Weekender with Harold Offeh: Play it Again

10.30am-5.30pm both days (£60)

Re-enactment essentially means to perform or act out something again. Play It Again is a practical workshop that will seek to explore the role and use of historical re-enactment in performance and contemporary art practice. Its aim is to explore how the cultural practices of re-enactment such as: re-constructions, role-play, remakes and cover versions can be adopted to investigate and explore histories. Over the weekend, Offeh will facilitate practical exercises and discussions and explore particular case studies as starting points for performative responses. 

Harold Offeh is interested in the space created by the inhabiting or embodying of history. Working as a collective group and as individuals, we’ll explore personal, social and political histories. Participants will be encouraged to pool their knowledge and draw upon their own experiences. Participants may choose to bring artifacts, objects, documents, video or memories as material resources to be developed. The weekend will be charcterised by a sense of playful inquiry and shared learning.   
 

Day 1

The session will focus on practical exercises using movement and voice to explore the body as material. The day will be punctuated by discussion and presentation of the group’s collective archive of objects, sounds and images. Harold will deliver a short performance presentation on the use of re-constructions and remakes in art and popular culture.

 Day 2:

The second day will focus on experimentation, play and production. The group will have the opportunity to devise and present responses to the 1^st days initial research.

The weekend will end with short presentations of work produced over the weekend.
 

Harold Offeh’s work encompasses a range of approaches including performance, social practice, video and photography. He often employs humour as a means to confront the viewer with aspects of contemporary culture and history. Harold Offeh is Senior Lecturer in Fine Art at Leeds Beckett University. Recent works include performances and shows for Art on the Underground (2013-14), and for Studio Museum Harlem (2014), TATE Britain and Harris Museum and Gallery (2015).