A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DRAM

Improvisations with Paul Burwell


launch of 2 DVD set

Cafe OTO, London
 21 June 2011



The first DVD consists of a 2 screen version of TAPS, a composite film with 80 of Paul Burwell’s former collaborators.

”Invited artists from all manner of performance disciplines contributed films and audio works which were infused with the expanded vision of reality that was Burwell’s project…

It’s an extraordinary work that needs to be seen” 

Phil England, The Wire, November 2010



The second DVD, PAST, is called Self-Portrait. Who of?

Paul Burwell and Anne Bean Dialogues 2010,

Including archival footage and text and images from Paul’s notebooks kept for over 30 years.

The launch of the DVD took place at Café OTO and featured live performances by artists and friends who had contributed to TAPS and reflect Paul’s wide range of engagement: Phil Minton and Terry Day performing an intoxicating mix for the midsummer night’s dram; an improvisation using bowed bicycle wheels with lo-fi electronic effect by Sylvia Hallett; the garage-noise band London Dirthole Company; Siren Song using modified Burwell/Bow Gamelan sirens by Mark Anderson and Adventures in the House of Dreams – a stroboscopic visual and feraliminal electronic audio from para-musician Chris Gladwin. The MC was Richard Strange, writer, actor, and founder of seminal mid-seventies protopunk art rock band Doctors of Madness.

The DVD of TAPS is available from Unbound at Live Art Development Agency and Matt’s Gallery.