Atist Statement
My practice is centred around a desire to create a shared space that can be both welcoming and radical.
My work explores ideas around class, gender and sexuality and lasts anything between four minutes to four hours. It can take the form of theatre, cabaret, intervention, film, installation or participatory performance.
I straddle multiple genres and sites because I am interested in where live work takes place and how to push the limits of specific audiences – context is everything!
I enjoy using my body to create a space that questions, pokes and prods current dominant narratives on what is ‘acceptable behaviour’.
I want the audience to be seen and feel part of something.
Mixing disgusting and inappropriate content with an approachable performance style is a strategy to make the audience re-think their perceptions.
I love that many post-show conversations with audience revolves around the joy of seeing their life/body reflected on stage for the first time.
Solo work highlights: Re-imagining dildos at Wellcome Trust, creating a Poppers Boudoir at Fierce, selling my clothes at Camden People’s Theatre, being injected with face filler at CUT Festival and pulling bunting out my bum astride a car at the Yard Theatre.
Favourite press review of my work: “Sat there half drunk in the musty-dark theatre room of an Edinburgh Fringe art-show, watching someone piss in a wine glass then drink it, I can honestly say that… I’ve… never… felt… more… alive” – VICE
It’s all about me.
Katy Baird is an artist, curator and producer of Live Art.
She proudly identifies as an 'old, queer, fat misfit' and is currently based in Hastings, East Sussex.
As an artist, she has performed at festivals and institutions across the UK and Europe, as well as squat parties, clubs and raves.
She is currently touring her new solo show, Get Off, directed by Kim Noble and produced by CAMPO (internationally) and Michael Kitchin (UK).
Her debut solo stage performance, Workshy,—a show about work and the things we do for money—was a smash hit, touring internationally to over 30 cities.
She has received commissions from Battersea Arts Centre, Wellcome Trust, The Yard Theatre, Camden People’s Theatre, and Duckie, among others. Since 2016, she has been artist-in-residence at the queer club night Knickerbocker.
As a curator and producer, she is the Artistic Director of Home Live Art, which produces live events across Hastings, the South East, and beyond.
She has also worked as an independent producer at Fierce Festival (Birmingham) and Manchester International Festival, and as a guest lecturer at the University of Chichester, Central School of Speech and Drama, Rose Bruford College, Goldsmiths, University of East London, and University of Dundee.
She co-founded and co-produced Steakhouse Live, a DIY platform in London for radical performance practices.