Disembodied open letter to delegates at the Embodied Monologues Symposium, NUI Maynooth (31 March 2017), written on the occasion of my not attending.

View the full-length video here. 

Dear Colleague, 

This is not the way I intended for you to encounter this work. For Embodied Monologues, I proposed a performance lecture that would consider BackStories as emerging from the confluence of multiple monologues, articulated through the particular expressivity of the back-body, but also through speech, through gesture, through the gaze of the video camera. 

Unfortunately that won’t be happening today, as I am unable to leave to the UK. I am an American artist and faculty member at Trinity Laban, based in London as the partner of an EU citizen. My application for permanent residency coincided with last summer’s EU referendum. Since 28 February, I have been without a visa. Requests to expedite the process so that I can undertake the international travel that is such a vital part of our work have been met with silence and intractable bureaucracy. I’m so sorry to miss this chance for dialogue and exchange. 

But back to BackStories and the experience of this work – however ironically disembodied! – I am able to offer you today. The solo nature of BackStories might seem to position it firmly in the territory of monologue. Why the /s/? Wouldn’t BackStory suit it better? Resolutely plural, BackStories seeks, through a very specific type of expressivity, to present a series of images and moments, which constitute an invitation to dialogue. Between the performer and the spectator, of course. But also within the spectator, at the point where muscle and memory intersect. 

Spectator responses to BackStories in its first iteration – as a duet with Canadian dance artist Scheherazaad Cooper for Resolution! 2015 (The Place, London) – drew our attention to the kinaesthetic responses we were stimulating in our spectators. They reported sudden acute awareness of their own backs and – mirroring the experience of BackStories’ dramaturg Mary Ann Hushlak – a heightened sensitivity to the backs of other, encountered in bars, in galleries on the street. 

A desire to capture these experiences, to find a way of integrating them into the experience of the piece, catalysed a collaboration with photographer Andrew McGibbon in Spring 2016. Both artists-in-residence at Hornsey Town Hall Arts Centre, we invited our fellow residents to sit for back portraits (revealing skin, or not, as they chose) and complete the sentence ‘My backstory is…’ The resulting photos have been exhibited at London’s Ply Gallery and now tour with the production, along with a back portrait-selfie booth that invites new spectators to add to our accumulation of backstories. 

I have created the videos you’re seeing today specifically for this event, to experiment with the juxtaposition of ‘mono’ content – my movement, my voice – with ensemble, in the form of McGibbon’s back portraits and audio recordings of the backstories shared with me. 

If you’d like to share your experience of this work with me, please do get in touch at hello@beautifulconfusioncollective.com 

Conceived & created by: Scheherazaad Cooper & Becka McFadden 

Directed by: Daniel Somerville 

Dramaturgy by: Mary Ann Hushlak 

Performed by: Becka McFadden 

Photography by: Andrew McGibbon 

Learn more about our work at: www.beautifulconfusioncollective.com 

A change of direction

Greetings, folks.

This blog began as a space to reflect on what it was to be living between multiple countries. At a certain point, this stopped being something I consciously reflected on. 'Living abroad' or 'living between' stopped being novel. It became my life. I got on with things. With the things I'm passionate about, like making performances, directing plays, starting festivals, travelling, developing artists and consuming significant quantities of coffee.

Now, in the wake of the UK's EU Referendum, the life I've been getting on with feels under threat. I don't, currently, have a valid UK visa, which means I'm effectively being held hostage in the country where I've lived (and worked, and paid taxes) under EU law since 2011. I tried talking to The Guardian about it. They don't care. I tried applying for expedition of my permanent residency application. That's been met with silence. Then, yesterday, she who shall not be named has just sent a very unfortunate letter to Donald Tusk. In this context, it strikes me that NOW might be a good time to revisit this blog. As a space to receive dispatches from my protracted encounter with the British immigration system, to vent frustrations and - perhaps - as a space to generate conversation that promotes empathy and action.

So that's what I'll be doing here. Expect shared correspondence, politics, culture. frequent ranting and the occasional dance.