Bunker Talk #175: Viv Gardner

Bunker Talks invite artists and researchers to talk about who they are and what they do.
About this Event

Viv Gardner is Emeritus Professor, Drama and Film at the University of Manchester. Their current research centres on gender, sexuality and representation in and through performance in the period 1890-1920, developing original work on the New Woman and the Actresses' Franchise League. Projects include: an edited edition of the autobiography of musical comedy and music hall performer and suffragette, Kitty Marion (with Diana Atkinson); work on the theatrical and performative lives of the 5th Marquis of Anglesey and a study of the intersection of radical and popular discourses on gender and sexuality in performance at the fin de siecle (provisionally called 'Staging the New Sex'). This last project covers material on the New Woman and Musical Comedy Girl, 'posing' as performance, hypo- and hyper- masculinity and the court room as a gendered and contested site for performers. Viven is also working with contemporary dancers/performance artists, Marc Rees ('Gloria Days' on the 5th Marquis of Anglesey) and Liz Aggiss ('Marjorie Irvine') on the development of dance works that renegotiate archival performance material for the contemporary stage.

This talk is presented in association with Manchester Centre for Gothic Studies.

Bunker Talks

This event is part of Bunker Talks. Bunker Talks invite artists and researchers to talk about who they are and what they do. Curated by the Performance Research Group at Manchester School of Art and the School of English, Bunker Talks explore geopolitical, ecological or economic concerns. The talks create space for critical encounters, presentations, provocation and dialogue as part of a civic conversation.

Originally conceived in the pandemic to explore how artists, writers, curators and researchers continued to make and share their work, live Bunker Talks now take place at The Salutation every month. Since 2020, over 170 talks have been hosted by Performance Researchers and colleagues from across the Faculty of Arts and Humanities. All talks are recorded, edited, captioned and then archived to create an online catalogue, capturing how artists, makers and curators think about the world today. Find previous talks here: https://www.art.mmu.ac.uk/bunkertalks/