A Night with the Neo Naturists

A Night with the Neo Naturists celebrated the subversive 1980s performance group, founded by Christine Binnie, Jennifer Binnie and Wilma Johnson. The event took place as part of their retrospective at Studio Voltaire, 2016.

A Night with the Neo Naturists includes film, live performances and music evoking the spirit of the original works’ anarchic innocence. This was the Neo Naturists’ first live performance with the full original line up of founding members since 1986. They presented a special collaborative performance with Ana da Silva and Gina Birch, founding members and songwriters of The Raincoats with Anne Wood.

The Neo Naturists were part of London’s subculture that arose in the aftermath of Punk, the emergence of the New Romantic club scene and advent of Thatcherism. They performed wearing little more than body paint celebrating the naked female form, their performances were “bodypositive” and celebratory, in stark contrast to the increasingly commodified, “sexually packaged” body widely promoted in the 1980s.

The seminal post-punk band The Raincoats last performed at the ICA in 1980. The ‘godmothers of grunge’ created a sound that, while inspired by punk and rock music that had come before, was uniquely and uncompromisingly powerful and female.

Supporting acts included: Jill Westwood & Antal Nemeth, Christine Binnie & Paul Murphy and a DJ set by Peas in a Pod (Will Larnach-Jones, Joe Scotland & Julie Verhoeven).

Read more about the Neo Naturist retrospective

Images from A Night with the Neo Naturists