Welcome to The Hop Square Performance Programme
Presented by Pi Artworks. Curated by Jyll Bradley
Generously supported by VADA.
The Hop (2022) is a large, interactive sculpture by artist Jyll Bradley originally commissioned by the Hayward Gallery, London. The Hop resembles an ancient plant growing structure - a hop garden - and also creates a public square or environment, inviting creative engagement within the structure. After a highly successful year on the Southbank, Jyll Bradley is bringing the spirit of The Hop to Frieze Sculpture, transforming a section of The Regent’s Park into The Hop Square, evoking the themes and vivacity of the sculpture as a catalyst for exciting performance and activation.
The Hop Square will host the following performances. Free and suitable for all:
Wednesday 11 - Sunday 15 October (Except Saturday 14) at 4pm, with an introduction by Fatos Ustek, Curator Frieze Sculpture 2023. The performances last approx. 15 mins.
Abstract Benna, The Poet Laureate of Lambeth, performs his evocative storytelling-through-verse inspired by The Hop and its themes of harvest, community and memory. Originally supported by The Southbank Centre.
MCDC present Hopping by Kent based Choreographer Michaela Cisarikova, a joy-fuelled dance work on growth, both plant and human. With original score by composer Emily Peasgood. Originally commissioned by the Hayward Gallery.
29 October at 12pm: The Brazen Ms. Chazen
Olivier Award nominated actress Debbie Chazen (Dr Who, Sherlock, The Smoking Room) will be performing as her jazz diva alter ego The Brazen Ms Chazen. Inspired by the sunlit field evoked by The Hop, she will be singing songs which celebrate the glory of life on earth - and warn of threats to its future.
29 October at 2pm: Barbara Touati-Evans and Judita Vivas
Responding to the materiality surrounding and the meaning of The Hop Square, Barbara Touati-Evans and Judita Vivas will move around the space while making and unmaking a three dimensional web with yarn. Their piece will reflect the growth cycle of hop and its material qualities of fluffiness, and is inspired by the social aspect of hop growing and picking.
29 October at 4pm: Adesola Akinleye with Dancing Strong Movement Lab X Spotlight.
In 2024, The Hop sculpture will be re-homed in Poplar, East London. This new and very special dance performance is a collaboration between Spotlight, an award-winning Creative Youth Hub based in Poplar, and their dance partners - One Youth Dance, IMD Legion and Blink Dance Theatre. It is devised with leading choreographer Adesola Akinleye. This performance marks the close of The Hop Square at Frieze and a ceremonial handover of the spirit of The Hop sculpture to members of the Poplar community. Supported by Poplar HARCA.
About The Hop sculpture which inspired the performance programme
About the artist
Jyll Bradley (b. Folkestone, UK, 1966) lives and works in London, where she makes installations, films, drawings and sculptures.
Bradley’s work emerged in the late 1980s within a cohort of artists interested in combining the formal vigour of Minimalism with ideas of identity and place. Light has been a constant protagonist in her practice, from her early photographic light-box installations to her work with fluorescent Plexiglas. Her work often pairs organic and industrial materials, reflecting a desire to bring together different aspects of self – for instance, her rural childhood and urban adulthood.
Her acclaimed public-realm commissions – including Green/Light (for M.R.) for The Folkestone Triennial and Dutch/Light for Turner Contemporary – reference generative structures such as hop gardens and glasshouses, expressing what she sees as the practical, spiritual and emotional work involved in growing a sense of self, place or community.
For more information, please visit the gallery website: Pi Artworks
Originally commissioned by the Hayward Gallery London, and with additional support from VADA, Visual Arts Development Agency
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