Don’t Leave Me This Way
Performance by Franko B in collaboration with Kamal Ackarie
(2006 - 2009)
© 2015 Franko B and the contributors
.
Don’t Leave Me This Way marks a challenge in Franko B’s performance practice, formalising his recent departure from blood-based work. Here he allows the viewer time to look at his naked body and approach it as a sculptural form; heavily tattooed and scarred, voluptuous in shape and size.
Franko B’s performances have always left metaphorical marks on the psyches of vulnerable spectators, moving empathetic viewers with the visceral charge of the prone body. If the ways in which he can exact this effect through bleeding have been exhausted for the moment, then Don’t Leave Me This Way continues the scene of wounding in the realm of the metaphorical, inscribing his form in painful vision.
performances:
2009
• Incubate Festival, Tilburg, Holland
2008
• Green Room, Manchester, UK
• Hebel Theatre, Berlin, Germany
• Teatr Dramatyczny, Warsaw, Poland
• ICA, London, UK
• Galerija Kapelica, Ljubljana, Slovenia
• The Bluecoat Centre, Liverpool, UK
• Globe Gallery, Newcastle, UK
• Colchester Arts Centre,UK
• SITE Gallery, Sheffield, UK
2007
• Arnolfini, Bristol, UK
• CENDEAC, Murcia, Spain
• Fierce Festival, Birmingham, UK
2006
•Teatro dei Contrari, Rome, Italy
•Certosa di Padula, Salerno, Italy
[Metro Life (x3), Guardian Guide, Sheffield Telegraph] (December 2007 - March 2008)
• Franko B Don’t Leave Me This Way >
Lola McEvoy [Pulp Magazine] (November 2008)
• Flash of Inspiration from Franko B >
[Metro] (October 2008)
Franko B: Don’t Leave Me This Way >
Addie Chinn [Urban Junkies] (July 2008)
Lyn Gardner and Mark Cook [The Guardian] (December 2007)