Skip to main content

The extraordinary Pocha Nostra: A deep dive into LADA’s archive with Ansuman Biswas

The transdisciplinary arts organisation and performance troupe La Pocha Nostra has been creating ephemeral communities of rebel artists for the last 30 years. Their manifold practice explores the notion of collaboration across national borders, race, gender and generations, and deals with themes such as migration, post-nationalism, colonial violence, western fetishisation, and the relationship between art, politics and activism. 

Join us for a deep dive into La Pocha Nostra’s archive held at LADA’s Study Room, led by artist Ansuman Biswas who has been collaborating with La Pocha Nostra and its founder Guillermo Gómez-Peña since 2002.

This event is part of a programme celebrating La Pocha Nostra’s extraordinary work on the occasion of the screening of 100 Ways to Cross the Border on July 9. You can see all the upcoming events here.

Biography

Ansuman Biswas has an international, inter-disciplinary practice which has included directing Shakespeare, translating Tagore, designing underwater sculptures in the Red Sea, living with wandering minstrels in India, being employed as an ornamental hermit in the English countryside, touring with Björk in New York, surviving blindfolded in an unknown place, travelling with nomadic shamans in the Gobi Desert, playing with Oasis, collaborating with neuroscientists in Arizona, living for a week with nothing but what spectators chose to give him, singing for 24 hours non-stop, organising grassroots activists in Soweto, trapping himself in a box for ten days with no food or light, creating a musical in a maximum security prison, doing R&D for Hewlett-Packard, being a soloist with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, bathing strangers, holding seminars in a Burmese monastery, running a nightclub for women on the Reeperbahn, being Musical Director at the Globe theatre, playing with terminally ill children, making a radio telescope sing and dance, being locked in a Gothic tower alone for forty days and nights, flying on a real, live, magic carpet, and stopping time. Ansuman is Lecturer in Live Art and Contemporary Performance at Queen Mary University of London and a member of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy. He has designed academic programmes in Arts and Ecology at Dartington and Schumacher Colleges, and in socially engaged practice at The Guildhall School of Music and Drama. His key research interests are in improvisation and meditation. Ansuman is a Trustee of Longplayer, Invisible Dust, and the Live Art Development Agency.

Access information

LADA and The Garrett Centre are wheelchair accessible by lift and provide gender inclusive bathrooms.

Should you have any particular access requirements, please email [email protected] and we will be happy to offer further support.

Banner image credit:

Ansuman Biswas, Yara El-Sherbini, Juan Ybarra-Ysunza, and Stacey Makishi at Guillermo Gómez-Peña’s Ex Centris masterclass as part of Live Culture at Tate Modern, 2003.

Latest events

All Flesh is Good: Madinah Farhannah Thompson in conversation with Valerie Uchechukwu Ebuwa

11 Oct 2024

Please join us on Friday 11th October 2024 at 7pm for a conversation about Madinah’s Black Artist in Residence research and the experience of performing at the Abramović exhibition

Read more

Poppy Jackson – Tower

25 Sep 2024

Please join us on Wednesday 25th September 2024 at 5.30pm for a performance by Poppy Jackson in Wattisfield, Suffolk

Read more

LADA x Fringe! Uncensored Pleasures & Closeted Desires

14 Sep 2024 - 22 Sep 2024

Please join us on Saturday 14th, Saturday 21st and Sunday 22nd of September 2024 for a series of events by Fringe! Queer Film & Arts Fest 

Read more

Dangerous Border Crossers: performingborders x La Pocha Nostra

02 Aug 2024

performingborders invites you to delve with them into LADA Study Room’s resources around borders and performances

Read more

Amy Kingsmill – Light Source

26 Jul 2024

Please join us on Friday 26 July 2024 at 7pm for an event performed, hosted and curated by artist Amy Kingsmill.

Read more

La Pocha Nostra in London: 100 Ways to Cross the Border

09 Jul 2024

Join us for the film screening with a special performative introduction from Guillermo Gómez-Peña and Balitrónica, followed by drinks.

Read more

La Pocha Nostra’s Live Art Laboratory: An artistic reflection on radical pedagogy

02 Jul 2024

An online event presenting Ria Righteous’s reflections on La Pocha Nostra’s 2015 12-day intensive cross-cultural workshop in Athens.

Read more

LADA Screens: Lucy Sheen – Online Screening

29 Jun 2024 - 26 Jul 2024

An online screening of ‘Abandoned Adopted Here‘ by Lucy Sheen.

Read more

Donation

£