Dickie Beau: BLACKOUTS Premieres at FIAF's Crossing the Line Festival

As part of the 2017 edition of the French Institute Alliance Française (FIAF)'s celebrated Crossing the Line Festival, FIAF and Abrons Arts Center are thrilled to present award-winning, UK-based drag fabulist and virtuosic lip-syncher Dickie Beau in the US Premiere of his solo show Blackouts, Thursday, October 5 through Sunday, October 8, at Abrons Arts Center.

Dickie Beau has revitalized the tradition of lip-synching through distinctive playback performances in which he embodies counter-cultural figures and movie stars alike. Innovatively reimagining traditional lip-syncing, Beau mimes to speeches and interviews in ethereal invocations with the showmanship of a drag artist and the dark melancholy of a clown. Beau's cutting-edge art is far more surreal and provocative than the comedic drag we are used to seeing on our screens. Merging reality with illusion, he blends his identity with the ghosts of stars as he breathes electrifying life into Hollywood's audio artifacts.

In Blackouts, Beau conjures the spirits of his childhood idols, including Marilyn Monroe and Judy Garland, to create a uniquely personal theatrical experience. The resulting "digital script" incorporates found source material, visual invention, and gorgeous stagecraft, creating an ethereal portrait of icons in exile, not only from society, but also from themselves.

The process of building Blackouts began with the Judy Speaks tapes; recordings of Garland sitting alone with a Dictaphone making notes for a memoir never to be written. Feeling there were parallels to be drawn with similarly iconic figures, Beau followed the siren call of Marilyn Monroe and ended up in the New York apartment of journalist Richard Meryman, who gave him access to the unpublished tapes of Monroe's final interview conducted just before her death in 1962. Using this encounter as the genesis for Blackouts, the show includes unique material from this iconic interview and also includes Beau's own recordings with the late Meryman, creatively appropriated to form the backbone of the show.

Blackouts sees Beau shape-shift through a shadowy soundscape of lost souls in a sensational trip to the subconscious underworld of his future self. Going beyond homage, Beau breaths vital new life into an age-old art form. A reflection on the tragic loss of icons whose voices felt unheard in the spotlight, Blackouts is also a reflection on the haunting impressions they've left behind.

Blackouts premiered at the Unity Theatre, Liverpool, as part of the Homotopia festival. It has gone on to sell-out runs at Contact Manchester, Chelsea Theatre, and London's Soho Theatre and has toured extensively within the UK.

"This is lip-syncing to spoken word. It's about channeling the voices, imagining the voices going through my body, but at the same time the body becomes a conduit for other things, like glitches in machines."-Dickie Beau

About Dickie Beau

A versatile performer and artist, Dickie Beau is mainly recognized for rejuvenating the drag tradition of lip-synching through his distinctive playback performances. He is widely celebrated for the virtuosic skill, innovation and diversity of his work in which he realizes an exquisite interplay of digital content and live performance. He has received multiple awards, including the prestigious Oxford Samuel Beckett Theatre Trust Award in 2014, the London Cabaret Award for Best Alternative Performer in 2012, and the Jardin d'Europe Contemporary Dance Award in 2013.

Beau's work is increasingly studied in contemporary theatre and performance courses in the UK and he is regularly in demand as a workshop leader, teacher and visiting speaker, influencing the practice of a whole new generation of performance-makers. He is an Artist Research Fellow at Queen Mary University of London and the Birkbeck Centre for Contemporary Theatre at the University of London.

About the 2017 Crossing the Line Festival

"Adventurous programming that makes you think as much about your place in the world as about art itself."
-The New York Times

Crossing the Line is an international arts festival for New York City produced by the French Institute Alliance Française (FIAF) in partnership with leading cultural institutions. The festival is co-curated by Lili Chopra, FIAF's Executive Vice President and Artistic Director; Simon Dove, Executive and Artistic Director of Dancing in the Streets; and Gideon Lester, Artistic Director for Theater and Dance at the Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College.

France has a long history of supporting national and international cultural practices, welcoming and nurturing new ideas and influential perspectives from around the world. FIAF, as the leading French cultural institution in the US, critically maintains that practice through the Crossing the Line Festival, presenting leading-edge artists from France and the US alongside their peers from around the world.

Since its inauguration in 2007, the Crossing the Line Festival has cultivated an increasingly large and diverse following, and received numerous accolades in the press including "Best of" in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, The New Yorker, Time Out New York, Artforum, and Frieze. Festival performances have earned multiple Obie and Bessie awards. crossingtheline.org

About Abrons Arts Center

The Abrons Arts Center is the Obie award-winning performing and visual arts program of Henry Street Settlement. The Abrons supports the creation and presentation of innovative, multi-disciplinary work; cultivates artists in all stages of their practice with educational programs, mentorships, residencies and commissions; and serves as an intersection of engagement for local, national and international audiences and arts-workers.

Each year the Abrons offers over 250 performances, 12 gallery exhibitions and 30 residencies for performing and studio artists, and 100 different classes in dance, music, theater, and visual art. The Abrons also provides New York City public schools with teaching artists, introducing more than 3,000 students to the arts. www.abronsartscenter.org

The French Institute Alliance Française (FIAF) is New York's premiere French cultural and language center. FIAF's mission is to create and offer New Yorkers innovative and unique programs in education and the arts that explore the evolving diversity and richness of French cultures. FIAF seeks to generate new ideas and promote cross cultural dialogue through partnerships and new platforms of expression. www.fiaf.org