Free entry
Tue 1 Sep, 6.30pm
Assembly Room
| Monday | Closed |
| Tuesday | 11am–6pm |
| Wednesday | 11am–6pm |
| Thursday | 11am–9pm |
| Friday | 11am–6pm |
| Saturday | 11am–6pm |
| Sunday | 11am–6pm |
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About This Event
The performance contains references to bereavement, body image, and dieting.
What does it feel like to build a body?
Artist-researcher Broderick Chow (author of Muscle Works, 2024) presents a performance-lecture about building muscle and all its contradictions: pump and failure, contraction and extension, digital screen and everyday routine.
How to Build a Body features demonstrations of weightlifting, wrestling, and bodybuilding alongside a history of physical culture in East London and beyond. At a time when muscles often signify the worst aspects of masculinity, this performance draws on personal narratives and muscle building as shared cultural memory to search for moments of connection, kinship, and possibility in sweat, reps, and micro-tears.
This event is part of Backyard Biennial.
How to Build a Body is presented by Queen Mary University of London and Whitechapel Gallery to coincide with the annual conference for the Theatre and Performance Research Association (TaPRA).
Broderick Chow is an actor, writer, researcher, educator, weightlifter and coach. He is the author of the award-winning book Muscle Works: Physical Culture and the Performance of Masculinity (Northwestern University Press, 2024). Previous work includes direction of Do You Love Me Now?, Cousins, and All Other Passports with New Earth Performer’s Academy, the dance-theatre piece Work Songs and The Dynamic Tensions Physical Culture Show at the Anatomy Museum, King’s College London. Broderick is currently Reader and Director of Learning, Teaching and Inclusion at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama.
Ayos Kerung is a British-Nepali actor and a recent graduate of the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama. His recent credits include James in When I Wake Up Again (Brighton Fringe) and James Robson with New Earth Theatre. He is also currently developing an all-Asian production of Romeo and Juliet in Kathmandu Valley. Ayos discovered strength training during the COVID-19 pandemic as a way to support his mental health, an experience that shaped his belief in the physical and psychological benefits of strength training for the actor. So much so that he is currently training to become a personal trainer alongside his acting career.
Benjamin Weil (they/them) is a researcher, writer and bodybuilder living in London. They are currently the Head of Research and Community Knowledge Generation at the queer health non-profit The Love Tank CIC. They hold a PhD in science and technology studies from UCL.
