lisa@hancockandkellylive.com
lone duets Since 2005, Hancock and Kelly have been engaged in a series of solo performances, each made in response to the work of the other. A game of 'performances chess', the series challenges traditional modes of collaboration, as a process of shared-making, and of solo practice, as an individual endeavour. The resulting works have been a series of visceral and queer encounters, both moving and spectacular. The works have been shown individually at events and venues such as the Sensitive Skin season (Nottingham, UK), greenroom (Manchester, UK), Bonington Gallery (Nottingham, UK), the National Review of Live Art (Glasgow, UK), and Performance Space (Sydney, Australia). The series includes: Richard Hancock Dermographia (2005) Traci Kelly In Season (2006) Richard Hancock Postures A-to-M (2006) Traci Kelly The Mirror Pool (2007) (footage coming soon) *Richard Hancock Open Wound* (2007)** (footage coming soon) Further details of each performance can be found below.
	dermographia In the 17th century, Soeur Jeanne of Loudun expels demons from her body through the appearance of iconic texts across her skin. In 1986, Jean Genet completes Prisoner of Love, his eloquent retelling of his time between borders; between the diaspora of the Palestinians and the revolution of the Black Panthers. At the same time, Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari propose their theory of 'becoming-animal’, an implosion of binary systems of understanding which threaten our place in this world. In 2005, from these starting points, Richard Hancock draws together a new picture, a collapsing moment, written through the skin of a static performer, a silent observer, and a solemn witness. *Dermographia* is the first move in a game of 'performance chess' between Hancock and Kelly; an ongoing series of solo performances which respond to the concerns of the previous piece. Absolutely amazing[...] the image as you first walk in is beautiful. I love the composition, entangled bodies... Jo Mardell, Dance 4 Beautiful and painful. Beyond endurance. Sonia Boyce, Artist Absolutely stunning... really beautiful and intimate. Boseda Olawaye, Angel Row Gallery Click here for Quicktime documentation
	in season There is a space between bodies, between flesh and meat, between the kitchen and the altar. Drawing close, surfaces meet, collapsing distance and defying borders. In Season interrogates the territory between the naked and the dressed, the surface and its erosion, as soled hands work their stains upon rawness, abrading and soothing as they go. In this ritual between skins, fluid and granular membranes spread and spill, relationships are forged, disolved and revisited through a process of perpetual preparation. In Season is the second in a series of hancock & kelly live solo works, and is Traci Kelly's response to Richard Hancock's 2005 piece, Dermographia. This ongoing series of solo performances function both as coherent individual works and, as part of a larger exchange, a game of performance chess between Hancock and Kelly. Awesome, moving, how could it be so beautiful? John Murray, Composer I've never touched a dead person... Francis Alexander , Chelsea Theatre Really striking... Boseda Olawaye, Angel Row Gallery Click here for Quicktime documentation
	postures a-to-m Continuing Hancock and Kelly's series of solo response works, Postures A-to-M is played out as a tired spectacle. Against the backdrop of a culture in which the queer body is fetishised as always already wounded, Richard Hancock stages a sick fantasy one more time... Both exhausted and exhausting, what remains to be seen is a drained choreography, and a finale that will never come. Postures A-to-M is the third in s series of hancock & kelly live solo works; a game of performance chess. It is Richard Hancock's response to Traci Kelly's 2006 piece, In Season. Click here for Quicktime documentation
iconographia In the fold between flesh, between hearts, and berween breaths; two bodies are wrapped in a second skin, a skin that will change their economy and shed their dreams. Iconographia is a text that flows and ebbs, that begs, borroiws and steals, and ultimately exchanges power for dust. Click here for Quicktime documentation
collaboration with manuel vason This collaboration between Richard Hancock & Traci Kelly and Manuel Vason explores a shared interest in the status of the body and the nature of performance. A series of stolen images, performed solely for the camera, capture fragments of a shattered mythology. The body is presented, paradoxically, at its most essential and most metaphorical. Between presence and absence, flesh and concrete, nurture and punishment; the images collapse and explode binaries of privilege and subordination. A series of five photographic works and one video piece, performed for the camera. The images locate the body within shifting material frameworks, in relation to milk, architecture and the bodies of others. Click here for Quicktime documentation
nine peformances with milk Nine Performances With Milk is a series of poetic and subversive actions. Through the universal and bodily nature of milk, the artists provoke the audience to reconsider their relationships to desire, memory and identity. An uncomfortable journey unfolds, as boundaries are breached and borderlines transgressed, leaving only contamination. This is a work of subtle beauty, at once fragile, vulnerable and at risk. Within it, there is a sense of something at stake, a state of mind which is displaced and restaged. A dialogue on the edge of psychosis; a disequilibrium which finds its own level. Click here for Quicktime documentation
performing intersubjectivity Richard Hancock and Traci Kelly are currently researching their AHRC funded doctoral project at the University of Reading. The project combines practice and theory in an investigation of the subjectivity of their collaboration as a methodology for live art practice. This is not a touring project. However, Richard Hancock and Traci Kelly are both available for seminars, lectures, conferences, and workshops dealing with related issues to the project. Click here for the research journal
© richard hancock & traci kelly 2005 - 2006 \| all rights reserved \| photography by manuel vason