James King grew up in Larne, Co. Antrim and has lived in Derry for forty years. Since retiring from his post as Lecturer in Theatre Studies at the University of Ulster in 2004 King has developed his career as performance artist and sound poet; and until the onset of the Covid pandemic maintained his practice of working creatively with vulnerable groups in the community.King has been practising performance in various forms and genres for over forty- five years and lectured in Community Drama for thirty of these. During the past fifteen years King has been expanding his performance art practice; ranging from short, open mic word-play entertainments to substantial durational events. 

More recently he has been incorporating sound poetry and vocal improvisation in his performances. Much of King’s work is organic, spontaneous and site specific. In his performance work King interrogates and expresses how he is in the world. His respect for intuitive spontaneity is an invitation to others to question, challenge and be liberated. In 2016, King, in association with Bbeyond, organised the ‘Cumulator’ project, which involved participants from several countries, and took place in outdoor venues, studios and galleries between, Ireland, England, Belgium and Germany. ‘Cumulator’ began with one person performing for one hour in January, and cumulated into twelve people performing for twelve hours in December.

As a member of Bbeyond Belfast, performance art collective, King has represented them in Bergen in 2010, Spain Bel-Mad exchange 2013 and Bel-Esse Germany/Belgium exchange, 2014 and at AcciónMad Madrid in 2016. King has participated in the Belfast International Festival of Performance Art, on two occasions in its first year 2013 and 2016; and performed at the Edinburgh Fringe and the Dublin Live Art Festival. Other notable performances include, Carrick-on-Shannon Generation festival 15th June 2013, and Catch the (H)eart Beltaine travelling residency : Galway, Wicklow, Kilkenny, 2014. More recently, in August, 2020, he participated in the Wild Swans festival at Fanad, Donegal.  King enjoys performing in streets and public spaces, and collaborating with other individuals and groups, including Derry based BBDB (Beebeedeebee). BBDB have made weekly group performances in Derry until Covid; usually in Society Street. Since Covid a weekly Zoom happening takes place in conjunction with Bbeyond.

In the three years prior to Covid, King and Peter O’Doherty formed a mutually enriching working relationship, focusing upon text based, and spontaneous vocal explorations. They performed at a variety of events, including online performances and a short Arts residency. They established the Monday Lab to include musicians and people from BBDB and Bbeyond. This continues on zoom at the present time. Currently in weekly group zoom Bbeyond/BBDB performances, he pursues his inquiry into the use of voice. This often helps towards consolidating group collaboration. Out of intuitive, abstract sounds he finds phonemes syllables and words which become reconstructed into performance poems. King is presently collaborating with poet, Ann McKay on two projects incorporating poetry, drawing, and word distillations.  Publications include “Furrowed Lives”, a self published poetry anthology with drawings by David Hegarty and ” Moving Pitches”, a collaboration with Eamonn O’Donnell, recording their Street Art performance practice between 1988 and 2007.