Kids, Families, Gender and Live Art

Please note: Early start of 6.30pm because it’s a school night!

Bristol based Liz Clarke and her son Felix’s show, I’m Bitter About Glitter, explores questions of gender fluidity, identity and sexuality from an 9-year old's perspective, and asks what it means to be part of an art-making, non-conformist family.

Liz and Felix’s work relates to some of the questions LADA’s Thinker in Residence Hester Chillingworth is researching into opening up Live Art to young people, particularly gender-questioning and gender-variant young people, and the ways that Live Art can navigate and investigate the trans experience.

Please join us for an evening with Liz, Felix, Hester, Colchester Arts Centre’s Anthony Roberts, artist Abi Roberts and their son, the performance artist Reggie Roberts (age 10), to discuss some of the issues raised by I’m Bitter About Glitter and wider questions about the role of Live Art in creating new spaces, contexts and processes to engage with kids, young people, non-binary identities and non-conformist families.

There’ll be snacks, drinks, conversations and a turn or two.

LADA is wheelchair accessible, and provides gender inclusive bathrooms.

Biographies

Liz Clarke is a live artist and maker of performance. Her solo work sits in the murky spaces between theatre, cabaret and Live Art. She is Artistic Director of Liz Clarke & Company, which fuses her solo work with a unique blend of socially-engaged practice, enabling people to take supported risks through creating new work. Felix (9) enjoys making cakes and rollerskating, making up dances and songs. He is very 'Performance-y' and his favourite colour is glitter.

Reggie Roberts has worked with Rosana Cade (Walking: Holding), Scottee (Fraff, Hunton & Darton Jumble Sale), Miss High Leg Kick (Audition Project), Hester Chillingworth (Playing with the Wrong Toys) and was a commissioned artist for Buzzcut (Let England Shake). He recently won the silver plate for novices at the Colchester Roundtable Festival.  He will be appearing at the Latitude Festival in July 2018 with his new piece – The 5 Minute Hug.

Anthony and Abi Roberts are Reggie’s parents, and pretty much the same as Reggie’s friends….give or take…. (apart from a father gifted with the football skills of George Best, the looks of … well…. George Best, and the intellectual gravitas of Socrates). Anthony is also Director of Colchester Arts Centre and Abi is also an artist.

Hester Chillingworth is LADA Thinker in Residence, Forced Entertainment’s Creative Producer (Participation & Engagement), and an artist whose practice includes making installations and performances which often play with language, simplicity, interpretation and some things about childhood, including mischief and confusion. Hester was awarded the 2016 Small Spaces Commission from Chisenhale Dance Space and the Marlborough Pub & Theatre, to create Shorty – a deconstructed drag-child of indeterminate gender who has a full-length show and also turns up at various club nights and cabaret spots without childcare.