Mastication
by Paul Scott Bullen
About Mastication:
Drawing on Bullen’s experience of post-traumatic stress disorder, this confessional and multidisciplinary work will transport you through an autobiographical experience.
A range of behavioural tendencies are explored through a grotesque, expressive movement language. Paul Scott Bullen is an artist who is living, breathing and moving in the backwaters of his mind. Investigating his body, mind and soul.
Paul’s performances aim to capture that personal stress, that trauma, that suffering that is so hard to articulate. This work is an exploration of the loss of a brother and a mother in a visceral work of deep darkness.
Show Information:
19th-24th August '19
20:45-21:30. Ivy Studio.
Greenside @ Infirmary Street
All Seats £8.00
SUPPORT
This project is supported by a grant from Superbia at Manchester Pride. Superbia Grants provide financial support for LGBT Events as part of Manchester Pride's commitment to the quality and diversity of cultural events taking place throughout the year in Greater Manchester. Visit: www.superbia.org.uk
About Paul
My interests as an emerging choreographer, performer, director, and workshop leader lie within my internal and external research. Investigating true embodiment into becoming something other than myself/finding my true self through a psychophysical conceptual approach.
Making art for me is a therapeutic act of contrition. I investigate the archives of my body and soul to find deeply embedded energy as a source to creating material. My ultimate ambition as an artist is to dance my deepest darkness. My interests lie within gender, eroticism, behavioural tendencies, blood, and death.
At 9 years old I became involved with competing in dance festivals, dance examinations, live shows, dance on film, and showcases, as a performer. At 12 years old I began to teach and choreograph. This led me to attending full time dance schools and ongoing training between 2002 and 2011 (The Urdang Academy, Northern Ballet School, Liverpool Theatre School) to be trained as a performer within many dance forms (Ballet-Vaganova/Cecchetti/Balanchine, Jazz styles-Jazz Funk/Technical/Lyrical/Show, Modern, Contemporary, Tap, Acrobatic Tumbling, Jazz Partner Work and Pas De Deux). Alongside Acting, Singing, Voice, and Musical Theatre. I gained teaching experience also through these vocational Diplomas in Dance.
I also had an intense private training from a Vaganova Ballet instructor (The Royal Ballet, English National Ballet, Hungarian Dance Academy) after becoming his muse and pupil. I started Vaganova training in 2002 and this is ongoing as I am now a mentee of the instructor, alongside my continued study as a teacher, presenter, and Scholar on the subject. I continued to expand my experience through private coaching in acrobatic tumbling and singing, as well as having experience in a multitude of Hip Hop/Street styles (Old Skool, New Skool, Femme, Krump, Ghetto, Poppin, Lockin, Breakdance, Waackin, and Voguing).
After completing my training I spent six years in London developing my practice as a versatile performer after which I applied to study on the BA (Hons) Choreography degree course at The Academy of Music and Theatre Arts at Falmouth University (Previously known as Dartington College of Arts). I arrived to study Choreography and Contemporary Dance forms and all the genre contextualises (Performance Art, Somatics, Contemporary Dance Techniques, Film Making, Sound Production, Lighting Design, Live Media, and Costume Design).
I have now successfully completed the course and focus on a variety of modes.
More recently I have successfully completed an MA at Guildford School Of Acting Surrey University UK (Creative Practice And Direction) expanding my skills in directing for theatre and conceptual solo performance art practice and performance.
Since graduating In 2017 I was commissioned to created a new live solo as part of Museums At Night. Soon after I was successful in becoming an Artist in Residence through Imago Project Wigan 2017-2018, through which I choreographed, directed, and performed a new live solo and a film with a creative team of costume maker/designer, sound designer, a creative mentor (Mare-Gabrielle Rotie) and a film making team. Recently I received an award from Panda Arts as seed funding to begin research and development for my new live solo piece. I will continue to develop this new work through Mother’s Bloomers Queer Arts Festival 2018 through which I will be a featured performer at this years festival and through the support of a 12 month artistic residency at The Old Courts Wigan and more recently a 12 month artistic residency at Ludus Dance Lancaster.
Through my BA, MA, and as an emerging artist I have so far created four live solo performances and four films. I continue to develop my practice as a performance art choreographer, director, and performer.