Performing Medicine: The Anatomy Season
21 October 2011
There has always been an intimate relationship between anatomy and performance - from the lavish anatomy theatres of 16th-century Italy to the 'Body Worlds' phenomenon of Gunther von Hagens. Human beings seem to have an insatiable desire to know and be known, but how much do we really want to find about what's going on inside us?
Supported by a Large Arts Award from the Wellcome Trust, the season explores the fascinating relationships between anatomy and performance. Celebrated artists and medics - including ORLAN, the Quay Brothers, Susan Standring and Roger Kneebone - will take part in a series of provocative events at venues including Sadler's Wells and Wellcome Collection.
The award-winning Performing Medicine project was conceived by theatre director Suzy Willson of Clod Ensemble, primarily to provide training to medical students and healthcare workers. As part of the project, the company also curates events aiming to engage the wider public with issues relevant to 21st-century medicine.
Willson says: "The history of anatomy is fertile ground on which to explore the meeting of arts and science, where objective and subjective ideas about the body collide. The Anatomy Season addresses issues such as the way bodies are represented in medical culture and how that affects our ways of thinking about them; the way anatomy is taught and how that influences doctors' attitudes towards their patients; what anatomical specimens can tell us about lives lived; what contemporary artists know about anatomy; and how much we really want to know about the inside of our own bodies. It aims to illuminate not just what we look at but how we look at it."
Performance highlights include the world premiere of Clod Ensemble's 'An Anatomie in Four Quarters', where 30 dancers and musicians and an audience of 200 will cut through the magnificent interior of Sadler's Wells Theatre. The physical structure of the body and the magnificent anatomy of the space will be dissected as the audience promenades to different viewing positions, examining what it means to open up and to be opened.
Sheila Ghelani's 'Covet Me, Care For Me' comes to Wellcome Collection in November, with a quietly brutal yet celebratory performance about heartbreak and heritage, objects and history, anatomy and difference. Fifty covetable glass hearts are laid out on the floor, each containing an object. Members of the public are invited to claim the object of their choice but must smash the heart to take it, exploring the mixed-up mess that resides in all of us.
Also at Wellcome Collection, the UK premiere of the Quay Brothers film 'Through the Weeping Glass, On The Consolations of Life Everlasting' brings to life anatomical objects in Philadelphia’s Mütter Museum through the brothers' indomitable visual language. The screening will be followed by a discussion with the Quay Brothers, Robert Hicks of the Mütter Museum and Ken Arnold of the Wellcome Collection.
Professor Kneebone's Incredible Inflatable, Pop-Up Anatomy Lesson brings a 45-minute pop-up anatomy lesson in an inflatable operating theatre to Wellcome Collection in December. Led by Professor Roger Kneebone and his team, participants will be rolling up their sleeves and getting a close-up idea of exactly what is where in the human body.
Performing Medicine: The Anatomy Season runs from 28 October to 10 December. The full listings information for the season is available at the Performing Medicine website.
Image: Performing Medicine Sheila Ghelani’s ‘Covet Me, Care For Me’. Credit: Manuel Vason.
