Performance artist Lucy McCormick made this piece in response to her conversation with Jade French.
This is how she got there...
Lucy McCormick makes nightclub installations, cabaret interventions and extravaganza theatre shows. Her work marries interests in absurdity, ineptitude, feminism and the grotesque. Lucy has performed her work across the UK, Europe, U.S and Australia.
Lucy's show 'Triple Threat' was nominated for a Total Theatre award at the Edinburgh Festival and the Off West End Awards London 2017. Lucy won the Best Performer award at Dublin Fringe Festival, and the show was listed in the Guardian's Top Ten Comedy shows of 2017. Lucy's show 'Post Popular' was nominated at the Off West End Awards 2020 after a sold out run at Pleasance Courtyard mainstage at Edinburgh 2019 and running twice at Soho Theatre London. For her show 'Life: LIVE!' Lucy was given a prestigious Fierce Festival commission to make her most ambitious show yet, for which she wrote her own album and staged a (DIY) stadium gig.
"Lucy McCormick has the moves of Beyonce, the lungs of Christina Aguilera and the morals of a punk iconoclast" The Scotsman on 'Triple Threat'
"Gloriously messy and outrageously funny" The Independant on Post Popular
"A balls-to-the-wall skewering of the misogyny and exploitation that underpin popular culture" The Guardian on 'Life: LIVE!'
Lucy is a Research Fellow at Queen Mary University, an Associate Artist at Hackney Showroom and Artist-In-Residence at Soho Theatre. She teaches and mentors regularly at universities and arts organisations including Central School of Speech and Drama, Chichester University, RoehamptonUniversity and Soho Theatre. Lucy is also an actor and has recently been cast as Catherine in Wuthering Heights directed by Emma Rice at the National Theatre.
Website: lucymccormick.com
Instagram: @lucy_muck
Twitter: @lucy_muck
Jade French is a PhD candidate at Queen Mary, University of London, whose research explores the female ageing process in modernist texts, with a specific focus on the late works of H.D, Mina Loy and Djuna Barnes. She is interested in applying cultural gerontological theories in a modernist context, particularly looking at embodiment, archives and the 'gaze of youth'. As the co-founder of the interdisciplinary arts project Decorating Dissidence, she is currently exploring the ways modernist and contemporary craft practices intersect. This has led to a series of exhibitions, conferences and a special issue as well as an ongoing blog. As a curatorial programmer, she has run exhibitions and events from performance art nights and groups shows to the talk series PEAKS – always with an emphasis on supporting emerging artists and creating ongoing collaborative dialogues.
on Lucy's creative process
How do you begin to develop your work?
on ageing and subversion
What is behind the idea of subversive young women?
on agency, persona and poltergeists
Hag-ridden
Jade French wrote 'Hag-ridden' in response to her conversation with Lucy McCormick.