LONDON.- Camden Arts Centre is presenting a major new exhibition by Rose English, which presents the current realisation of a project in gestation for ten years, including a newly commissioned multi-channel sound installation, and works never before seen in the UK.

An influential figure for many artists, English's reputation for humorous and highly analytical performance began with her pioneering work in the vibrant feminist scene of 1970s UK. Her work consistently crosses boundaries between performed installation, vaudeville, film, spoken drama and opera in a mix of philosophical investigation and political and aesthetic commentary.

A Premonition of the Act sees English reconfigure glass works, a storyboard, video and a sound installation. At the core of the show is a new sound work, Lost in Music, an operatic piece for eleven voices and percussion, scored by composer Luke Stoneham for English's libretto and now worked into a 70 minute sound installation. These elements operate as a whole to evoke a yet-to-be-realised performance that is in equal measure a chamber opera, an art installation and a circus.

English's libretto for Lost in Music is comprised of words distilled from a series of her performances, exhibitions and objects between 2006 and the present. It acts as an 'aural diagram' of the work; describing the actions and movements of the acrobats through song.

Luke Stoneham, whose work with choreographers, theatre directors, and performance artists including Lucy Bailey, Mark Baldwin, and Simon Vincenzi, has taken him to events such as Liverpool Contemporary Art Biennial and the Venice Biennale, has composed the score, which has been performed and recorded for the first time for A Premonition of the Act.

The exhibition also features a 3-channel video installation; a choreographed sequence of moving images created from collected video documentation relating to works-in-progress and previous performances under the umbrella of Lost in Music.
Lost in Music, English’s seventy minute libretto, will be performed live on two occasions (11 & 12 March 2016) as part of Postscript - a series of live events and film screenings running from 1-13 March. This programme takes the images of breath, flight and song in English's exhibition as its point of departure and will also include performances by Florian Roithmayr and Sam Belifante.

Rose English’s (b.1950) internationally celebrated solo with a horse – My Mathematics - was produced by Michael Morris’s Cultural Industry and a series of vignettes with horses were presented by The Banff Centre, Canada and The Serpentine Gallery, London. The Long Time Ago Story – a collaboration with composer David Sawer was commissioned for BBC Radio 4 in 2003. Ornamental Happiness - a show in song and circus opened the Liverpool Biennial of Contemporary Art in 2006. Rose’s performance works of the 1970’s featured in the exhibition WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles and toured museums in the USA and Canada 2007/2009.

She exhibited an installation composed of elements and documents relating to her 1975 performance, Quadrille at Richard Saltoun and Karsten Schubert (both galleries), London 2013. Quadrille was shown at Freize Masters 'Spotlight', London 2013 with Karsten Schubert. Rose English - The Eros of Understanding, a solo exhibition curated by Stine Hebert was presented at Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen in 2014. Her awards include the Time Out Performance Award, the Wingate Scholarship and the Paul Hamlyn Award for Artists.