LADA Screens #1: Shaun Caton – Launch Event

LADA hosts an evening with one of the UK’s most ‘genuinely terrifying’ performance artists, Shaun Caton, whose ‘neo-noir psychological horror’ performances have been presented for over 30 years. The evening includes a screening of A Glimpse Inside the Grotto, and an illustrated talk by Shaun Caton, featuring highlights from his incredible archive of weird, vintage performance photographs.

Few people have attempted to describe Shaun Caton’s performances because they are so hideously grotesque, densely layered and interwoven with atmospheric detail, and operate on many sensory levels. ‘Apocalyptic’, ‘dream-like’, ‘proto-prehistoric’, ‘cyber shamanic raves’ and ‘epic primordial extravaganzas’ are some previous attempts to explain this reclusive artist’s highly personal performances. Caton emerged in the early 1980s and has continued developing his performances for new audiences, most extensively throughout Europe. His performances incorporate real archaeological found objects, monumental soundtracks, experimental shadow play and multiple shifts in pace and time. Although he has presented over 300 performances his work is relatively unknown outside of a small following in the UK.

From 2009-14, film makers Julius Beltrame and Robert Pugh filmed many of Caton’s performances, often travelling with him on location. A Glimpse Inside the Grotto is a candid and visually stunning film introduction to Caton’s bizarre inner world and the performances he creates to make sense of this.

Shaun Caton is also an obsessive collector and has amassed an incredible collection of vintage photographs, covering the period 1850-1980, relating to the history of performance in all its guises and genres, with a definite taste for weird and wonderful. For the first time, he shares some rare highlights from this archive and in his own personal interpretation, talks about how collecting photographs of performance has shaped his own life and work.

www.shauncaton.co.uk

A Glimpse Inside the Grotto is the first film to be shown in the new LADA Screens series of online screenings of seminal performance documentation, works to camera, short videos, films and archival footage. It will be available to view for free on the LADA Screens video channel for two weeks between 15 and 29 July 2015. 

Other LADA Screens launch events and screenings

Amy Sharrocks
SWIM, online from 17 – 31 August 2015
Launch event Monday 17th August, 7pm at the White Building

Katherine Araniello
The Dinner Party Revisited, online from 9 – 23 September 2015
Launch event Wednesday 9th September, 7.30pm at the White Building