The International Workshop Festival has been rumbling away in the city since 28 August, allowing the bold and brave to take part in workshops and experiments in performing arts with specially invited artists and practitioners. As the festival draws to a close, a curious couple of performers and experiments have cropped up on our radar. Anyone willing to take part is definitely a friend of ours, and we want to hear from you what participation turns out to be like...
Artists Elizabeth Stephens and Annie Sprinkle are camping out at Chelsea Theatre from Wednesday 19 to Saturday 22 September to explore, with help from the public, love as art. The Love Art Lab is no simple day long workshop of improvisation, discussion and regular tea breaks. Oh no. The Love Art Lab is a seven year project by this duo and their current work for Year Three is coming to Chelsea in a big, bold and beautiful way.
Elizabeth Stephens is a multi-media artist and professor "sexy dyke playboy" and Annie Sprinkle is a former prostitute, porn actress and pin-up model, now a performance artist and writer. The workshop they will run as part of the International Workshop Festival and part of The Love Art Lab is Extreme Kissing on Saturday 22 September:
Stephens and Sprinkle will lead this unique and special workshop exploring kissing as conversation, as political intervention, as altered state, as erotic meditation and as performance art. Bring a buddy to kiss for two hours straight - a friend, lover, or any willing collaborator. Or come solo and take a chance that you will find such a person at the workshop, or even out on King’s Road.
The first hour of the workshop will be in the theatre where you’ll receive instruction, and we’ll set our intentions. Then Stephens, Sprinkle, and all participants will emerge onto the Kings Road for a two-hour-long public Kiss-in. The last half hour will be back at the theatre for feedback and closing. (This can make you feel highly euphoric, so don't plan to drive right after the kiss.)
There is also a performance by the pair on Wednesday 19 to Saturday 22 September called EXPOSED: Experiments in Love, Sex, Death, and Art which will be a unique performance about their relationship, queer weddings, art, sex and aging.
Experimenting with love - what's not to love about it?
The Love Art Lab at Chelsea Theatre, Wednesday 19 to Saturday 22 September. For more information about the workshops and the performances, go to the Chelsea Theatre website here. For more information about the artists and The Love Art Lab go to the website here.
Image by Julian Cash
