Action Hero (UK)

“A Western” by Action Hero

Stranger in a Strange Land

AUG 27, 2012, MON at 8PM

CounterPULSE, in collaboration with the University of Chichester (UK), host artist-duo Action Hero in a three-week performance workshop residency that culminates in a evening of performance, exhibition and artworks.

Stranger in a Strange Land is intended as a platform for interrogation and negotiation of the collaborative process, for selected artists to focus on process rather than product, and to investigate new ways of working and creating work.

Led by Action Hero, the workshop will use the stance/lens of the ‘stranger’ to investigate themes of pop cultural mythologies, the iconography of Americana, and the actions, images  and landscapes of American nostalgia. Through collectively investigating these ideas through performative mediums, Action Hero and a group of local artists will generate and share an evening of a series of artworks that reflect and question these ideas. Local artists include: Andrea Hart, Elizabeth McSurdy, Ernesto Sopprani, Laura Arrington, Mica Sigourney, and Xandra Ibarra.
Eventbrite - Stranger in a Strange Land


Action Hero

Action Hero is the collaboration between Gemma Paintin and James Stenhouse. They live and work in Bristol UK, where they have been making performance together since 2005. They make work that is interested in pop cultural mythologies, and the creation of temporary communities through performance. They have a long standing interested in America as represented through mass media and pop culture, and this theme has replayed through several of their performance works. They have toured their work extensively throughout the UK and Europe, as well as to San Francisco, Austin and New York. Over the coming months they will tour to Rio De Janierio, Sarajevo and Shanghai. Gemma and James regularly lead workshops and performance projects with both students and practicing artists. They are founder members of the artists collective Residence, Associate Lecturers at University of Chichester and are Associate Artists of InBetween Time (UK), Chelsea Theatre (UK) and Forest Fringe (UK). They both hold a BA (hons) in Theatre Acting and an MA in Performance Studies from Bretton Hall, University of Leeds.  Actionhero.org.uk

University of Chichester

The University of Chichester is a small arts-based university in the South of England, close to both London and Brighton.  The Department of Performing Arts has a strong reputation as a home for intensive and innovative theatre and performance-making, runs highly original creative courses and has shown a long-standing commitment to artist support and development.

Stranger in a Strange Land is part of a major cultural exchange project, that has linked the University’s Performing Arts Department with several key working partners in California. We want to establish a presence in California, connecting with artists, venues, teachers, students – indeed, anyone who is engaged with experimental performance work and who wants to explore the notion of cultural exchange as an integral part of the creative process. In doing this we are hoping to celebrate difference: diverse artistic, theatrical and educational practices from partners that, nonetheless, share a similar excitement for sharing and exchanging, as a way towards the development of creative performance knowledge.