Oreet Ashery – Party for Freedom | People vs Freedom
Various London venues – 1 May – 22 June 2013
Somewhere between a traveling cinema and theatre troupe, a kiss-a-gram, and a takeaway delivery service, London-based artist Oreet Ashery’s Party for Freedom is an itinerant work that combines live performance with moving-image and original album soundtrack. An invitation for self-organized gatherings to host and experience the work – anywhere from a sitting room and workplace to public spaces and venues – it will also appear at venues across London including The Swedenborg Society in Bloomsbury, Millbank, and OrganicLea, a worker cooperative on the edge of the Lea Valley.
Party for Freedom is loosely based on Vladimir Mayakovsky’s 1921 play Mystery-Bouffe, telling the story of the Clean and the Unclean. It explores performances of liberation and political ideas around nakedness; and responds to the series of events changing the landscape of Dutch politics following the assassinations of right-wing politician Pim Fortuyn in 2002 and film director Theo van Gogh in 2004, and the ensuing popularity of Geert Wilders, the Dutch politician, and leader of the far-right Partij Voor de Vrijeid [Party for Freedom].
Artists taking part in the film: Kimbal Bumstead, Miles Coote, Edd Hobbs, Lucy Hutson, Tim Owen Jones, Eirini Kartsaki, Lynn Lu, Ana Godinho de Matos, Runa Norheim, Owen G Parry, Vanda Playford, Irene Revell
Music by: Timo-Juhani Kyllönen, Woolf, Chyskyyrai and Morgan Quaintance
performing live: Andro Andrex, Soren Evinson, Elizabeth B. Harris, Alex Der Matis, Phoebe Osborne, Andrew Kerton, Alice MacKenzie
An Artangel commission
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