About the performance

Unexpected, quirky and provocative, BALL & Other Funny Stories About Cancer is a performance about illness and the changing body. Brian Lobel brings together his trilogy of work about his experiences with cancer, challenging established cancer narratives, and infusing the “cancer story” with an urgency and humour which is sometimes inappropriate, often salacious and always, above all else, honest and open.

Key Personnel

Brian Lobel - Performer
Hannah Kerr - Producer

Production Information

Running time at full length: 70 mins

Age suitability: 14+

Dense use of text

Use of recorded music

Performance require a clear understanding of English

Touring Information

Small scale show (up to 400 seats)

Appropriate for a studio setting

Number of people on tour: 2

Number of peformers on stage: 1

Available to tour from November 2011- December 2012

Outreach and Educational Work

Post-Performnace discussion: Brian has facilitated over 40 for universities, medical schools and theatres and given keynote addresses on the material for international conferences on health.

Workshops on Memoir Writing: Brian has led workshops with Central School of Speech and Drama, London, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Queen Mary, University of London, King's College Medical School, London, and Imperial College, London.

Artist talk on Cancer Performances including BALL & Other Funny Stories About Cancer and the Wellcome Trust-funded 'Fun with Cancer Patients'.

Camp Live Art - Workshop on Interactive Performance: A 2-day workshop for 7 artists exploring interactive performance, rules in performance and the audience as creator. Piloted by Brian for the Live Art Development Agency's DIY Workshop scheme.

Company History

Brian Lobel is a live artist who makes work about bodies; politicised bodies, marginalised bodies, happy bodies and bodies that need a little extra love. After being diagnosed with cancer as a young adult, he became fascinated with unique bodily experience and how it is conceived, discussed and witnessed by others.

Brian's performance work has been shown at the V&A Museum, Sadler's Wells, Shunt Vaults, Duckie, Barbican, The Basement, and at the Forest Fringe in Edinburgh. Brian is a Supported Artist at The Basement, Brighton and an Associate Artist for Clod Ensemble's Performing Medicine. He has been received commissions and grants from Wellcome Trust (for Fun with Cancer Patients), motiroti (for Purge), Jerwood Charitable Foundation (for Carpe Minuta Prima) and Lower Manhattan Cultural Council (for Hold My Hand and We’re Halfway There).

Recent Productions / Tours

Carpe Minuta Prima - a performance installation exploring economy, the over documentation of our lived and what it means to sign away your soul. Performed at Brixton Village Market, Sampled at The Junction, Cambridge and PULSE Fringe, Ipswich in 2011.
Cruising for Art - curated one-on-one performance. Toured to V&A Museum Lates and Forest Fringe, Edinburgh in 2010, Latitude Music Festival, Suffolk and PSi, Utrecht, in 2011.

Purge - a performance installation in which audience members vote on which of Brian’s Facebook friends to delete or keep. Toured to Somerset House, London and ANTI Festival, Kuopio, Finland.

Hold My Hand and We’re Halfway There - an interactive dance installation exploring isolation, community and a love of musicals. Toured to South Street Seaport in New York City, The Basement in Brighton, Forest Fringe in Edinburgh, and Sadler’s Wells in London.

Reviews

"Critic's Choice: Lobel has a commanding presence and this raw, ambitious performance show demonstrates an admirable eagerness to speak ugly, improper truths." Chicago Reader on Other Funny Stories about Cancer, 2009

"It was lovely, and it was soft, and sweet, and very moving and quite tender.” BBC’s The Review Show on An Appreciation, 2010

“ the urge to use our time more profitably and live life to the full is a strong one, and something Carpe Minuta Prima cunningly taps into” The Guardian, 2011