VIRGINIA KENNARD

Category: live art

Headless Women

By on July 30, 2021

if you cut out your eyes with scissors
do you think you would still dream?
…the politics of being seen
naked
i am lying in wait
i am laying out the bait
…Salome would just chop of Herod’s dick to add to her holy head collection

Headless Women is an in-process performance research project that began at the Arts Village Rotorua Open Studios Project during Summer 2019/20 and will tour Aotearoa in 2023.

A development workshop was held at Impact Dance Studio in Ōtautahi, Summer 2021 with Chloe Summerhayes, Georgia Giesen, Denesa Chan, Hannah Blumhardt, Natalie Carroll, and Jess Quaid.

Writing that came from the residency here

Response to the workshop showing by Dr Erin Harrington here

Short film from the 2021 workshop by Natalie Kittow here

Music composed by Madison van Staden of Moody V and the Menstrual Cycle

Images taken by Natalie Kittow, Fern King, and Natalie Carroll

Feminine Hygiene

By on January 5, 2020

Scruffy or Dapper?

Big Spoon or Little Spoon?

Who would you turn straight for?

Have you found your virginity  yet?

Watch Hot Girl On Girl Action dissected reassembled and resurrected by Two Hot Femmes!

In Feminine Hygiene, Two Babes Virginia (The Lady Garden) and Marika (A Symphony of Sloths) go beyond the unicorn to smash the male gaze and find what it means to be Hot Queer Femmes!

Taking the form of a performance art essay, Feminine Hygiene is a new collaboration between performance artists Marika Pratley (Wellington) and Virginia Kennard (Christchurch), exploring concepts behind cisgender woman femme queer identity, and the tensions between having autonomy over conventional feminine/femme identity/behaviours under capitalist-patriarchal social relations.

Created in collaboration with composer,
sonic artist, and sloth appreciator
Marika Pratley/Class War on the Dance Floor/Babe of Babylon

Marika is an award winning multidisciplinary composer, improviser and performance artist from Wellington, New Zealand. Marika is currently producing her first documentary, The Healing Power of The Sloth, which investigates the role that her own music composition practice has had within her own journey of trauma recovery.

This work has been made possible through funding from Creative New Zealand Creative Communities scheme via Christchurch City Council and Creative Waikato,
Dunedin Fringe Trust Fringe Artist grant, and the University of Otago
Division of Humanities Performing Arts fund

World premiere, Hamilton Fringe
7.15pm, Wednesday 30th – Thursday 31th October 2019
The Meteor, Hamilton, NZ

Ōtautahi Tiny Performance Festival
8pm, Saturday 30th November 2019
Centre of Contemporary Art (CoCA), Christchurch, NZ

Dunedin Fringe
7.30pm, Wednesday 25th – Saturday 28th March 2020
Dog with Two Tails, Dunedin, NZ

“The stage is set like a messy girl’s bedroom…from the onset it is mind-blowing…It’s refreshing and lovely…Bravo to this dynamic duo, who are in their way arguing, explaining or examining cis/hetero-normativity, queerness, femme power, familial congeniality and power in dark corners…Kennard and Prately very charmingly empower minority” – Jan-Maree Franicevic, Theatreview

“This narrative is my jam and I’m having to work hard at challenging myself wrt naked bodies in art, use of “menstrual fluid” for body paint…Thank you Marika and Virginia. That was awesome. Wish I had the chance to really absorb more. So many great ideas breaking down taboos between femme bodies and academic theory” – AJ Fitzwater, Twitter

“Upon completion of this festival I muse I have become more at ease with these nipples, genitals, curves, bumps, hues, hair and muscles…Virginia and Marika later talk about sex positivity as an antidote to rape culture.” – Emily Mowbray-Marks, Theatreview

How do you construct a sexuality?
Maybe at IKEA 😉

Images taken by Petra Mingneau for Movement Art Practice

Big Queer Anti-Wedding

By on October 25, 2017

We are not interested in your cis-heteronormative, patriarchal, mono-amorous, state-sanctioned, government-regulated, court-conferred notions of forever love.

We are interested in lasagne love, dogging in car parks, lesbian banter, vegan whipped cream, child-bearing hips, and our own kind of queer wedded bliss.

Blood, blood, blood ran down her legs
And i just couldn’t be more happy for her

BIG QUEER ANTI-WEDDING
Devised, designed, written, composed, installed, constructed,
performed, created and choreographed by
Alexis Lilly Denman, Alice Boulton-Breeze, Amy Mauvan, Chlöe Hall, Cieran Reed, Florence Simms, Jessica Mae Ivison, Kate Stonestreet, Nicole Murmann, and Virginia Kennard
Tech’d, managed, baked and dressed by
Jaye Kearney, Jazmine Webb, Adam Sas-Skowronski,
and Abby Morley
Featuring an original soundscore by
Marika Pratley and Chris Wratt (New Zealand

MA Performance, Artist Project Major module
Leeds Beckett University
12noon, Wednesday 6th September 2017
Leeds Music Hub, Leeds, UK

MY  MATRIMONIAL BODY BELONGS TO ME
Performed by Virginia Kennard and Amy Mauvan
WOMAN SRSLY, curated by Grace Nicol Dance
7.30pm, Friday 27th October 2017
The CentrE17, London, UK

Performed by Virginia Kennard, Alice Boulton-Breeze, Florence Simms, and Cieran Reed
Queering Ritual, organised by School of the Art Institute of Chicago and York St John University
Saturday 4th November 2017
York St John, York, UK

WHAT’S YOUR BRIDE PRICE
Performed by Virginia Kennard
S.A.M.P.L.E. curated by Alana Yee
8.30pm, Wednesday 19th July 2017
Paper Dress Vintage, London, UK

Performed by Virginia Kennard
Mother’s Bloomers, curated by Mother’s Ruin
7.30pm, Thursday 16th November 2017
ARC: Stockton, County Durham, UK

THE BLOODY BRIDE
Performed by Virginia Kennard
Tease, directed by Jeremy Haxton/Lost Cow Performances
Friday 21st November 2014
In Good Company, Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand

Widening the Cycle exhibition
Curated by Jen Lewis/Society for Menstrual Cycle Research
4-6 June 2015
Suffolk University Law School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
Photography by Filippo Gasparini

Performed by Virginia Kennard, Marika Pratley, and Chris Wratt
you occupy my body by looking
Saturday 20th June 2015
Toi Pōneke Gallery, Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand

#notyourgoodqueer
#RedShoesNoKnickers
#yearoftheho2017
#againstequality

_____________________________________________________________

Photography credits

MA Performance

By on September 16, 2017

MA Performance, Leeds Beckett University, 2016-2017

  • Artist Project Minor: Were you smitten?
  • Choreography in Wider Contexts: and i breathe and it goes
  • Festival Project: Self Love is a Revolutionary Act
  • Artist Mentor: am i ever gonna be enough?
  • Artist Project Major: Big Queer Anti-Wedding

Watch the short film and i breath and it goes
Please contact Virginia for the password

Featured imaged taken by Virginia Kennard, edited by Stephen Daniels

Photography by

  • Kiran Mehti
  • Daisy Petley
  • Stephen Daniels
  • Jaye Kearney
  • Bella Murray-Nag

The MORAL PANIC series

By on November 27, 2016

In times of social upheaval and societal change, women’s bodies become the target for pearl-clutching and knicker-twisting. I have no time for your Moral Panic, women’s bodies and women’s sexual agency is not a platform across which you must enact your politics.

Please visit Virginia’s MORAL PANIC website for more information.

A Pesky Upstart

Bludging all your CNZ money

Were you smitten?

Taking up space

I’m sorry about your fragile masculinity

Feminising space

Won’t fucking shut up

Look at what you’re wearing

That damn chair

Yes those are my undies. Would you like some gin? [Working title: The gin and undies dance]

Get the fuck away from me

Fuck your femme shaming

But whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy?

Stop stomping on my body for your revolution

Capitalism and sex

Millenials can’t have nice things if they want to buy a house

Minimalism will not solve capitalism

There is not such thing as ethical consumption

My body is not anyone’s property

Sex work and commodity fetishism

Sex work IS work

#sorrynotsorry

You don’t own me

I am allowed to own objects

My frivolity will not hurt the Cause

Photo Credits:

  • Featured image: Daisy Petley, am i ever gonna be enough, Hyde Park Book Club, Leeds Beckett University, MA Performance assessment, Artist Mentor module, 2017
  • Gillian Dyson-Moss, Were you smitten?, Leeds Beckett University, MA Performance assessment, Artist Project Minor module, December 2016
  • Stephen Daniels, Self Love is a Revolutionary Act, NEWK, Live Art Bistro, 2017
  • Lachlan Forsyth, Don’t Look, TV3 Story, September 2016
  • Virginia Kennard, am i ever gonna be enough [in rehearsal], Leeds Beckett University, MA Performance, Artist Mentor module, 2017
  • Daisy Petley, am i ever gonna be enough, Hyde Park Book Club, Leeds Beckett University, MA Performance assessment, Artist Mentor module, 2017

to and fro

By on November 10, 2016

Curated by Amelia Hitchcock as part of her Curatorial internship, this project was a weaving of multiple narratives, discordant and harmonious, without predetermined outcomes, An exploration of potential, of shifting frameworks and pushing boundaries, over six weeks 11 performance artists participated in a series of rolling residencies on site.

to and fro
Artspace, Karangahape Road, Auckland
July 11 – August 23 2014

As part of this residency, Virginia created and performed several explorative works:

  • speaking as a bodily act [working title], with soundscore by Emi Pogoni
  • it’s my period party and i’ll bleed if i want to
  • Diary
  • Team Management Workplace Personality Profiling
  • How do i look? [in process]

Photo credits:

 

Betty Lightbulb

By on November 8, 2016

Virginia was a contributor to Messed Up on RadioActive.fm, New Zealand’s longest running mashup show and made some rad mash-ups as DJ Betty Lightbulb. Several tracks were mastered and produced by Dan Untitled.

She continues to create mash-ups, spoken word sonic layers, and remixed tracks for her performance works and you can find several of these tracks at her hearthis.at profile. Betty’s debut live set was 26 July 2018, at SAYONARA SOUP event at Space Academy, Christchurch, a community event run by Gap Filler.

Tracks include:
Some backing sounds for Feminine Hygiene, a performance art essay collab with Marika Pratley, whilst they chatted about sex work within a Marxist framework, performed at Hamilton Fringe and Ōtautahi Tiny Performance Festival 2019.

A new track for her Big Queer Anti-Wedding series as performed for #redshoesnoknickers at the glØaming, Tempo Dance Festival, Auckland, October 2019

Moral Panic, the soundtrack to a 2016 solo, featured in the Music From Her: Sound Art Exhibition in October 2018 for Aotearoa Audio Arts Festival. Full exhibition album available here.

The soundtrack for Big Queer Anti-Wedding, featuring original composition Slut Revolt by Marika Pratley and Chris Wratt, and including tracks by Marlea Black and spoken word by Virginia Kennard,

sylvia eats amy jean and emi and 19/01 breaks britney’s ice for her solo movement performance work am i ever gonna be enough, which was performed at Hyde Park Book Club, Leeds, May 2017.

Take up space and get the fuck i’m sorry im sorry as part of her dance ensemble piece Self Love is a Revolutionary Act, which was performed at Sibiu International Theatre Festival, June 2017.

Freeky Litanies 1.0 as part of her solo work on ethical consumption and sex work, am i ever gonna be enough

Coiled Up Le1fy Delia for Works for Loudspeakers, Autumn 2015 and used for pole performance Voyeurist.

Stupid Sardines for you occupy my body by looking performance i’m selling shoes obviously – an homage to Guy Bourdin

Photo credit:

  • Kowhai Montgomery, 2015

 

you occupy my body by looking

By on November 7, 2016

Exhibition and performance season over 17 days

Looking in to look out. Looking back.
Performance trace, collected materials, lipstick lists, naked drawings, invented instruments, and selfies; all part of this performance installation delving into how we look – at bodies, at women, at ourselves.
 
Thursday 4 – Saturday 20 June 2015
Toi Pōneke Gallery, Abel Smith Street
Te Aro, Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand
Photo credits:
  • Fern King, Noisy Femmes and their Sexist Microphone [featured image]
  • Kristy McCormick Art and Imagery, The Bloody Bride
  • Kowhai Montgomery, Drumming and Dancing
  • Virginia Kennard, workshop session
  • Virginia Kennard, Hannah paints me
  • Virginia Kennard, Spinster Ladies Party with Colour in a Cunt
  • Pipi Ayesha-Evans, Please Ask First
  • Virginia Kennard, The Awakening by Natalie J. Cheetham
  • Erica Sklenars, I’m not your toy
  • Aurynn Shaw, Notes on Looking 2.0
  • Kowhai Montgomery, i’m selling shoes obviously

The Lady Garden

By on October 2, 2016

The Lady Garden is a performance installation of live naked women, involving audience interaction and exploring ideas of the sexualised lens with which we look at women.

Performance seasons include:

  • Winter edition, Understudy bar, BATS Out-of-site, August 2014
  • Explicit: Implicit, The Porn Project, Auckland 2013
  • NZ Fringe Festival, Matchbox Studios, Wellington 2013
  • Debut season, Matchbox Studios, Wellington 2012

The Lady Garden was borne out of test performances entitled promiscuous makes an entrance, as part of S.A.M.P.L.E. (Some Artists Make Performance Laboratory Experiments), a year-long, Wellington-based, monthly performance art night curated by Alana Yee that has featured in Sydney and London since 2013.

Performers/participants include:

  • Bianca Beebe
  • Bronwyn Bell
  • Chrissy Massey
  • Emma Slee
  • Faye Tohbyn
  • Fern King
  • Hannah Beattie
  • Hannah Blumhardt
  • Jeremy Haxton
  • Jess Quaid
  • Jess Sloan
  • Jessica Ducey
  • Jillian Davey
  • Karyn Basher
  • Kathi Nettles
  • Kelsey Woodford
  • Kowhai Montgomery
  • Kristy McCormick
  • Lexie McConnell
  • Marika Pratley
  • Natalie Cheetham
  • Nicole Rombel
  • Sarah Jameson
  • Sofia Robinson
  • Soleil Launiere
  • Soumya Bhamidipati
  • Tams Martin
  • Tess Calogaras
  • Tessa Clews
  • Willow Newey
  • Yana Skaler

Photo credits:

TEXT WIDGET

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© Copyright Virginia Kennard 2016