TOUGH SELL presents a typically eclectic lineup uniting the worlds of experimental music and contemporary performance. Choreographer Lorea Burge investigates the moving body as musical instrument in the UK premiere (!) of her solo dance work 'B Field', while Kar Pouzi (composer and musician Helen Papaioannou) engages in a precarious relationship between human and machine, and performance duo Emergency Chorus explores the simple potency of language and repetition.

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LOREA BURGE: B FIELD *UK PREMIERE* (London)

'If I were a musician, what sort of music would I like to make? With what I have, what sort of music can I make? B Field brings these questions to an enquiry into solo making, led by desire and inspired by the absurd and insistent masc self-sufficiency of ‘one-man bands’. A live excavation of sounds and beats reveals an attempt to build a song worthy of a night-club dance floor, thus creating my very own ‘one-(wo)man band’.'

Lorea is an independent artist working between dance, choreography and sound art. Their artistic practice is centred around DIY culture, rhythm and the different ways the body and space can produce sound. They are currently an artist of the 2024-2026 cohort of the Rose Choreographic School within Sadler’s Wells, researching methodologies and choreographics of collective action and activism. Lorea is a member of the collective Unbaptised Infants (est. 2015) with Hannah Parsons (UK) and Josefina Rozenwasser (AR/ES), creating experimental and immersive sound-dance shows. As a performer, Lorea has worked with Charles Linehan (UK), Seke Chimutengwende (UK), Marina Abramovic (BG/USA), J N Harrington (UK), Ehryn Torrell (CA) and Joe Garbett Dance (UK) among others.

https://www.loreaburge.com/

KAR POUZI (Leeds)

Kar Pouzi, Helen Papaioannou's solo project, melds baritone saxophone & electronics into singular textures which move between excessive fractured beats, ecstatic drones and incessant repetitions. Heavy, playful, unrelenting.

Across her work, Helen’s style derives partly from a fascination with minimal sound palettes and procedural, evolving repetitions, matched with an intensity that spills out into music that is at once stark, visceral, playful, and precarious. She has featured at MATA (USA), HCMF (UK), Supersonic (UK), Supernormal (UK), Kanazawa 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art (JP), and across tours in UK, Europe and Japan. Some of Helen's other projects have included That Long Moonless Chase w/ Noriko Okaku, Garlic Hug, Beauty Pageant, Hokkett.

https://www.helenpapaioannou.com/
https://dontdronealone.bandcamp.com/album/red-sprite

EMERGENCY CHORUS (Bristol)

Emergency Chorus is Ben Kulvichit (he/him) (aka 1/3 of Tough Sell!) and Clara Potter-Sweet (they/she). Based in Bristol, they make performances which straddle experimental theatre, live art and dance, often colliding disparate source materials to create collages of text, choreography, music and image. They will present Reading and Writing, a semi-improvised, text-based performance. Reading too much into a simple sentence, two performers turn a few select words into a strange game of sense and nonsense. Musical phraseology. Preposition salad. Shapes and actions. Words and worlds.

https://emergencychorus.com/

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TOUGH SELL says: after B Field premiered in Lisbon last year, we knew we had to bring it to Bristol - a celebration of DIY spirit and equally invested in sound and performance practices, it's basically everything Tough Sell is about. Thrilled also to welcome ex-Bristolian Helen back after she was last here to perform her incredible AV collaboration with Noriko Okaku, That Long Moonless Chase. Lorea and Helen's work share a feeling of being oh-so precise and measured, but also really immediate, satisfying and deliciously moreish. Emergency Chorus are alright too, I suppose.