"At the Risk of. . ." The 2019 Brink Festival
From 1 – 4 July, Central hosted the 2019 Brink Festival, “At The Risk Of…” featuring nine events disrupting preconceptions of performance, and performed by emerging practitioners from around the world.
Brink is an annual festival presented by MA/ MFA Performance Practice as Research at Central that celebrates the culmination of a year of independent postgraduate research. Shaped by hard questions, political positions, systemic frustrations and personal truths, the interdisciplinary events disrupt preconceptions of performance. Part rigour, part revelation, audiences were met with installation, discussion and debate, duration and game, camp and rhythm.
Brink hosted a myriad of works that challenged and provoked current ideas and questions around theatre, performance and visual art. The festival provided a platform for exciting new work from emerging performance innovators living, exploring and creating at the brink of disciplines.
Featuring their work as a part of “At The Risk Of…” were:
- Kit Bower-Morris - Title Coming Soon!
- Haley Feiler– Hear the Difference?
- Jef Hall-Flavin– Fun [da] Mental [Text] Encounter
- Jack Hewitt– State of Pla(y)net Earth
- John Kurzynowski– How do I Know when I kNow that I know what I know that I Know when I know how I KNOW when I …
- Jessica Manu- C0-Occurrence
- Bryan Muñoz– Blended Affor–Dances of ‘Gozo’
- Samuel Smithson– The Argument Machine
- Annalise Wedermeyer– Rumble!
Central is one of the world’s leading institutions for practice as research. MA/MFA Performance Practice as Research caters to the ‘auteur’, the individual practitioner/researcher, working across disciplinary boundaries. Wishing to take their work to the edges of their specialism(s), students explore untouched ground and establish new ways of thinking about and doing performance, while constantly pushing the boundaries of their discipline(s).
The courses are designed for innovators who wish to investigate the concepts and practices within contemporary performance and they provide a laboratory for study and experimentation in the area of contemporary performance, mobilising both practical and conceptual work.
Throughout the year, emphasis is placed on a reciprocal relationship between theory and practice, where one always feeds into and enlivens the other. Students interrogate, test and apply the most recent thinking and practices within their particular fields, and are encouraged to experiment and innovate by developing their own work, work that is ultimately presented as part of the Brink Festival.