Stage of the Art

• The Irrepressibles - Splish ! Splash ! Sploo !

• The Irrepressibles - Splish! Splash! Sploo! - If you don't see the player, remember to enable javascript in your browser, and/or download the last version of flash.

— We just discovered you in Paris in November, we'd like to know more about the performance you did at the British Museum... Could you tell us
more about it ?

I was asked to create a performance with The Irrepressibles for the opening of BABYLON : MYTH AND REALITY at the British Museum. It was to take place in the awesome Great Court - which is an incredible circular space with a gigantic ceiling completely made up of a lattice of windows that brings into the space; the sky. Using the colours of the building, the sky at what would be the time of the performance, the architecture and the statues as inspiration we created a spectacle with costume, makeup and set with the singer, myself, on a pedestal in front of the central reading room and its symmetrical staircases - the orchestra moving around me. Performing my songs and instrumental pieces we worked the fascinating acoustic of the building that echoed my voice and rippled the orchestras sound to an intensely atmospheric, dramatic and almost magical, effect - somehow bringing together Babylon, myth and reality into our performance.

— What would you say about the relation to the audience when you play in a traditional venue versus a cultural institution ?

I always create a show for the venue that we play or at least match my concepts to the nature of the space, its presence, its architecture, its acoustic. In the cultural institution we can become an exhibit, an installation that moves and interacts emotionally with the audience. The Human Music Box spectacle I created for the Victoria and Albert Museum in London in 2009 was a 6 x 6 meter cube with open sides that stood in the Raphael Cartoon Gallery. A huge music box with revolving plinth in the centre. The orchestra moved like marionettes with Graham inspired movement arriving at tableaux variants amongst flickering fluorescent lighting. The frames on each side engaging with the Raphael Cartoons and the costumed performers to create a dynamic of depth of field. The use of gauze around the box allowed the performers in the box to appear and disappear and take on the texture of the paintings in the gallery as if brought to engage by this strange baroque spaceship the Human Music Box. I do favour site specific performance though the venue does give us better sound and so our focus plays on this more in these scenarios though our next show for the South Bank Centre will comprise a series of mirrors reflecting and distorting the dancing orchestra like a hall of mirrors - in this instance I have created an architecture to stand in darkness on the standard stage.

— What are your main influences and references ?

My main influences are everything from Viviane Westwood and Malcolm McClaren's work with fashion music and subculture, KLF with art and pop music, Farinelli and the Castrati, Kate Bush, Martha Graham, Salvador Dali's installation works, Morrissey, Leigh Bowery, Laurie Anderson, Meredith Monk and the House, Broadcast, Matthew Barney there are so so many. But they are always not the ones the press think are my influences ha ha! I like my spectacles to appeal to all ages including children and importantly the child in all of us that needs to play and needs to cry. So an Irrepressible performance is never too highbrow.

— Would it be possible to give us your favorist playlist please ?

Discover, listen and download the playlist from Jamie McDermott

 

The Irrepressibles
album 'Mirror Mirror'

 

A promotional clip from Shelly Loves film 'The Forgotten Circus' (2008). Music by The Irrepressibles.

The history of some of The Irrepressibles performance orchestra's live spectacles up to 2009 (The Human Music Box at Latitude Festival USA and Victoria & Albert Museum London, and some more shows.)