MIF23: Find Your Eyes at Manchester Academy
Kristy Stott, Theatre Editor
Fusing photography with performance, Find Your Eyes is a live photography show, created by the award-winning British photographer Benji Reid. Happening as part of MIF23, in this world premiere show, Reid invites a live theatre audience to Manchester Academy to take a behind-the-scenes look at his life and practice.
Beginning his career as a performer and creative director over three decades ago, Reid is an award-winning and senior contributor to Black physical theatre. He has produced and performed over thirty works for international cultural institutions including The National Theatre, Birmingham Rep, PS122 (New York) and Sydney Opera House. Merging his performance practice with photography, Reid began producing images in 2012.
Find Your Eyes is a show that exposes the photographer at work.
Known for his award-winning Afro-futurist images, Reid describes himself as a “choreo-photolist”, an artist who works with photography, choreography and theatre. Creating vivid and often surreal images, Reid’s work expresses his experiences living as a Black man in the UK today.
Find Your Eyes is a show that exposes the photographer at work. In this perceptive new production, the performance area becomes a studio for Reid to create live photographs in front of an audience. Choreographing three performers, this highly visual production is also punctuated with storytelling, as Reid interlaces landmark moments from his life.
Of Find Your Eyes, Reid told us, “This performance is a culmination of all my practices, from popping to contemporary to physical theatre to directing to photography. This work is a dance between all forms framed as a meditation in the artist’s studio.”
The performance area becomes a studio for Reid to create live photographs in front of an audience.
A live photographic experience, Find Your Eyes exposes the artistic process, but also looks at photography as a way to explore personal struggles. Striking and sensitive, full of light and shade, don’t miss this genre-bending and unique performance.
