From the original Festival website:

Liz Aggiss is an un-disciplined artist with an un-disciplined body of work. My My. Dodging categorisation and being classified as unclassifiable, has been a full time job. She’s had a finger in many pies, not all of them good, not all of them interesting. She has been a Guerrilla Dancer, a Diva, Wild Wiggler, Grotesque Dancer, Trout, Martyr and herself. My My My. In her performance lecture Survival Tactics (2010), Liz Aggiss considers her un-disciplined journey from stage to screen and back again and asks the question, ‘how does a mature post-modern solo female performer originally from a bleak post war suburb in Essex, with a feverish commitment to the lost performances of Central Europe, a deep fascination with a moving past, an ad hoc and irregular dance education, seek out the shadows from the past, stalk them relentlessly and embed and sustain herself within contemporary performance for the past 40 years?’ Born on Nanny Goats Common, Dagenham, Essex, a post war baby in a repressive era in the suburbs, where parents were truly in charge and children were seen and not heard, Liz Aggiss never had a clue who she was or what she wanted to do, she just knew she would like to be seen and heard. After cantering into the sunset, as soon as was decently possible, she accidentally stumbled into the arts and started moving in a mysterious manner and shouting… rather a lot. 

Liz Aggiss is a live artist, dance performer, choreographer and dance film-maker. She is Emeritus Professor in Visual Performance at the University of Brighton, has an Honorary Doctorate in Interdisciplinary Practice from the University of Gothenburg, and an Honorary Doctorate in Art from the University of Chichester. Her work is framed by extensive contextual research that considers and uses the personal and historical as reference. Her performances have a distinctive expressive, grotesque and British music hall movement style and integrate text, film and humour.  Her work investigates the shifting nature of presentation, pushes the boundaries of dance practise and considers genders politics and the representation of women. Awards heaped in her general direction are un-disciplined, fabulous and include some corkers; Total Theatre Award, Bonnie Bird Choreography Award, Arts Council Dance Fellowship Award, Czech Crystal Prague Golden Film, Honourable Mention Paula Citron Toronto, Special Jury Golden Houston, Best Woman Film Media Waves Hungary, Romanian National Office of Cinematography, Naples Special Jury Mention Il Coreografo Elettronico, Dance Camera West Los Angeles for Innovation in Dance Media, Hong Kong Jumping Frames. In 2006 Anarchic Dance was published by Routledge as a visual and textual record of her work.

“Liz Aggiss is indeed the Vivienne Westwood of dance film world: anarchic, strawberry blonde, fearless and satirical. Aggiss has an incredible charisma.” londondance.com

“There is a refreshing irreverence to Liz Aggiss’s performance that is rarely exhibited by female performers. As such, she resists all conventional gender stereotypes ascribed to what defines femininity, how it should be talked about, and how it should be performed.” Niki McWilliams

lizaggiss.com