Adrian Howells: The Art of Being Adrienne |
10 March 2006 |
This event took place on Friday 10 March 2006 6pm - 7pm in
The Playroom Studio, Nuffield Theatre, Lancaster University.
Artist Adrian Howells talked about how his approaches to creating work and performing his transvestite alter-ego, Adrienne, in such shows as ‘Adrienne's Dirty Laundry Experience' during which he occupied an old launderette and examined the audience's stains both literally and metaphorically.
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information about the artist |
Adrian has been a performance artist for the past twenty years. He has worked extensively at the Citizens Theatre, Glasgow, where his most recent performance was as Paradise Dupont, the female impersonator, in Mae West's The Pleasure Man in 2000. He created the Asian transsexual role of the Madre in Copi's The Homosexual at Tramway and Bagley's Warehouse in 1993, appearing with the late Leigh Bowery and directed by Stewart Laing. He has also collaborated with Nigel Charnock on six physical theatre shows that have toured both in Britain and Europe, including Watch My Lips, which played at the Drill Hall in 1996. For Adrienne, his performance alter ego, he has previously created Adrienne's Living Room for Area 10's Bob's Punkt in 2002; Adrienne's Dancing Room in conjunction with Laban students in a residential house in 2002; Adrienne's Dirty Laundry Experience, which was commissioned by the Arches, Glasgow, and was first seen there as part of Glasgay! 2003 and then at Home, London, and The Nuffield Theatre, Lancaster, 2005; and Adrienne: The Great Depression at the Great Eastern Hotel, the Brunswick Hotel, Glasgow, as part of Glasgay! 2004 and the Malmaison Hotel, Manchester, as part of It's Queer Up North 2006. In June of last year, as part of the Great Eastern Hotel's Arts Month he created Adrienne's Room Service . In October 2005 he was commissioned to create Salon Adrienne for BAC as part of their Octoberfest Festival, and for Glasgay! 2005, at the Arches and Comerford Hairdressing. In 2006 he has also performed Salon Adrienne as part of the following festivals: Nottingham's nottdance, Birmingham's Fierce and Cork's Midsummer Festival. He created Adrienne's Party at BAC to coincide with Octoberfest's Trashy last night party. In December 2005 he created Adrienne's Personal Shopping for The Shop @ Bluebird, Kings Road, and returned to BAC for an alternative Christmas show A Love Unlimited Christmas with Adrienne . In March 2006 he was commissioned by the Drill Hall to create An Audience with Adrienne: A Lifetime of Servicing Others and reprises this for Glasgay! 2006 in November. In April 2006 he created Adrienne's Confessional back at the Great Eastern Hotel. In 2007 he will return to the Drill Hall to continue developing An Audience With Adrienne .
He is currently the recipient of a full-time AHRC Creative Fellowship here in the Department of Theatre, Film and TV Studies at Glasgow University.
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Whilst many drag acts use their costumes and make-up as a means of disguising their true identity, for Howells, a former associate of Leigh Bowery, it is a means of exposing the truth about both himself and those he interacts with – creating a character whose honesty encourages us to share our innermost secrets with her and in doing so revealing how intimate confessions can happen between complete strangers as much as lifelong friends.
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