ABSTRACT
Julian Maynard Smith is a performance artist. Previously making solo work, as well as performing with the Theatre of Mistakes, he formed Station House Opera with Miranda Payne and Alison Urquhart in 1980 in order to develop a practice which combined sculptural, architectural and theatrical elements. Following their performance of Natural Disasters in London in 1980 and Amsterdam in 1982, their work was seen throughout Europe and subsequently in Japan, Australia and the USA. Since 1980, the company has made more than twenty performances for galleries, theatres and numerous outdoor sites. These include Drunken Madness (1981), in which performers were flighted within a system of interdependent platforms and pulleys, The Bastille Dances (1989), in which a breeze block edifice was built and dismantled by a company of forty over a period of nine days, and The Oracle (1993), which was presented in theatres and an outdoor site. This interview was recorded in May 1994 at the offices of Artsadmin in London.
