Two British performance artists are searching for a corpse for their newest production — and have put the word out at the country’s hospices in hope of a volunteer.
The group, called 1157performancegroup, said it was trying to demystify the issues surrounding death with its new London production, “Dead ... You Will Be.”
The use of a real corpse, which would be needed for 18 performances, was imperative to “reawaken a collective response to the reality of death,” said Matthew Scott, one of the group’s artistic directors.
“We’re so blasé about images of death. The physical reality of a dead body will help audiences confront that it is eventually the physical state for all of us,” Scott told Reuters Tuesday.
He and co-artistic director Jo Dagless have written to 70 hospices in hopes of persuading a terminally ill person to offer his or her body to the production.
But the pair are up against a tight deadline — they hope to open the show May 11 — and so far they haven’t received a single response.
So they have widened their appeal to healthy people who would be willing to “share themselves” should tragedy befall them in the coming weeks.
“We truly believe there is a unique person out there who would be willing to share themselves with the audience,” said Scott.
The pair, who have spent time with embalmers and funeral directors to research their production, denied they were orchestrating a publicity stunt.
“We don’t envisage the show as being ghoulish or voyeuristic. It’s a serious, calm and open look at what is a realistic part of our lives,” Dagless said.
German doctor Gunther Von Hagens sparked outrage in 2002 with his Body Worlds exhibition of flayed human corpses in London. He later defied British authorities and was labeled “sick” by critics for conducting an autopsy on a 72-year-old man in front of a 350-member audience and TV cameras.
