Moon Monkey Mouse Bear
NICOLA SINGH featuring Ted Rogers
thursday, april 14, 2022
We slip in and out of consciousness.
Singh improvises with the Mohanam raga from Carnatic music, which is associated with the emotions courage and compassion. She interrupts the flow with sung/spoken word improvisation. And a bear dances in her imagination.
‘Moon Monkey Mouse Bear’ is partly inspired by an arrangement of soft toy animals in the window of Singh’s neighbours house. And a recurring fantasy that emerged through the artist's regular singing practice.
The dream scene has been interpreted collaboratively with Ted Rogers (choreography and movement) and Hardeep Pandhal (costume/prop).
Performance by Nicola Singh and Ted Rodgers.
NICOLA SINGH BIO:
Nicola Singh (b. 1986, Newcastle upon Tyne) is based in Todmorden, West Yorkshire. She studied experimental music performance and visual performance at Dartington College of Arts Devon, has an MA in Curating Performance from Sunderland University and a practice-led PhD titled 'On The Thesis By Performance’ from Northumbria University.
Singh’s practice spans solo and collaborative performance, film, sound, installation and drawing. She makes autobiographical work, produced in response to contexts of location and place, encounter and dialogue and to feelings and chance.
Forthcoming projects include new commissions from Cinenova FEMINST FILM + VIDEO (London, 2022) and Manasamitra (Dewsbury, 2022). Selected recent projects include ‘the trick is - don’t explain’ experimental writing made around the work of Vahni Capildeo and Simone Forti for Corridor 8 (2022), ‘Eon Om Cycle Song’ a performance for La Bonne Women and Girls Centre, Barcelona (2022) and an artist residency programme with Porthmeor Studios, St Ives (2021).
Singh’s work was acquired by the Government Art Collection in 2021. She is Senior Lecturer in Fine Art and Curation at Manchester School of Art.
TED RODGERS BIO:
Ted is a neurodivergent artist and movement director based in Margate.
They predominantly use movement in film and live performance.
Ted is particularly interested in human behaviour and emotional representations.
As a performer they are entertaining, visceral and confronting.
As a director they are energetic and encouraging, believing that the best results are born from atmospheric environments, strong communication and ripe ground for the unknown to flourish.
HARDEEP PANDHAL BIO:
Hardeep Pandhal (b. Birmingham, UK, 1985) works predominantly with drawing and voice to transform feelings of disinheritance and disaffection into generative spaces that bolster interdependence and self-belief. Applying practices of associative thinking, delivered via rap and elliptical wordplay through the visual language of ‘gutter media’ such as comics and video games, his research-led projects exhibit syncretic strains of post-brown weirdness. Across media, his works are imbued with acerbity and playful complexity, at once confrontational and reflective – Hardeep Pandhal 2022
