An evening showcase of brand new performances by Appau Jnr Boakye-Yiadom, Fernanda Muñoz-Newsome, Harriet Middleton Baker, Lloyd Corporation, SERAFINE1369 and Sriwhana Spong on Wednesday 30 March, 6pm–late, at Studio Spaces in Wapping, East London.

In April 2020 as the pandemic took hold, we responded by creating a commissioning and development programme for six artists whose practices include live work.

As performance relies on social engagement and people coming together, we prioritised support for artists working in this field at a time when so many other projects, fees and residencies had been cancelled or postponed. We have since spent almost two years working closely together with the artists, developing the performances in response to the changing context of the pandemic and showing them safely.

The premiere of these performances was always intended as a live event whenever it was possible for audiences to gather in significant numbers and experience work together.

Before: Compliments, performance by String Trio from Apartment House

Second iteration; During: Compliments Performed May 2022

During: Compliment is a sound–based performance that challenges the idea that live performance involves seeing the performer’s body. In the first iteration, Before:Compliment, presented in London as part of the Robert Institute of Art’s Live Art Commissions in March 2022, Appau Jnr Boakye-Yiadom invited a string trio to play an improvised musical arrangement. The musicians were hidden within a booth with only their feet visible. Through a discreet live video feed of the entire space, the musicians responded to the movement and gestures of the audience as they entered the room, creating a heightened relationship between audience and performers. The improvisation was led by a key – written by both the artist and cellist/co-director of Apartment House, Anton Lukoszevieze – with reference to a spectrum of film scores.

In this new version at the Fruitmarket, Boakye-Yiadom layered the piece, building on the structures laid out in the first performance. A new group of Scotland-based musicians (double bass, piano, drums, flute and saxophone), again mostly hidden from view of the audience, played a new improvised arrangement in response to a recording of the music from the original performance. This presentation was accompanied by video recordings from Before: Compliment giving the audience a chance to see this build-up of relationships and how the musicians improvise within the original structure.

Performers:

Rick Bramford
Steve Kettley
George Kypredimos
James Stewart

https://www.fruitmarket.co.uk/archive/appau-jnr-boakye-yiadom-duringcompliment/

In conversation with Ned McConnell May 2022
Appau Junior Boakye-Yiadom in conversation with Ned McConnell at Fruitmarket, Edinburgh, 6 May 2022, ahead of the performance of his piece During: Compliment at the Fruitmarket Warehouse on 7 May 2022.

https://www.fruitmarket.co.uk/archive/appau-jnr-boakye-yiadom-duringcompliment/

https://research.gold.ac.uk/id/eprint/38494