About
I make video pieces that elevate domestic routine to precise performance. The work raises questions about the nature of performance and the difference between live and recorded spectacle.
Informed by a background in classical music, I rehearse rigorously. Shot in single takes, with little, or no editing, I intend to question 'truth' in performance video. This alludes to the authenticity of performance artists of the 1960s and a quest for ‘perfection’ in recorded performance.
I describe the works as ‘vignettes of extreme domesticity’: arguably pointless, everyday tasks that can be a poignant reflection of human relationships and idiosyncrasies. Repetition of these mundane tasks exposes them as absurd and humorous.
Strongly influenced by both opera and film musicals, music features heavily in the work, creating a structure for the performance. I am interested in the archetypes these musical genres rely on: love, sacrifice, loss and death. I choreograph routines based on these grand themes but placed within a prosaic and contemporary context.
Recent work has taken on a diptych format, to highlight the internal dichotomies within the individual, particularly women.
Ellie Rees
Informed by a background in classical music, I rehearse rigorously. Shot in single takes, with little, or no editing, I intend to question 'truth' in performance video. This alludes to the authenticity of performance artists of the 1960s and a quest for ‘perfection’ in recorded performance.
I describe the works as ‘vignettes of extreme domesticity’: arguably pointless, everyday tasks that can be a poignant reflection of human relationships and idiosyncrasies. Repetition of these mundane tasks exposes them as absurd and humorous.
Strongly influenced by both opera and film musicals, music features heavily in the work, creating a structure for the performance. I am interested in the archetypes these musical genres rely on: love, sacrifice, loss and death. I choreograph routines based on these grand themes but placed within a prosaic and contemporary context.
Recent work has taken on a diptych format, to highlight the internal dichotomies within the individual, particularly women.
Ellie Rees