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The Sphinx and the Books

25/04/12 Live
by Nathan Jones

Following quickly on from Mark Greenwood's unforgettable 48hr performance-writing work, Mercy are proud to present another solo work from a - very different - performer recently relocated to Liverpool...

28th April and 5th May, Mercy present two highly personal and emotionally-evocative works in progress by Spanish performance artist Lorena Rivero de Beer: The Sphinx and the Books.

The Sphinx and the Books is an autobiographical solo performance that explores the relationship between the artist and audience through books and their associative echoes. Lorena uses her imaginary alter ego the Sphinx to enact at rich narrative of power, desire, fragile human links and books as fetishised objects.

The performance will take place at the performace space in the Bluecoat Sat the 5th of May at 9pm.

Friends of Mercy are invited to experience this scratch performance and feedback session, to help form the final iteration of the work for audiences in North Liverpool.

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Prior to this performance you are also invited to a series of one-to-one encounters with The Sphinx, from 12.30pm - 3.30pm on Saturday 28th April, in the LIC studio, as part of If Only at the Bluecoat

"The aim of this intimate  is to create a space in which to explore the space between us, the way we are linked or separated in the world by specific discourses and forms of knowledge and the complex processes of (mis)recognition that underly them. It will be an 8 minutes encounter that will be tailored for each specific audience member that attends ... I want to look at the way audiences are formed and what mediates our emotional and intellectual access to a piece of performance work"

Booking is essential for both of these uniquely intimate performance moments.
email nathan@mercyonline.co.uk or text 07877660150

This work is funded by an Arts Council England GFA award to Lorena, and Mercy are associate producers.

THE ARTIST
Lorena Rivero de Beer is a performance artist, writer and producer born in Spain in 1977. She moved to England in 2003 and she is currently based in Liverpool. Through her work she strives to generate experiences that promotes autonomy, help us to cross borders and to understand our position in the world. She recently completed a PhD at the Department of Sociology of the University of Essex exploring the relationship between cultural politics, representation, aesthetics and subjectivity by looking at the work of the Chicano performance artist Guillermo Gómez-Peña and his group La Pocha Nostra. Last November she co-founded Tuebrook Transnational, a company that is looking at innovative ways of collaborating with local residents of North Liverpool.