Nothing Human is Strange to Me, exhibition and performance (30:00 min), 2018

For his fig-futures commission at The Gallery, De Montfort University, Ben Judd presented a performance, costumes, images from the university’s archives, objects based on artefacts excavated locally, and a video of the performance. Drawing on Leicester’s rich history, including the 20thcentury immigration of dispossessed groups, Nothing Human is Strange to Me suggested a lost community once occupied the area now inhabited by De Montfort University.

Five dancers and ten singers entered the gallery from outside. Inside the gallery, the singers dressed the dancers in their costumes, which were suspended in the space. The performers and audience then moved into the back of the gallery where the performance reached its climax. Performers and audience then moved back into the front part of the gallery, where singers removed the dancers’ costumes, and the dancers exited the gallery. 

https://fig2.co.uk/#week10
http://www.dmu.ac.uk/about-dmu/news/2018/november/myths-create-magical-art-performance-at-the-gallery-dmu.aspx

Writer: Rod Duncan
Choreographer: Dionysios Tsaftaridis
Costume designer: Jo Cope
Magic lanernist: Jeremy Brooker
Composer: Apostolis Psychramis
Musical director: Willard Welsford

Generously supported by De Montfort University, Outset, Art Fund, Nottingham Trent University, Arts Council England

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Photographs: Rod Duncan, Jason Senior and Stephen Lynch