inner u was a London based party rooted in the idea of the club space as a house for self-expression. inner u explored the idea of nightlife as a form of emotional self care; creating an environment in which dance is transcendental and music is hypnosis. Celebrating the realms of desire and satisfaction, inner u blur a program of electronic music, from techno to bass, with contemporary performance and visual art rooted in the rave tradition. inner u club nights are deliberately undefined spaces to promote exploration.
I choose to place performance in the context of parties to explore viewing performance in the context of bass music, dancing and raving. I am thinking about performance as interruption.
inner u performances:
The Uncollective, Monsur Mansoor, Elijah W Harris, Owen Ridley-Demonick, Charlotte Mclean, Malik Nashad Sharpe, Joseph Morgan Schofield, Fernanda Munoz-Newsome
Artwork: Opashona Gosh
move close
move close was a party at vogue fabrics Dalston run by Es Morgan, Sara Sassanelli and Joseph Morgan Schofield.
Performances happen unannounced throughout the night with a focus on the relationship between current experimental electronic music and dance/live art.
the party is thought of as a space for processing and an exploration of queer time.
Artwork: Ben Normanton
lowkey
lowkey involves The Uncollective (Eve Stainton & Michael Kitchin) and Sara Sassanelli working to unpack judgement within a performance space through their dancing bodies. By acknowledging that their bodies hold different experiences, histories, needs, pleasures, structures and boundaries they are interested in engaging with the idea of ‘the untrained’ to propose a space of movement as inbetweenness. We use music as a vehicle into moving, dancing and ultimately celebrating a realm of desire and satisfaction.
LOW KEY wants to lower the stakes of what a performance space might normally hold. The Uncollective are using Sara to lower the stakes of their dance practice. Sara is using the Uncollective to make it okay to be watched while dancing.
We want to use the space to dance
We want to use the space to explore togetherness and aloneness
We want to use the space to mix/ loop music and create soundscapes that inspire us to move
We want to exist as moving people in a low key way.
We want to lower the stakes of what a future performance of this exploration might be/ look like
Maybe there is a little bit of impostor syndrome in this.
Image: Anne Tetzlaff, 2018, Somerset House Studios, inner u, Monsur Mansoor, Sara Sassanelli, Michael Kitchin
hotline
HOTLINE aimed to be a critical space for discussion and disagreements, not an artist talk. An itinerant space for provocations & opinions and was a constantly shifting format for public conversartion. A space to share in the love the hate the ambivalence and the complexity of things, hosted by Jamila Johnson Small and Sara Sassanelli. We were interested in why people do what they do, how the particular logics are formed that drive and direct decisions/actions/tastes and art-making. We were interested in shifting needs provoked by the contemporary condition and looking for ways to collectively re-organise and think through conversation, to encourage generative exchange and live encounters that can serve to activate bold creative action. We were disinterested in the growing demand for artists to be present in ways beyond the show/exhibition/text that create spaces and exacerbate systems of unequal exchange. At HOTLINE we invited, and expected, everyone present to bring whatever they felt like bringing, and were supported by the presentations offered by three people each session.
upcoming events
home