Rose English

A Premonition of the Act

Rose English’s reputation for humorous and highly analytical performance began within Britain’s vibrant feminist scene in the 1970s. An influential figure for many artists, her work has crossed boundaries between performed installation, vaudeville, film, spoken drama and opera in a mix of philosophical, aesthetic and political commentary.

For A Premonition of the Act English reconfigures elements of a major yet-to-be-realised performance. At its core is a new sound work, Lost in Music, an operatic piece for ten voices and percussion, scored by composer Luke Stoneham for English’s libretto. A chamber opera for Chinese acrobatics past and future, the music traces trajectories of their movements; the body and the breath, singing and glass-blowing, shattering and flying, together concertina time and space in a close investigation of the capacity for metaphysical embodiment of physical objects. English places her audience at the still point of the split between word and image, making songs solidify and objects sing.

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