Julian Maynard Smith & Xi Chen
Time-traveling performers meet live on stage
24 Nov 2024
An intergenerational collaboration between a young emerging Chinese artist and a semi-retired old-timer from the UK - two performers who find their identities as physical beings merging - challenged by the unexplained accidents involved in their coming together.
Simple structures of time and causality develop into complex interactions that evoke the roles that memory, culture and difference have in their relationship. Everybody Has To Be Somewhere grows organically from a seed and shows how our perception of time shapes and fragments our reality, making each performance unique and unrepeatable.
Cast & Creatives
Created and performed by: Julian Maynard Smith, Xi Chen
Deviser: Styles Li, Hanfang Sun
Julian Maynard Smith is the leader of Station House Opera, a company that has produced work at the intersection of theatre and the visual arts since 1980. Its 40 productions have been seen in over 30 countries.
Xi Chen is the co-founder of the London-based interdisciplinary art group NOT SET. Her recent work has been presented at VAULT Festival, Ullens Center for Contemporary Art (China), Mishmash Festival, Wycombe Arts Centre, Beijing International Fringe Festival (China), Long Fu Theatre (China), and Penghao Theatre (China).
Special thanks to Ken Gao, Junliang Liu.
Reviews
'Strikingly dynamic, confusing, funny and alarming... unlike any other performance art I’ve seen.' - Frieze
‘One gets a strong sense that something beautiful is happening.’ - The Upcoming
