Body Interviews is a collaboration between Anastasia Greeley and Sophie Cooper-Ellis in 2015. The artists used interviews from nine volunteers to create a multimedia theatre performance that examined the body as a site of identity, personal history, and intimacy.
In interviews, participants were asked questions that probed and explored their relationships with their bodies, as locations of joy, pain, pleasure and expression. Sophie used this information to create drawings that focused on important areas to each participant, and conveyed their emotions and thoughts surrounding them. Greeley’s performance was written using interview transcripts as dialogue. The two mediums culminated in a performance where Greeley acts, walking through various characters, each sharing themes on their bodily identities, while drawings are projected behind evoking the imagery of her dialogue.
The performance and final drawings offer a myriad of imagery and collected personal experience. The artists explore each individual’s perspective through their mediums. Each tale, and corresponding image offer a different perspective on the lived reality of personhood in a body. Together they convey a shared experience that is subjective and diverse.