Bryony Kimmings

Bryony Kimmings (born 30 March 1981) is an English live artist based in London. She is associate artist at Soho Theatre,^[1] under commission with Complicite and is represented by Avalon Entertainment Ltd.^[2]

Bryony creates multi-platform art works to provoke change.^[3] Her work mostly centres around 'social experiments'^[4] which in the past have included the artist retracing an STI to its source,^[5] spending 7 days in a controlled environment in a constant state of intoxication^[6] and becoming a pop star invented by a 9 year old.^[7]

Bryony’s award winning work has toured across the world. Most recently to Soho Theatre, Antifest (Finland), Culturgest (Portugal), Fusebox Festival (Texas), The Southbank Centre, Melbourne International Comedy Festival (Australia) and Lisinski Operahouse (Croatia).

Kimmings also mentors artists, teaches workshops,^[8] writes a popular arts blog,^[9] and speaks on panels. In 2014, Bryony Kimmings became a limited company and assembled her office team.^[10] The company is set to explore three huge topics looking at Depression, Cancer and social inclusion in the next three years.

Early career

Kimmings graduated with a degree in Modern Drama from Brunel University in 2003.^[11] In a 2011 interview she said of her time at Brunel "it was Live Art and the history of performance artists that excited me the most"^[12] and so immediately afterwards she established the company 'Glass Eyed' with friends. 'Glass Eyed' created work for two years before being dissolved.^[13]

In 2006 she began Celebrityville a soap cabaret following the lives of forgotten celebrities living in a fictional town. A new episode was created every month between 2006 and 2008. Describing working on Celebrityville Kimmings said "this gave me a baptism of fire really, making such a large volume of work, learning about how to run a night, what to do if things broke half way through, making costumes, doing marketing - everything."^[14] When Celebrityville ended, Kimmings began to explore a solo live art career with autobiographical themes.^[15]

Solo career

Known for creating autobiographical work, Kimmings achieved notoriety with her 2010 piece Sex Idiot, where she revealed her sexual history after discovering she had contracted an STI. In her 2011 piece 7 Day Drunk Kimmings collaborated with a team of scientists to analyse the impact of alcohol on her creativity.

In 2010 Kimmings won a Total Theatre Award for Sex Idiot,^[16] and was listed in Time Out magazine‘s Best of the Year (2010): off-West End and Fringe Theatre category.^[17]

In 2012 she debuted Mummy Time and Mega; both of which draw directly from her childhood.

Artwork

Fake it 'til you Make it

Bryony is an outrageous, hilarious and fearless performance artist from London. Tim is an outrageous, hilarious and fearless account manager from a top advertising agency. Bryony and Tim are a couple. Bryony spends most of her life on tour, trying her best to change the world. Tim spends most of his life at a desk trying his best to sell the world. Six months into their relationship, Bryony finds out that Tim suffers from severe clinical depression. He had kept it a secret for a very long time. Fake it 'til you Make it is Edinburgh Fringe First Winner, Bryony Kimmings' new work about clinical depression and men... from two people who know ALL about it!^[18] Expect homemade music, stupid dancing, onstage arguments, real-life stories, tears and truths. A wickedly warming and funny show about the wonders and pitfalls of the human brain, being in love and what it takes to be a 'real man'.

When Kimmings was interviewed for The Evening Standard she said of the piece 'It’s the most personal show I’ve ever done but there is something in it that makes it universal too'.^[19]

This new show will tour Australia and UK in 2015. Check her website for tour dates.

That Catherine Bennett Show

A children’s show for 6-9 year olds. An award-winning artist and her nine-year-old niece present an audacious alternative pop star. Sick of the pocket money-stealing, overly sexy and ridiculously similar role models on offer in pop music, Bryony Kimmings and Taylor Houchen decided to play the global tween machine at its own game by inventing a new type of pop star. The dinosaur-loving, bike-riding, tuna pasta-eating Catherine Bennett is embodied by Aunty Bry and totally managed by Taylor. And their aim is to make her world famous. She sings songs about things other than love, fame and money... things like friendship, the future and having the power to make a difference. Join the duo in this heart-warming tale of their magnificent journey together. Expect pop songs, silly dances, lots of real-life video and tales of storming the Houses of Parliament, being played on Radio 1 and getting their message right into the CBBC headquarters. This is a show about family activism, children's rights and believing in your own power to change the world... even at nine. You can do anything if you put your mind to it!

Credible Likeable Superstar Role Model

In an audacious and provocative protest against the world’s flagrant attempts to sexualise and commodify childhood, award-winning performance artist Kimmings and her 9-year-old niece Taylor decided to take on the global tween machine at its own game. They invented Catherine Bennett; a dinosaur loving, bike riding, tuna-pasta-eating pop star and vowed to make her world-famous to prove that an alternative was possible! Bryony became Catherine Bennett and Taylor her manager. So far they’ve been invited to Parliament, become friends with Yoko Ono and featured on BBC Radio 4 Woman’s Hour.

Credible Likeable Superstar Role Model is Taylor and Bryony’s theatre show. It is not for kids. Instead it tackles the issues at the very core of their project head on. It is set in a fantasy land far from our own where lines are drawn in the sand, girls become knights, eyeballs are gouged, wars are waged and people sell their souls. It is a tale of hopeless protection, blind fury, 9-year-old brains and taking on the world with your family. In typically screwball and humorous fashion, Kimmings, creator of acclaimed shows Sex Idiot and 7 Day Drunk, begs the question, what does it really take to be a Credible Likeable Superstar Role Model for a child of the 21st century?

The Guardian gave it 4* and said of the show 'This isn't just a piece of theatre, it's a call to arms'^[20]

Sex Idiot

The idea for this show came after Kimmings discovered she had contracted an STI and went through the process of contacting her previous sexual partners to tell them. The story of each ex-boyfriend and their relationship is then told through mini-performances, songs, spoken word and dance. The show culminates in Kimmings requesting the audience donate some of their pubic hair, which she sticks together to make a moustache for one of the songs.

When talking about Sex Idiot Kimmings has said that the process of researching and creating it raised important points regarding difficult aspects of personal history and the taboos that surround sexual health in the UK.^[21]

Time Out reviewed the show in 2014 giving it 4* 'In the spirit of the one-night stands it’s inspired by, it gyrates from embarrassment to lust to fumbing full-on revelry with a logic that is shambolic, shameless and irresistible'^[22]

7 Day Drunk

This show began with a scientific experiment:

"In a studio in London's Bethnal Green Road, she drank increasing amounts of alcohol over a week to take her blood alcohol level from 0.2 to 0.8mg/ml. She brought in a GP, a psychologist, and a neuroscientist and took breathalyser samples to monitor and sustain her alcohol levels. She made art and created performances, and asked an audience to rate the results through the week."^[23]

The experiment was filmed and excerpts made into a short documentary. For the live show the artwork Kimmings made during the experiment is compiled and performed sober alongside clips from the documentary and a filmed interview with her alcoholic ex-housemate. The reason behind the seven day experiment was to find out whether there actually is a link between creativity and alcohol. The ratings given by the audience during the experiment formed the basis of the scientific analysis which is revealed in the piece.

When talking about the reasons behind creating 7 Day Drunk Kimmings said "I feel I am a better artist when drunk or hungover, which I think is a slippery slope, but this is of course not uncommon for creative people. There is a battle between science and art that fascinates me. Science cannot condone the abuse of alcohol or mind enhancing drugs so the theory that they make you more creative is un-proven. Yet artists for centuries have been disproving this by coming up with some of the most influential work when high."^[24]

Mega

For Mega, Kimmings assumes the role of her Mum and the audience members become her 9 year old self during the summer of 1990. Audience members are each dressed by 'Mum' in a pink shell suit which Kimmings never owned but wanted,^[25] take a personal cassette player and go off to play for 15 minutes. Whilst playing, the audience listen to the story, as told by Kimmings, of a restaurant called 'Megatron' which opened in her home town and to which she could not afford to go.^[26] Alongside the story is a soundtrack of music from the year.

Mummy Time

Mummy Time was debuted at Sampled at The Junction in Cambridge as a work in progress in 2012.^[27] It is for a single audience member who is the fourth person in the story that is acted out over ten minute period. In the production the audience member is a child who is met by their big sister who takes them home. At home is Mum who is ironing and drinking gin. The audience member then sits down to a sandwich and crisps dinner and some maths homework. Suddenly there is a call from 'Uncle Tony' and the group need to help Mum bundle up some drugs before a social worker arrives to take the audience member away.

Hall of Gratuitous Praise

This is an audio-environment consisting of white furniture and décor. The audience is invited to relax with headphones on, a bathrobe and their feet in a foot spa. Via the headphones there is whale music and a string of complements for the listener.

Collaborations

In February 2012, Kimmings began a collaboration with producer Kate Madden to realise Art Crush at The Junction in Cambridge.^[28] Art Crush was presented by Kimmings and featured performances by guests, billed as her crushes. It was a regular event at The Junction and has toured to other venues and festivals in the UK.

Approach

In an interview in March 2011, speaking of the drivers behind her work Kimmings said "I guess in a way it is an artist's duty to say and explore the things that are untouchable, or hard to talk about."^[29] Her solo works are characterised by their combination of "story-telling, music, dance, video and comedy"^[30] and their autobiographical narrative.

In a 2012 interview for Pulse Fringe Festival, Kimmings introduces herself as "an artist who makes autobiographical work" she continues to say her work "always follows a kind of autobiographical experiment that I go on."^[31] Her profile on the British Council Drama and Dance website says "Bryony works autobiographically and begins the development of her work with a social experiment. She is inspired by the taboos and anomalies of British culture and her work promotes the airing of her own dirty laundry to oil conversations on seemingly difficult subjects."^[32]

References

External links

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