Eleanor's Falcon

In 2003 Layzell was artist-in-residence for ‘The National Review of Live Art’ (NRLA) in Perth, Australia. ‘Eleanor’s Falcon’ was a commissioned 45-minute performance for this international event, held in the Midland Workshops (22-26 October 2003), an industrial setting chosen for its massive scale and site-specificity. There was extensive printed publicity for the event.

‘Eleanor’s Falcon’ was a solo performance that contained autobiographical, emotive and observational content and a four-minute projected film, recently shot in Australia, entitled ‘The Bridge’. There was also a collaborative section in which Australian voice/performance artist Rosie Dennis participated, whom Layzell had been mentoring as an invited facilitator/artist on the annual Time Place Space programme (development for emerging artists) in New South Wales. For the National Review of Live Art in Perth Layzell also ran an extended workshop for local artists, which was site-specific and culminated in a performance. This work also became part of the festival.

‘The National Review of Live Art’ is a UK based major annual festival of live art/performance art that began in 1984; the festival was additionally held in Australia in 2002-04 (Brisbane and Perth). Layzell became an Honorary Associate of the NRLA in 2002. The University of Bristol Drama Department has recently acquired the NRLA video archive. As an artist who has regularly participated in the festival, with resulting video documentation that is in the archive, Layzell has been invited to be their first case study. This work of assessing and re-evaluating related to the documentation of performance will begin in September 2007.