Bob Karper
Bob Karper performance artist

Performance

After quitting the office job in 2000, my first ever performance was at my local art centre: The Chats Palace Pick & Mix Live Art Cabaret. Since then I’ve made solo shows, collaborated on major theatre productions with wonderful companies, run long-term participatory performance art projects and toured with shows around the world.

We are in unknown territory at the moment, tho, and performance has changed, too. The cabaret I often take part in - CLerkenwell ArtsLab - has migrated online. Friends have live streamed full shows, held zoom work in progress plays, made virtual choirs. I look forward to the day when we can all be in one room together, sensing each other’s presence physically, delighting in the shared experience of live performance…

performance-bob-karper.jpg
 

Solo Shows

The solo shows I create mix live original music, film, true stories, dance and occasional puppets. Based on events in the lives of everyday people, they revolve around themes we all encounter: self-consciousness, love, family, life and death and the suburbs.

 
 

Collaborations

Work with other artists & companies range from intimate theatre-in-the-round to large scale No 1 tours as actor, devisor, musician or director. I’m Artist Associate with Moving Memory Dance Theatre Company and the amazing arts research organisation People United, and I’ve made work with fabulous artists such as Lone Twin, New Art Club, Oily Cart, Dende Collective and Gobbledegook. Participatory art projects collaborating with members of the public have been set in schools, care homes, hospitals and more.

 

Cabaret

Cabaret projects run the gamut from cross-discipline solo performance, experimental, live walk-about karaoke shows and the accordion & beats music duo Streatham Common (Station), performing at a wide variety of venues including Glastonbury, Barbican Theatre, Clerkenwell ArtsLab, Xtrax and LIFT.