WHERE WE GATHER public performance Short Supply & Proforma debut "Rehearsal Methods"

iniva, Short Supply & Proforma are pleased to announce the debut public performance of ‘Rehearsal Methods’ by Jade Montserrat, originally performed online in 2021.

The original performance score was created for Manchester Art Gallery as part of Jade’s Future Collect Commission, Constellations: Care Resistance (5 November 2020 – 29 January 2023).

The live performance by Ella Otomewo, Mandla Rae & Princess Arinola Adegbite will take place outside Manchester Central Library, in St Peter’s Square on Saturday 18 March 2023, 12-2pm. The performance is free to attend with all welcome.

The performance incorporates synchronised breathing, charcoal drawing installation, and a chorus, in an attempt to access mind and body in union.  

In St Peter’s Square, a historical Mancunian site of decision making, political activism and protest, we invite you to share space, time and generosity with artists, performers, and thinkers.

Please come and enjoy this moment with us as we collectively interpret the performance score ‘Rehearsal Methods’, and become part of an ever-evolving constellation of care and resistance.

About the Artist & Performers

Jade Montserrat was the recipient of the Stuart Hall Foundation Scholarship supporting her PhD (via MPhil) at IBAR, UCLan, and the development of her work from her Black diasporic perspective in the North of England. Jade works through performance, drawing, painting, film, installation, sculpture, print, and text. Jade was the first artist to be commissioned as part of iniva’s Future Collect project.

Ella Otomewo (she/her) is a poet and performer based in Manchester. She writes for both page and stage, facilitates creative workshops, and has performed all over the UK and in Europe. Her most recent collaborations have been with Lancaster Arts, Quarantine, Young Identity, the Portico Library, The World Reimagined, and Contact Theatre. In her latest live art project, Ella is exploring the human relationship to water through storytelling. The process is multidisciplinary and collaborative; using puppetry, poetry, task-based performance, and sensory theatre.

mandla rae (they/them) is a writer and performer from Zimbabwe, raised in London and now based in Manchester. mandla’s first solo show, as british as a watermelon, premiered at Contact Theatre in October 2021 and is currently touring the UK. In May 2022, the show was at Bristol Old Vic with Mayfest and it had its Scottish premier at the Edinburgh International Festival in August 2022. mandla’s writing has been published in Gay Times, Nov 2020 issue and New Landscapes Anthology 2019 from Ohio based Lungs Project.

Princess Arinola Adegbite (she/her)  or “P. A. Bitez” is a Jamaican-born Nigerian poet, songwriter, filmmaker, and student based in Manchester. Born in 2000 Bitez has appeared in the Young Writers Anthologies and has received multiple Young Writers Awards. In 2017 she won Slambassadors, a national poetry competition and published her debut poetry collection ‘Soft Tortures’ which deals with heartbreak, loss, existence and mental illness from an adolescent point of view. In 2020, she was one of six finalists of BBC Words First 2020, a talent scheme searching for the Best Spoken Word Poets in the UK. She is a member of Young Identity.

We encourage photography and filming, so please bring your cameras, mobile phones, or any other means of documenting your experience. As an audience member, you will be invited to share your documentation as part of a film that will be exhibited at Manchester Art Gallery in 2023. Additionally, we will be gathering live documentation from social media, so please tag this at #wherewegather2023 if you’d like your content to be included in the film. 

Future Collect is funded by Art Fund, Arts Council England & the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation.