events at the Bluecoat.

My Bed

In the event of bed-in Liverpool 2010, Cai Yuan (from Madforreal) will re stage the piece by 'recreating' Tracy Emin's bed and leaving it open to the audience as to whether to take action or not. Madforreal's work following the notorious Jumping on Tracey's Bed (Turner Prize, 1999) and Happy Hour (Beijing, 2006), sets up the question of the audience's relationship to the artwork and the art institution’s attempt to control the audience. The work raises questions about the nature of around issues of obedience to the institution, ownership and the reception of culture.

In 1999, artists Cai Yuan and JJ Xi jumped on Tracy Emin's "My bed" at the Turner prize exhibition at Tate Gallery London. The action caused a media sensation, receiving nationwide press coverage. In 2006, Cai and Xi restaged the work as Happy hour performed at 798 art festival in Beijing, when Chinese audiences were encouraged to jump on it, paying 10RMB(=1 pound) per hour until the bed collapsed by repeated jumping and bouncing.

Peace...without Justice?

We are a group of actors, writers another artists supportive of a just peace in the middle east. PEACE…..WITHOUT JUSTICE? was co-written by David Hookes and John Graham Davies. David Hookes is a writer and a retired academic from Liverpool University .He has had a life-long interest in the use of science and engineering to promote sustainable development for a peaceful world. He is a member of the national coordinating committee of Scientists for Global Responsibility John Graham Davies is a British/Canadian writer and actor, now living in Liverpool. John’s recent play about Liverpool and Liverpool FC, Beating Berlusconi, has toured nationally. His play about the Yugoslav war, Taking Sides, was broadcast by BBC World Service. He has been a regular face in numerous TV dramas and spent four and a half years playing Les Hunter in HOLLYOAKS. The piece is directed by Londoner Bradley Rowbotham, a graduate of Liverpool JMU’s Performance Arts degree course. The audio-visual component of the piece has been designed by the Liverpool film maker Dave Williams. The rest of the cast and production team are either members of Arts for Palestine or recent graduates of Liverpool JMU.

We want to provoke a theatrical discussion relating to the quest for a real, lasting peace in the Middle East with justice for all the peoples. The drama specifically tackles the thorny issue of a peaceful solution to the Palestine-Israel problem and poses the question: is the only fair and just solution a single secular state of Palestine with Jews and Arabs having equal rights as citizens?

The Harmony Bed

MultiVOX is a collective of arts practitioners providing accessible, high quality artistic opportunities for children and adults within a wide variety of settings. We focus on delivering workshops, training, performances and projects to an array of clients, including formal and non-formal educational, community and corporate environments. We believe that singing and the arts has the ability to uplift, transform and inspire us all.

Multi Vox would like to create The Harmony Bed, or rather, a bed of harmonies. The bed and surrounding bed area will be taken over by a group of musicians (approximately 6 people), which will include instrumentalists, songwriters, digital artists and vocalists. The aim of the day is to create original songs of peace and harmonious protests. The group will invite members of the public to write down messages, testimonies, thoughts, concepts and lyrics that represent what peace means to them (socially, politically, personally or generally however it is interoperated) and contribute the message to the Harmony Bed. These messages or texts will form the stimulus for writing the original pieces of music. Leading up to the event, the group will collect quotes from a range of people, with the view to including a variety of voices in the peace songs.

The Big Bed-In!

For out last Bed-in we would like you to join Cathy Butterworth who will be taking us through a gathering of the participants who have jumped into bed with us. They will share their experiences of the Bed-In as well as showing the many blankets, films and songs which have been created between the sheets. Add to this live performance through the day there’s no excuse not to get to bed!

Tim Biancalana will recite his original, Lennonesque poetry as well as John Lennon's, and lead the singing of give Peace A Chance, for the culmination of The Bluecoat's John Lennon tribute season, October 9—December 9, 2010. Audience members are invited to bring percussion instruments and join in the purposeful fun.

And finally join Jean Grant as she invites you to Shred the Bed the bed will be shredded broken down into its component parts and turned into compost. Wherein it will be used as compost for the Bluecoat garden, in a celebration of the creative energy in the peaceful process of decomposition and recomposing.