Lucy McCormick: LIFE: LIVE!
performance
(Great Britain)
Don’t let the performance title Life: Live! fool you into thinking that no wild adventure lies ahead – contrary to what one may expect, we won’t be observing a woman talking on the phone, typing away on her keyboard and eating porridge. It may well be that Lucy McCormick does all these things, but her work, on the other hand, speaks of »nightclub interruptions, cabaret interventions and extravaganza theatre shows, marrying interests in absurdity, feminism and the grotesque«.
The show or performance skilfully evades definitions. Never mind definitions, it is difficult to say what it is that we’re experiencing here – are we having fun, are we invited to dance, are we witnesses or assistants? Every time we are seemingly on board with the pop-cultural reference or rules of the game, McCormick and her team (also subverting classical roles of dancers and assistants) pulls the carpet from under our feet and disables the cogs that run our brains on cliché. Let’s be clear here – Life: Live! is extremely entertaining alongside its multi-genre and subversive approach, but it doesn’t hold back in what the Guardian described as a »balls-to-the-wall skewering of the misogyny and exploitation that underpin popular culture«.
70 minutes
Performance is in English.
Created by: Lucy McCormick
Performers: Lucy McCormick, Morven Mulgrew, JD & Lennie
Producer: Philippa Barr
Set & costume design: Morven Mulgrew & Lucy McCormick
Lighting design and production management: Sorcha Mae Stott-Strzala
Music & lyrics: Lucy McCormick, Ted Rogers & Samir Kennedy
Songwriting, composition & production: Joe Reeves
Co-commissioned by: Fierce, Teatro do Bairro Alto, Cambridge Junction
Supported by: Alkantara, Tramway, Civic House Glasgow, Battersea Arts Centre
Funded by: Arts Council England
Photo by: Holly Revell