Mad Kate | the Tide

Mad Kate is a writer, musician and performance artist. She fronts ‘Mad Kate: The Tide’ alongside musician Jacopo Bertacco. Together, they have performed for Us Inc who organise performance events that play with the performativity of gender and sexuality for the Month of Performance Art – Berlin. She speaks to me from the front room of her surreal costume and music studio ‘Exit’ about The Tide, the idea of tapping into a deeper consciousness of life and potential as expressed in her concept album, ‘ALIVE:ness,’ and how and why queer, gender-fuck and sexuality are common themes in her work. How much of the world is dead to you? - Sensa Nostra Magazine

Mad Kate is a writer, musician and performance artist. She fronts ‘Mad Kate: The Tide’ alongside musician Jacopo Bertacco. Together, they have performed for Us Inc who organise performance events that play with the performativity of gender and sexuality for the Month of Performance Art – Berlin. She speaks to me from the front room of her surreal costume and music studio ‘Exit’ about The Tide, the idea of tapping into a deeper consciousness of life and potential as expressed in her concept album, ‘ALIVE:ness,’ and how and why queer, gender-fuck and sexuality are common themes in her work. How much of the world is dead to you? - Sensa Nostra Magazine

Warehouse9 has not been around very long, but already has a reputation of putting on a show that’s both shocking and entertaining. Just recently they housed the International Performance Art festival, which featured controversial acts such as Mad Kate and Kira O’Reilly. Art 4 Social Change looks like it will be just as titillating.

The event will be taking place at the groundbreaking art gallery Warehouse9. It consists of a photo exhibition, which started on Tuesday and will run until Sunday, and a seminar with talks and debates on Saturday. The seminar will be followed by an evening of great wonder, which includes a photo exhibition, live performances, film screenings and live music.

The seminar can be seen as a follow-up to some of the exquisite work the gallery has done with J Jackie Baier, who will also be participating this time, which have focused on sexuality and the situation of transgendered people in the sex industry.

Although many of the artists participating have worked with similar issues, the event will not focus solely on the theme of sex and sexuality, but should rather be seen as a platform for different forms of art.

The organisers hope to inspire participants and attendees to look for art in places they might not have looked before and, most importantly, think about how art can lead to a change in our society or perhaps how art can even be the social change itself.

The gallery also hopes that the event will set the tone for the themes it will be working with for the next couple of years.

The event promises to be different from your average Saturday with talks from inspiring people such as Gary Everett from Liverpool, England, whose project ‘Homotopia’ has helped to fight homophobia and negative stereotypes in northern England.

Also speaking is Elizabeth Japsen, a Danish transperson who is a member of Enhedslisten Queerudvalg, a political organisation that feels that a broader definition of the term gender should be more prevalent and accepted in Danish politics.

A talk from Fahad Saeed, project leader of Sabaah, is also sure to be moving. Sabaah is a Danish social and cultural association for LGBT people from ethnic backgrounds, and in his talk, Fahad will speak about how a platform for social work can be created through cultural arrangements.

As well as interesting and eye-opening talks, there will be a moving photo exhibition by J Jackie Baier, and the evening will also see the sensational Holestar, an artist, photographer and performer, singing and DJ-ing for the crowd.

Warehouse9 is the perfect place for such a radical and refreshing event as the place is not exclusively an art venue, but a place that actively engages in social change projects. Similarly, the organisers hope that the powerful talks and open debates will inspire attendants to engage in social change projects themselves. Ultimately, Art 4 Social Change promises a unique experience that will entertain, educate, impress and, above all, shock. - The Copenhagen Post

The amazing Mad Kate—renowned performance artist, writer, dancer, and vocalist with a musical background in punk, soul, folk, house and rock n’ roll—has teamed up with The Tide—experimental guitarist and producer—to create the performance project of our times—multilayered, hyperlinked, interdisciplinary—and as much skilled performance as it is a pleasure to listen to. - killerrr.com

Warehouse9 is an intimate performance space/art gallery dating back to April 2007. With its location in the blossoming cultural slaughterhouse district, Warehouse9 has the defined goal of bringing art into life, and life back into art.

With inspiration from the avant-garde, Andy Warhol art factory era of New York, Warehouse9 has grown into an experimental and liberating space for contemporary art, music, poetry and performance with a focus on the international queer community. Over the years, it has succeeded in breaking down boundaries between the music, theatre, art and nightclub scenes, building bridges between established genres and communities.

Since 2009, an always exciting and provocative year of events has culminated in the International Performance Art Festival. The four-day 2012 festival continues the focus on radical contemporary performance art that dares to take risks, challenge the limits of all things artistic and explore new ways of defining the world around us.

The festival opens on Thursday with Beijing artist Zhu Ming. His signature style balloon performances see him, exposed and vulnerable, sealed into a balloon that is gradually filled with water. With only a limited amount of air in the balloon, Zhu Ming recreates concepts of self-isolation, nihilism and the time-space continuum, while interacting with the audience. Ming’s performances have been witnessed all around the world at venues including the Tate Modern in London and ICP in New York.

Friday evening promises to be a wonderfully uncompromising assault on the senses. The legendary and unstoppable Penny Arcade climbed out of her bedroom window at the age of 13 to join the fabulously disenfranchised world of queers, junkies, whores and geniuses. Her fearless brand of feminist sexuality and intellectually-charged performance style has delighted and shocked audiences around the globe. Mad Kate and the Tide explore the concept of Alive:ness: how alive we are in each other’s lives. An eclectic variety of musical styles combines the traditional concert staging with a performance concept that sees Kate provide an aural and visual cocktail that you won’t forget in a hurry. These two performances, one after the other, will leave you breathless and ready for the ensuing dialogue featuring these artists.

Saturday’s highlights include the Swedish feminist art collective, Tir, in a performance of Sidewalk Position – Up Your Ass, partly an interpretation of Valerie Solana´s 1965 manuscript. Kira O’Reilly is perhaps known for upsetting Daily Mail readers (which can only be a good thing) in 2006 by hugging a dead pig on stage. An intriguing and unique combination of bio-science concepts and dance has been her more recent focus. Portuguese/Brazilian dance duo Antonio Maya and Fernando Belfiore perform The Miserable Thing, a story that considers how our body is repressed and fetishised by society, which culminates in hallucinatory imagery using paint and oil. Multi-talented Joseph Mercier’s Giselle (or I’m too Horny to be a Prince) sees Mercier on an intensely personal voyage, narrated through challenging dance, military boot fetish and a reflection on body image. Mercier delves into his own experiences as a trained ballet dancer. The last performance of the evening is by Luscious Montana: Montana died for a Good Cause. The performance delves into the complexities of the sex industry in the form of an intimate self-portrait.

Each of the three days close with what promises to be some fascinating debates and discussions featuring the artists. Sunday is mostly a day of lectures for those with a more academic interest in performance art. However, there is a performance by the young Danish artist Nicolai Legind, Leaving for a Moment, which is the final one of the festival.

Over the four days at the art bar BarHvaViHar, a group of students from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, will encourage discussion and audience involvement on the theme of ‘welcome’.
The International Performance Art Festival is absolutely guaranteed to both entertain and provoke. It’s a utopian arena where the borders of art are expanded and explored in an atmosphere of mutual trust.

International Performance Art Festival
Warehouse9, Building 66, Halmtorvet 11C, Cph K; starts Thu (Nov 22), ends Sun; Tickets: Festival pass 350kr, one-day pass 160-230kr, per show 90kr, lectures free, www.billetto.dk; www.warehouse9.dk - The Copenhagen Post