Samir Kennedy presents CHAOS BALLAD, a performance exploring queer existentialism and loneliness through the figure of the clown. The work employs failure and DIY aesthetics to speak from a position of precarity in the arts. Through rehearsal and construction of the self, the performance bears witness to Samir Campaign's attempts to keep creating in a world of terror and boredom. Video, sound, choreography and found objects are used to express intersectional identities and offer new realities for queer experiences to thrive.

1. (or the trials and tribulations of Samir Campaign)
Concept, Creation and Performance by Samir Kennedy (2022)
Created with the support of ICI-CCN Centre Chorégraphique National Montpellier Occitanie, FR and
Cambridge Junction, UK
CHAOS BALLAD
samirkennedywho@gmail.com / @samirkennedyisreborn

2. Welcome to the pathetic world
of Samir Campaign - nobodies
favourite sad fuck faggot clown.
C'est le fin de la soirée, his
inauguration into the world of the
living. But will he make it?
He rehearses and rehearses and
rehearses a never ending rehearsal
for a show that will never be.
What vortex of sadness will he be
sucked into now, and in turn suck
you into along with him?

3. Patsy Cline recorded Crazy while still on
crutches, two weeks after being thrown
through the windshield of a car in a horrific car
accident (cars didn't have seatbelts back then).
Patsy Cline died in a plane crash 90 km from
her home when her pilot decided to continue
on despite the bad weather. The crash site was
looted and her fee for the show she had just
performed and the dress she sang in that night
were never recovered.
Patsy Cline loved a drink.
My mum loves Patsy Cline.

4. CHAOS BALLAD lurks somewhere
between concert, cabaret and nightmare.
We bear witness to the attempts of Samir
Campaign as he just keeps on keeping on
going in a world filled with terror and the
terror of boredom and the boredom of
terror.
It’s an attempt to condense a feeling.

5. Intention and Research
This work was born from an extensive research into sound making and
the archetype of the clown figure, as a figure which could be co-opted
to speak of queer existentialism and loneliness whilst simultaneously
ignoring the formal history of clowning in performance as a way of
pushing against the notion of expertise and education.
It uses DIY art, performance and sound practices as way to speak
about the precarity and loneliness of making work, where we are
often scrambling around using what we can find and learning how
to do everything ourselves. I wanted to speak from this position
whilst at the same time expressing a certain kind of virtuosity.
The work employs failure as a queer tactic that unearths the
inherent humanity of the subject.
It is an exercise in construction, the construction of the self and of
our own destiny.

6. Video Link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2sj3nu7e48

7. Samir Kennedy is a British-Algerian dance, performance and sound Artist based between London and Marseille. He is broke and he is a joke.
He discovered performance through a choir concert at primary school, when a voice came out of his mouth that seemingly wasn’t his own. He quickly moved
on to musical theatre, eventually finding contemporary dance where he finished his studies at Laban, UK in 2013.
Since then he has worked across the fields of dance, performance and sound, performing and making work internationally for both high profile and underground
spaces.
He has collaborated most notably with Florence Peake, Colette Sadler, Lucy McCormick, Alex Baczynski-Jenkins, Simon Vincenzi, Charles Linehan, Joe Moran,
Theo Clinkard and Pablo Bronstein performing these works in theatres and galleries.
He has shown his work at Arts Admin (UK), Southbank Centre (UK), CCA Glasgow, The Place Theatre (UK), METAL (UK), Centre For Live Art Yorkshire
(UK), Humber Street Gallery (UK), SPILL Festival (UK), ]Performance S P A C E[ (UK) , Quarterhouse Folkestone (UK), Queertopia Festivalen (SE),
Sophiensaele (DE), Vidéodrome (FR) and ICI-CCN Montpellier (FR) among others.
As a sound artist he has collaborated with Florence Peake, Liam Warren, Sam Williams, Leah Marojevic, Colette Sadler, Present Futures Festival, Theo Clinkard
and Olive Hardy to create scores for both live performance and film.
He makes interdisciplinary works across video, sound, choreography and performance which centre the body as a site from which to perform notions of class,
race, otherness, queerness and abjection through the use of archetypal figures (such as the devil, the zombie, the clown) as vehicles from the collective
consciousness which drive complex readings.
He uses aestheticised sociological markers as a way to discuss intersectional identities whilst also seeking to undermine those aesthetics, to offer new realities and
possibilities for queer existentialism to thrive through fictionalisation and the creation of speculative scenarios.
He is currently undertaking the Master EXERCE programme at the Centre Choréographique National in Montpellier, due to graduate in June 2023.
Biography

8. Technical Specifications
Space
DIY aesthetic, all detritus in the space can be left around, a chaotic and messy environment for the audience to enter.
Lighting
1x handheld construction light (That I can operate myself, simple on off or plug in plug out)
Sound Equipment
1x PA system
1x Mixing desk with minimum 8 jack inputs
2x mic stands
1x TRS Jack Cable 5-10m
1x radio mic handheld
2x instrument mics (1 for the table and 1 for the piano)
1x Piano (attached to a platform on wheels so its moveable, can keep the same one it was brought in on)
Set/Props
Platform made from 2 pieces of light deck 2x1m Light deck (height 60 cm - 1m depending on stilts)
3x tables waist height, could be made from light deck also (1 for music equipment, 1 for storage and 1 for making noise with objects)
1x Microwave
1x Kettle

9. www.samirkennedy.com
samirkennedywho@gmail.com
+33 7 76 31 37 86
@samirkennedyisreborn