K&A (Karla Isidorou & Alexandra Bellon) form a dazzling duo. Mixing their different backgrounds and their complex cultural roots they spread poetical & political concepts. Their mobile studio and stage fluctuates between variable combinations of latitudes and longitudes. Urban & rural territories, in which borders are alive, appearing and disappearing, magnetize their artistic practise. K&A create the tools to blurry the distance in between, to make the void full.
© Photography: K&A
I am supposed to be a ‘question mark’, BUT & A: I am supposed to be a musician, BUT
I am supposed to be a musician, BUT
A / K has a background in music / theatre; she is trained as percussionist / visual artist.
Last years she focuses on performative arts from a hybrid perspective, bringing the two
fields together in a star collision, as an invitation for people to connect.
Within K&A the single signature is killed. What stays is the space in between, a space build through hours of training, drawing, glitching, performing, trusting and diving together into unknown territories. By de-sponging & de-stealing each other K&A extract the matiére premiére that will be distilled again. Out of this continuous distillation wor(l)ds arise to invite/invade the public.
K&A’s projects start from an intuitive need and a tendency to move off the beaten path and often research the limits of the human body. As makers, they find inspiration in contemporary social-political realities. A driving force is their own hunger for new forms, techniques and methods. They work off the beaten path and challenge their audience to follow them in the jungle.
Concepts start simple: at the core.
K&A build projects & concepts that arise out of long periods of research. Torrent books, vagary images, deserting writings, performative actions, grinding sounds, poetical and socio-political contexts come together to create a complex philosophical environment in which the statement of each project is formed. The multiplicity of projects and their thorough statements create the cartography of their work.
In the last years they have developed multiple international productions, in between others the largescale performance NIAGA DNA (PQ 2019, Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design & Space, In Selection Festival Aurillac, FR) a ‘jumping choreography’ for the public space and the experimental three hour long performance (G)loves for (G)ants (Sitting Shotgun, Brooklyn NYC). In the Netherlands they have co-produced with Theater Ins Blau the multidisciplinary physical performance CHANGE THE GAME and developed JUNGLE THE FUTURE. Their performance “MINUS 9” was in 2022 part of the International Selection of Brighton Fringe Festival and was nominated for “Audience Choice Award Best Event”. The same performance has been selected for the prestigious Prague Quadrennial 2023 – RARE performances. Curators & programmers chose K&A’a work for its impact, input & imagination. Their work challenges the single signature & the usual delimitations of theater, music, writing movement, technology & fine-art. It has been presented in between others at Cantonal Museum of Contemporary Art of Lausanne MCBA(CH), Buffer Fringe Performing Arts Festival (CY), OEROL Festival (NL), ICAF International Community Arts Festival (NL), AMOQA(GR), Villa Bernasconi (CH) FAT festival (NL), Theater de Generator (Leiden, NL) A LAB (Amsterdam, NL), Filmtheater FOCUS (Arnhem, NL), La Head (Geneva, CH), L’Usine Kugler (Geneva, CH), Fumetto Festival (Lucerne, CH),.
Alexandra Bellon
Is a multidisciplinary artist and performer based in Geneva(CH), driven by a percussive & drum pulse.“ Within my practice, division of territories, seems to be impossible. Like approaching the human body: it’s anatomy is strongly interdependent and interlinked, by cutting it up in single pieces, you kill the rhythm of its heart.” She obtained a BA in percussion and two MA degrees (pedagogy & music interpretation) at the HEM, Geneva(CH). Between 2003 and 2015, she worked as a percussionist with: l’Orchestre de la Suisse Romande(CH), Verbier Festival Orchestra(CH), etc. As a pluridisciplinary artist she worked on various projects engined by the visual arts. Doing research from a cultural perspective without establishing criteria or predefined guidelines results into a method that could be described as ‘the unfocused gaze’. As a pluridisciplinary artist she worked on various projects engined by the passion and core of her practice, rhythm. Each time bringing this within different roles: co-conceptor, composer, performer, co-choreographer, dancer, musician. She colaborated among others with Michèle Pralong (CH), collective la Distillerie(CH), Brice Catherin (FR), Young Soon Cho Jacquet (KR/CH), Jens Van Daele Burning Bridges (NL), ‘IF’ company (CH), Christian Denisart (CH) Audrey Bergeron (CAN). She is co-founder of “Ensemble Batida” (Bourse Leenaards 2018, Prix Jean François Chaponnière 2013, Lauréat of Nicati 2013, Prix Orpheus 2011), a collective of 5 musicians founded in 2010. Their work unfolds in three spectrums: performing contemporary compositions, bringing on stage improvised concerts and creating transdisciplinary projects in which invented instruments, objects and unusual configurations unfold like poetic visual and sonor architectures, often in collaboration with collective Hecatombe. Among multiple bands she is part of the percussion ensemble Eklekto (CH), Insub Meta Orchestra and Parasite Sans S, a band that since 2015 creates delirious sonor improvised experiences. In 2017 she formed the multidisciplinary duo K&A together with K.Isidorou.
Karla Isidorou
is a multidisciplinary artist creating performative constellations in which different disciplines merge together to create an open meeting space between performer and public. Magneted by the engraved rituals of the body, the versatile structures of our bones and muscles, Karla Isidorou was trained as a performer in a physical theater environment developing in the same period her physical presence and deep concentration through a longterm marathon swimming training. Since then she has been attracted to the concept of endurance, and repetitive waterproof gestures. Karla Isidorou studied Theater Studies at UvA (University of Amsterdam, NL) and Fine Art/Performance at the Base for Experiment, Art and Research (ArtEZ, NL). As a performance artist she has collaborated among others with Jens van Daele’s Burning Bridges (NL), Alicia Framis (NL/SP), Merle Schiebergen (NL), etc. As a photographer Karla Isidorou captures images to reach behind the borders of vulnerability, to expose/propose an open door. Next to her autonomous work & documentary aproach she collaborates with various artists to translate into images their concepts. In the last years her focus lies on the performative & pluridisciplinary work of K&A, a duet of which she is co-founder together with Alexandra Bellon. Together they expand through the physical and mental borders to create concepts and works that challenge the coordinates of the spectator. They realized numerous stage-performances & projects in the Netherlands, Greece and Switzerland, navigating between artistic fields.