The Questions The Glasgow School

Rather than ask the main question directly , I decided on six questions which shared similar ground. Avoiding the possibility of a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’ reply to whether there is a particular Glasgow aesthetic (and the evidence of the Independence Referendum campaign points to a polarisation of opinion in a simple closed question), I hoped that these questions would open up discussion and allow the respondent to make a personal response., and the final question invited any further reflections not covered by the previous five.

Are there any aspects of your own work or practice that you feel are defined by Glasgow? If so, what are they and how would you describe Glasgow's influence?

Can you name any other Glasgow-based artists with whom you feel an affinity? What shared characteristics do you have with them?

If you had to describe Glaswegian performance in three sentences, or phrases, or even words... what would these be?

Are there any events or festivals throughout the year that you would say are influential in developing particular sorts of work? This could apply to both theatre and non-theatrical events.

How would you describe your own practice (as an artist or participant in the arts in whatever form)?

Do you have any further thoughts on the relationship of the performance arts and Glasgow?





Although the questions mention at no point the idea of a theatre community, there is a hidden assumption behind the questions that the answers will identify Glasgow as a community. This follows Carlson's quotation, in Performance, A Critical Introduction,  of Margaret Wilkerson's assertion that 'theatre provides an opportunity for a community to come together and reflect upon itself,' and his conclusion that the theatrical event has always been about 'shaping' community (Carlson, 1996: p197). 

The question are designed to encourage reflection on relationships - in terms of influence, shared affinities and defining events. Only the fifth question focuses on the individual’s practice - and this is included to help identify the artist’s particular perspective and interests.

Having decided on the questions, I then decided to pick a single week to distribute the questionnaire. This might reflect my critic’s training, with a desire for a short period of time with a tight deadline: more trenchantly, I wanted to contain the responses to a particular time period to emphasis the temporality of the survey. This is a snapshot rather than a comprehensive study.

Given the tumult of  the past year, it also seemed to me that the last week of August was a good moment to pick. The Commonwealth Games and The Edinburgh Festivals had concluded and the Autumn Season - which usually begins with Arches Live! had yet to kick in. It is a relatively stable week, in which no major performances are being launched, the hectic activity of the Fringe has finished, and it marks the start of a new academic year. Hopefully, these factors make it conducive to reflection.

The next step was to distribute the questionnaire. Using, once again,  my critical techniques, I decided on a series of email interviews: the questions would be sent, with explanations of their use, and the selected participants would reply at their leisure.

Over the past decade, I have had the experience of several different types of interview: face-to-face, over the phone and via email or Facebook (and other social media). Each approach has its advantages, but email appeared to be the most effective for this survey. First of all, it gave time for the respondent to consider and adjust their replies - interviews conducted in ‘live’ time demand an immediate response that might not reflect the respondent’s full opinion. It also cuts out the danger of mistranscription - a particular problem with interviews recorded over the phone. Finally, my face-to-face interviews tend to be discursive, and, as in my interviews for Subcity Radio, might  wander around the subject, be deeply fascinating and enjoyable but fail to get to the point.

I also realised that in a face-to-face interview, there is a problem of ‘academic hygiene.’ The bland tone of the questions sent did its best to obscure any assumptions that I might have about the identity of Glasgow performance - and when I introduced the survey to the community, I made a point of stating that I did not know what the answer would be. Although that is true, the danger in a face-to-face interview is that it might become a dialogue, with my opinions influencing the outcome, thanks to my sunny disposition and genuine interest in conversations with artists.

The Glasgow School: Methodology

Having worked as a critic for the past decade, I have developed an ad hoc methodology for my engagement with performance. Because ‘popular criticism’ (that is, criticism intended for publication in local, national and online magazines and newspapers) does not have the same disciplines as academic writing - there is no need to substantiate opinions with direct references to existing texts, for example - it is less systematic and has been developed in response to the tasks of interviewing, reviewing and discussing in the public domain, usually to a tight deadline.

I have named this process Radical Subjectivity, signifying that my responses are based on a root recognition of the partiality of my personality. It insists that any particular opinion or comment - including apparently factual ones about the content of an artwork - emerge through the prism of the critic’s experience and, as such, are only provisional responses.


This strategy was influenced by the vigorous debates around the role of criticism in the age of the internet: in the context of film, both Mark Kermode and Mark Cousins have suggested that new styles and writers will emerge not through traditional publications but through the ‘blogosphere’, whilst simultaneously emphasising the importance of an informed opinion. Kermode defines the role of the critic clearly.

One of the things I did in The Good, The Bad and the Multiplex was attempt to do a definition of what a good review is… the basic things were: to describe the film adequately. You have to know where the film comes from and contextualise it properly. You have to assess it on its own terms – if it’s a comedy, did you laugh? And then beyond that, there is your reaction to it, that which you cannot change or be anything other than honest about. The worst thing you can do is attempt to second guess the audience because: a) you’ll always get it wrong; and b) you’ll regret it. It’s much better to be honestly, completely wrong than to be dishonestly closer to being ‘right’.

Radical subjectivity follows Kermode’s injunction to be honest, but baulks at the possibility that a critic can be ‘completely wrong.’ A review might be contentious, or in a minority, but if the critic has ‘assess(ed) it on its own terms,’ and been honest, it is still a valuable part of the ongoing discussions about the art. Or, Mark Cousins puts it ‘Karl Popper said, to paraphrase, ‘If I'm wrong, I'm right.’To borrow a term from theology, criticism becomes part of a ‘hermeneutical spiral,’ the ongoing discussion of an event that never reaches a conclusion, but recontextualises the event at different points in time and space.

The primary justification for criticism as a process rather than a product comes from Red Bastard’s invitation to his audience to realise that most of a performance’s meaning happens not on stage but in their heads. He concludes that if they don't like his show, it is their fault (Edinburgh 2013), but this echoes both Wolfgang Iser’s interest in the way that art ‘manifests itself to the consciousness of the reader in the time of the act of reader’ (Fortier p90) and reader-response theory, considered in Gerald Rabkin’s Is There A Text On this Stage? when he approaches dissident interpretations of Arthur Miller’s Crucible (Fortier, p91).

Iser (ed. Counsell and Wolf, 2001: p180) appears to be pessimistic

about the possibility of finding any definitive answer: for him, the impossibility of determining objective truth ensures that all analysis becomes an analysis of perceptions. It is this warning that has encouraged the first stage of my research: rather than attempt to look at the performances as texts, I decided to invite artists and ‘stakeholders’ in theatre to express their opinions of their relationship to Glasgow.

The Performance Geography of Glasgow: The Southside

Although The Citizens Theatre has been, in various incarnations, on the same site since 1878 (becoming the Citizens in 1945 with the arrival of James Bridie’s company), The Southside is not over-burden with theatrical venues. Across from the Citizens is the O2 Academy, predominantly a club and gig venue but also the home of Club Noir, the biggest burlesque club in the world (Guinness Book of Records, 2011). Further south is Tramway, a space rediscovered by Peter Brook for his Mahabharata  in 1988 and subsequently a major venue during 1990’s City of Culture festival: Scottish Ballet recently added an extension to Tramway, making it their base. At the very edge of the city, Eastwood Park Theatre hosts medium scale touring shows.

Each of these venues has a distinctive identity. Following from the iconic regime of the ‘triumvirate’ of Giles Havergal, Philip Prowse and Robert David MacDonald (1969 - 2003), The Citizens became internationally recognised for its daring interpretations of Classic plays, including translations of writers often neglected in the UK. MacDonald, a playwright himself, is more celebrated for his translations, including those of Goldoni and Brecht.

Current artistic director Dominic Hill has continued this theme, staging versions of King Lear, Hamlet and Pinter’s Betrayal, as well as commissioning an adaptation of Crime and Punishment  from Chris Hannan. Less interested in new writing, despite Hill’s previous role at Edinburgh’s Traverse, The Citizens maintains a strong connection to its local community, through cheap ticket opportunities.

Tramway is known internationally for presenting experimental theatre from around the world. Apart from its long association with Peter Brook - a regular visitor in the 1990s, and returning in 2010 with 11 and 12, Tramway invited companies like Victoria and Les Ballets C de La B from Belgium, Robert Lepage from Quebec and Forced Entertainment from Sheffield to take advantage of their flexible main space. 

Thanks to the wall built by Brook for The Mahabharata, Tramway has a unique atmosphere. Rescued from demolition and also housing a huge main gallery for visual art, it still bears the traces of its previous use as a garage for Glasgow’s trams and the Museum for Transport, linking it to the city’s industrial past. It has a reputation for adventurous programming, but has recently began to support local, emerging artists, primarily through its Rip It Up Seasons.

Eastwood Park, meanwhile, is often the forgotten theatre in surveys

of Glasgow. Positioned at the point where Glasgow meets East Renfrewshire - an independent county - it has featured touring productions from Rapture (based in The Briggait), Random Accomplice (The CCA) as well as The Reduced Shakespeare Company. 

Is it possible to isolate any particular qualities, or their relationship to each other, that define a performance as Glaswegian?

The idea that Glasgow has a unique identity within Scotland is not unfamiliar. Dr Sarah Lowdnes’ Social Sculpture examines the interconnectedness of the city’s visual art and musical scenes, and postulates that their shared aesthetic have been a dynamic force behind Glasgow’s success in exporting its art around the world. Glasgow City Council has used the slogan ‘Glasgow: Scotland with Style’ and talk of ‘the Glasgow miracle’ (the rejuvenation of the city after its time as City of Culture in 1990) is commonplace in discussions of the impact of art on urban renewal.




When Hans Ulrich Obrist, curator at London’s Serpentine Gallery coined the phrase ‘Glasgow Miracle’ in 1996, he was reflecting on the remarkable vibrancy of an art scene that would eventually come to dominate the Turner Prize during the late 2000s: Social Sculpture takes a detailed look at the way communities around the Glasgow School of Art provided a support structure for artists, while the CCA's recent project The Glasgow Miracle: Materials for Alternative Histories suggest that the art explosion was the product of 'a gradual accumulation... its roots in the early 70s... and the growth of a DIY exhibition culture across the city.' All of these analyses, however, share the belief that Glasgow art has been defined by the city’s social and educational communities.
However, whether this identity extends to performance has rarely been considered: the examination of cultural identity within performance has generally concentrated on wider areas: the collection of essays in Scottish Theatre looks at a national rather than local continuity, and in the years before the birth of The National Theatre of Scotland, books like The Modern Scottish Theatre (David Hutchinson, 1977) tried to make a case for a distinctive Caledonian theatre.

At the other extreme, companies and individual theatres have been the subject of study: The Theatre Royal has a handsome hardback dedicated to its evolution, and The Citizens, especially during the Giles Havergal years (1969 - 2003), has been the subject of considerable critical appraisal - mostly enthusiastic, as in Cordelia Oliver’s Magic in The Gorbals, which concludes that ‘Havergal and his team’ have wrought a miracle by bringing new audiences into the theatre. Dr David Overend used a series of performances to explore the history of The Arches, while the internet has allowed companies as diverse as Vanishing Point, Untitled Projects and Cryptic to archive their own histories in the public domain.

Inspired by Social Sculpture’s ambition, excited by the many performances that are being staged across the year in various venues, and recognising that much of the Scottish theatre that is being acknowledged internationally comes from artists either trained or based in Glasgow, the question of whether it is possible to isolate or identify certain qualities in a performance as related to any Glasgow aesthetic operates as both a speculative investigation into the continuity  of performance arts in the city, and as a platform for a survey of Glasgow’s current theatre communities.

My Back Pages...

I have been trawling the web - well, mainly The Skinny - for my old articles about theatre. Most of these have been cut and pasted onto this blog, which explains why the atmosphere round here feels like 2008. Apart from the chance to collate my reviews and previews into an archive, and support the work I am doing on Glasgow performance, it has been a fascinating glance backwards at how my process has been shaped by the performances that I have seen.

My first surprise is at how quickly I became an antagonist towards scripted theatre. I have played it for laughs in the past (usually, I'd mention that I liked 'weird stuff' before enjoying a particular scripted show), but it came from seeing work at Tramway in the early part of the twenty-first century. My experience of Forced Entertainment's Bloody Mess defined my expectations of theatre, and although it was before I became a critic, I spent most of 2008 wishing that they'd come back to Scotland and remind me of what I loved.

I blush at many of my opinions: I can see that they were shaped as much by the format of the review as the performance. Because of this, although I can stand by what I said, I can't really defend myself. This is especially a problem for those works that I can't remember... and that goes for pieces by artists that I still review. 

Hopefully, as I find articles from 2010, I'll remember more shows.

If there is an evolution in my writing - and remember, evolution is not a progressive process - there is also an evolution in the work being staged. My ascension to theatre editor of The Skinny happened around the time that Andy Arnold moved to The Tron from The Arches - I remember doing an interview with him on his departure. This consolidated The Arches as a place for more experimental performance under Jackie Wylie, and Arnold pursued his interest in the written word in his new job.

I am also surprised by the absence of reviews from Tramway. I might have put them up somewhere else - there must be a response to Les Ballets C de la B's VSPRS. I'm also hacked off that I didn't review Iona Kewney that first time I saw her perform. I remember being so ecstatic when I watched it, I asked someone else to review it.

The Glasgow School MCM: the artists reply with Paul Michael Henry

If you had to describe Glaswegian performance in three sentences, or phrases, or even words... what would these be?

"Various. In Glasgow." (I will acknowledge a resistance to that question).

While I am reluctant to suggest that any one artist's answers can represent a large swathe of the artistic community (that is why I am bothering so many people with my survey), I think that Paul Michael Henry is articulating a common response to my questions. When I set out my carefully worded questionnaire, I did expect plenty of replies that called me out on the assumptions I am making. 

Paul Michael Henry is a musician, a thinker, a Butoh practitioner and a festival curator. Most recently, he arranged the Moving Bodies festival in the CCA, a wonderful compilation of Butoh artists from around the world. Apart from being one of the few working artists in Scotland, let alone Glasgow, who are seriously engaging with the Japanese form, Paul Michael Henry is a champion of the art. 

Moving Bodies is a clarion call for Butoh, a showcase of its excellence and a reminder that performance exists in forms beyond most definitions of theatre.

When asked about artists with whom he feels an affinity, his choices are telling. They are not necessarily working in the same area ('My perception of shared characteristics with them includes a sense of art as more than entertainment,' he explains. 'An integrity of excavation into human potentials, rawness and a search for what Hijikata (founder of Butoh dance) called the body that has not been robbed.'). 

Suitably, his list is diverse. 'The late Adrian Howells is my first touchstone here. F.K Alexander, Lea Cummings, Satya Dunning, Jer Reid and Iona Kewney.' Howells was a pioneer of 'intimate theatre,' the one-to-one with a spiritual resonance; Alexander, Cummings and Reid are musicians (and more), Kewney and Dunning are dancers but with very different approaches. 

Throughout his answers, Paul Michael Henry maintains an amiable ambiguity about his influences: willing to recognise himself as a Glasgow-based artist, he sees an international perspective and delights in the complexity of his position.

'I am at heart an internationalist (or more accurately, a universalist). That said, I'm writing this in a moment when my Scottishness is kicking harder than I can remember, triggered by the Referendum debates and also by study of disciplines such as Butoh dance which is Japanese in origin. I haven't felt very Scottish in the past but I'm certainly not Japanese, so where does that leave me?'

This questioning is reflected in his performances: at Moving Bodies, he took time to engage with every single audience member and essayed a piece that emerged from fragments of western dance and Butoh's eastern aesthetic. His belief in the power of art to move - to be political without being explicit or issue based - and his exquisite taste as a curator (Ken Mai blew my mind and confused my understanding of gender identity) might connect with other artists in Glasgow and around the world, but his actual performances make him unique. 

Political theatre and a few thoughts...

Both Adrienne Scullion's survey of the Glasgow Unity Theatre (Glasgow Unity Theatre: The Necessary Contradictions of Scottish Political Theatre, Twentieth Century British History Volume 13, Issue 3, Pp. 215-252) and Daniel Lapenta's critique of John McGrath's Border Warfare suggest that, on the West Coast, the connection between theatre and politics is consistent and long-standing. Scullion points out that most scholarship surrounding the GUT has emphasised its left-wing intentions, including links with the Communist Party, before pondering whether the political tensions within the company led to its eventual disintegration: Lapenta repeatedly comments that Border Warfare has a pro-nationalist slant and notes that the then Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, is presented as the latest in a long line of English tyrants who have bullied the Scots.

When Eric Karoulla pondered political theatre in the 2013 Fringe, he reflected that 'everything could be political': Michael Kirby's 1975 essay On Political Theatre attempts to deconstruct that assumption by defining politics more closely. While Karoulla continues to suggest that the very act of performing, since it requires a degree of freedom of speech, is political, Kirby is more concerned with relating 'political theatre' to dictionary definitions and questioning its impact as a form of activism (he suggests terrorism is probably more effective).

The politics of both McGrath and the GUT were expressed as the advocacy of socialist positions, and in the case of GUT and 7:84's revival of their plays, a focus on the experience of the working classes. Plays now accorded the status of modern classics (Men Should Weep, In Time o' Strife, GUT's The Gorbals' Story, which was made into a film in 1950) reflect this emphasis: perhaps, as Scullion hints, the dynamism of Scottish theatre is driven by resistance. 

Mary Brennan talks Citz, 1984

As a coda to what the Citizens' is  about (a reflection too of Giles Havergal's yearning for a Globe-type audience... here is one of his favourite anecdotes. 

When the tenements were still standing, a fat, rather unprepossessing old woman used to watch the company going in and out, day after day. On the night of the free preview, Havergal was surprised to see the old dear waddle in with her young grandson. 'They sat in the stalls, she got out a thermos, gave him a drink, hit him over the head for talking.

At the interval I thought, 'they'll go'. But no, they stayed.' 

And the play that held their attention? The Duchess Of  Malfi.

(Mary Brennan, Theatre Ireland, No. 5 (Dec., 1983 - Mar., 1984), pp. 60-64)

Mary Brennan's article about The Citizen's Theatre in 1984 begins with a photograph of the venue as it was then - standing alone in a derelict waste ground. Through interviews with both the creative team and company manager Paul Bassett, she describes how, despite its location, the theatre thrived through cheap ticket prices and a diet of imaginative interpretations of classic texts.

Although The Citizens has a book dedicated to its history, Brennan's piece is a snapshot that explains why the venue, and the tenure of Giles Havergal, is so fondly remembered. Contrasting the strategies of Havergal, Robert David MacDonald and Philip Prowse ('the gang of three') with those of other reps who took their cues from London, Brennan identifies their approach and success.

Where other reps will look to London's West End for a play (and 

often an identikit production) they hope will 'take', the Citz will ferret out a neglected Goldoni. Robert David MacDonald will burnish it up in a new translation, they'll stage it with a commendable lack of false and stifling reverence and a delighted audience will suddenly find that Goldoni's observation on people and social behaviour are enduringly relevant and funny. 

(page 62)

Pondering their influences, Brennan observes a 'confident theatricality more redolent of the European than the British stage,' before listing their international touring programme. She also mentions the 'enviable reputation for exciting and original design,' a quality that would be found in later Citizens' alumni such as Kenny Miller and Stewart Laing. 

Bigg Taj - some notes from the Glasgow School (the artists reply, v)

Big Taj is too much of an individual to be an example of anything. A beat-boxer who has collaborated with Indian dancers (I first met him when he was warming up for this at Dance Base, a tall man making odd noises in the cafe), he has crossed boundaries to be part of theatre productions, turns up at cabaret nights to rock the house, and even arrived at the recent National Festival of Youth Theatre to essay his signature mix of good natured banter and complicated beats.

If his style is too eclectic to easily define, his popularity isn't. Despite coming from a hip-culture that is often tough and macho, Taj has a charm and gentility that belies his talent. He can stand up alongside the rapper (Bram E. Gieben, himself no mean performer, said Taj 'is one of the UK's most respected beatboxers,' and that his sets are a 'technically audacious showcase that takes in everything from soul and house to dubstep.'

Taj's thoughts on Glasgow, however, help to clarify his influences. 'I feel that my whole beatbox style is influenced by Glasgow,' he says. 'When I look back to when I started beatboxing all I ever listened to was hip hop: the gigs I went to were hip hop, those nights were bigger than Drum and Bass nights.' 

He sees this as a stark contrast to other people working in similar areas.  'If you look at the London beatboxers, they had a more mixed style - like Grime, DnB and hip hop.  Those were the styles that were popular down there, but those genres to me were not as accessible in Glasgow. My style was then moulded by the sounds I heard around me.'

Despite his ubiquity in the performance scene - and in working with young people (again, his time with Ankur) - he clearly feels a strong connection to other Scottish rappers. 'I think most of us in the hip hop scene share the same passion and goals as each other,' he notes, before reflecting on how that impacted on their national presence. 'It used to be quite difficult for scottish rappers to make a mark due to the accent. I feel this has changed lately, but we had to put in more work to get us heard. That is what links us all.'

Nevertheless, when pushed to define his art, Taj describes it in terms that go beyond any particular genre: 'I'm always looking for that something that leaves people in awe, something that breaks down barriers and also opens eyes and ears. Something educational and fun, a different perspective.'

The Glasgow School XIV: question two

The second question is a little more about possible connections between artists. Affinity could be read as sympathy, or a shared ethos. 

Question 2:

Can you name any other Glasgow-based artists with whom you feel an affinity? 

What shared characteristics do you have with them?

The Glasgow School, unlucky for some XIII: the questions.

At the suggestion of a certain Kenneth Davidson - a man who not only made some of the theatre that currently adorns my wonderwall - I am going to make my questions public. I'll do it one question per blog post, so that specific questions can have their own discussion forums.









This works because I do want my process to be transparent - and if my assumptions are blunt, stupid or prescriptive, I know I shall be told. I also think this will give a chance for people to answer who might not have otherwise been involved.

Question Number One:

Are there any aspects of your own work or practice that you feel are defined by Glasgow? 

If so, what are they and how would you describe Glasgow's influence?

Notes: 'your own work or practice' can mean any level of engagement with performance - from working the box office, through administration, to writing, producing and directing an eight hour long version of Shakespeare. 

Living in Glasgow is not a necessity to answer, although having some relationship to the city is.

If the answer to the question is 'no,' an alternative influence would be interesting to have named.

The Glasgow School XII: Into the breach once more...

This stage of the process, despite all efforts to the contrary, has become a little introspective and self-reflective. I've been cutting and pasting my old articles from The Skinny - primarily to remind myself what I have said in the past. Between flinching at the prose faux-pas of my younger self (although maybe the review full of short, simple sentences was an attempt to reflect the feel of a particular production), I am amazed at the volume of my writing.

If any publishers are reading, I'm pretty sure there's enough for an anthology. I reckon it would be really cool if we got artists to respond to some of them, too.

At this point, I have a set of great answers, some interesting replies of dissent, and no clear idea of whether a 'Glasgow School' or style can be defined. I have tried to keep my hunches about performance on the West Coast quiet - so as not to infect the replies to my survey - but the questions, inevitably, are defined by my assumptions. Even if the main assumption is 'oh hell, I have to write about something....'

I can't say whether it is unique to Glasgow, but there is a spirit of generosity that clearly drives the city's artists. Even people who are not involved have been supportive and helpful. Sometimes, the positive refusal is as useful as answering my questions, since it throws up the problems of my methodology, and identifies dangers in both academic and critical processes.

The Glasgow School: A summary so Far and Invitation

Any good ideas that I have are either stolen from other people (thanks, William Burroughs) or involve other people. Opening up my survey of Glasgow performance was one of my best.

So far, the first wave of survey questions have gone out, and the replies are coming back in. To recap: I am writing a long essay (tentatively titled The Glasgow School but set for revision) about whether it is possible to identify a particular Glasgow aesthetic. The methodology has been mentioned on this blog, and extracts of the work in progress have been published online.

The big idea is to make the project 'open sourced': anyone who feels that they are a stakeholder in Glasgow's performance communities is welcome to comment - and answer the five questions that will form my analysis of the scenes.

The answers that I have received so far are amazing: big names in the world of the theatre, emerging artists, friends of mine, writers and educators have all got involved. I have been challenged and impressed, and the mosaic of ideas that I hope to design will sparkle with their wit and intelligence.

This is a special appeal though: the engagement the community is supposed to be 'self-selective': that is, I don't want to bother too many people, I would like people to propose themselves. If you are reading this, and you haven't been invited already - or sent the amazingly long and detailed email, with its very easy questions at the end of all the justification - then get in touch.

thevilearts@gmail.com


The reason for making this invitation so open is to get a random sample of 'stakeholders' in the arts to reply (if I just picked out some names, the bias would be towards my favoured styles), but also to limit the exclusion of individuals. I shall take everyone's opinion into account, assuming that they give me some answers by next week sometime.


Whatever answers I come up with  - and there will be some grand theory - they will be provisional This survey is the start of a debate... it sets out some ground and hopes that it will be fertile. However, getting involved as this stage leads to bragging rights, and the right to critique the critic.

(As a side-note, I am coming out about my inability to remember names... I have this thing I am trying to get diagnosed. My entire personality has been shaped by hiding this... anyway. It means that I miss people off lists and stuff. So no-one is being excluded on purpose if I haven't got in touch. It just means I had one of my moments when I thought of you, and recited your career and physical appearance but the name was just past me...)

The Glasgow School: The artists reply iii: Harry Giles (part1)

Harry Giles is all right by me. He is one of the master-minds behind the Anatomy nights at Summerhall-  a post-modern spin on old school vaudeville variety. He has presented some small scale, intimate works, including one on debt at The Arches. 

While he is based in Edinburgh, he has been part of enough Glasgow-based festivals that he is a stake-holder in the West Coast scenes - and I am sure, as a positive anti-capitalist, he'll be delighted that I am using such a business orientated description.

'I'm not by any technical definition a Glasgow artist. I trained in London and I live and work in Edinburgh. I came from theatre and performance poetry, rather than live art or contemporary performance (CPP). But with each year that goes by I become further away from theatre and poetry and closer to being a performance artist, and I think that's largely due to the aesthetic gravitational pull of Glasgow.'

I think Harry has demonstrated why I wanted his opinions: he has noted that Glasgow is known for a certain sort of work ('performance art') and recognises that it influences beyond the geographical boundaries. 

'I think of Glasgow as the UK centre of what I do. Not London, and certainly not Edinburgh, but Glasgow. For at least two years I've talked about moving through, but I haven't done it yet; if I go to another city, though, that's where I'll go. When I think about moving through to Glasgow, I think that I'll make more friends making similar work to me, get to see more work I'm interested in, and be closer to funding and other forms of support.'

This makes sense to me: having seen Harry, mostly as the MC at Anatomy, I can spot elements of the kind of performance art that is familiar from, say, The Arches Live festival. That is not to say he doesn't have his own identity as an MC. He does a nice balancing act between the sinister and the welcoming (the former more playful, the latter more... I was going to say sincere. Too much of a loaded term...)

'When I was training in London, I saw Nic Green's Trilogy at the BAC. It was the first performance work I saw which I felt changed everything for me -- before then my influences were books and texts and photographs. I saw in Nic's performance the ability to present oneself directly on the stage, in a way that seemed honest and connected the audience directly to the subject through the performer. I saw a way to combine politics and abstract aesthetics that I wanted to be part of. I saw a fragmented, non-narrative approach to work that made sense to me.'

Harry says a great deal more, but this is enough for one blog (he deserves two or three more, so keep reading). I know what he means about Nic Green's Trilogy. It has often been identified as a precursor to the rise of feminism theatre on the alternative circuit (making that claim would involve me either be Matt Truemann or actually knowing how present feminist work was before Trilogy). I do think it announced a certain style to the world, that political and aesthetic combination that defines somebutnotall Glasgow performance. 

A very Brief meditation on the methodology behind the Glasgow School

One of the theories I can understand, roughly, in Mark Fortier's concise and useful Theory/Theatre is Reader-Response. I gathered that it postulates that the reader (or in the case of theatre, the audience) are in a collaboration with the writer (the company) to forge the meaning of a text (the show). That was enough for me: it fits in with Red Bastard's bold statement that it is up the audience whether they have a good time.

The theory embraces, unlike many other worthy theories, the idea of radical subjectivity. A text is not fixed, as if by magic, into a singular meaning. Instead, it gets new meaning with every reader. Hans Robert Jauss (and again, I am referencing Fortier's book) examines how a work of art is interpreted in different ways in different periods.

For this project, I am tweaking the terms around a little: the audience is interested parties, the performance is everything that happens in a theatrical environment in Glasgow and environs.


Yes, I know that is going to need some definition. I can live with that. I just have to do it.

Anyway, my methodology is taken from that day Hendrix took lighter fluid to his guitar. I am throwing around ideas and seeing what happens with them. I have vague hopes that a certain kind of conversation will emerge, one in which critic and artist are happy to talk together, but I have no particular interest in the conclusions... that isn't true... I am disinterested, not uninterested.

I find reader-response theory exciting because it recognises the importance of the individual's experience surrounding the experience of an artwork, without slipping into 'whatever you think is okay' territory. It suggests that the critical process can be part of the art.

The Glasgow School: artists reply iii: Louise Quinn

photo credit: tommy ga ken wan

It is clearly not enough for A Band Called Quinn to have completed a successful run at the Edinburgh Fringe - and getting an enthusiastic review from The List's wonderful Lorna Irvine (a member of the Justice League of Critics and, therefore, to be trusted implicitly). Reworking a play about the oppressions of the theatre industry as a rumination on the inherent tyranny of the pop music machine was clearly too easy as well: Louise Quinn had time to respond to my questions about Glasgow performance that is a reminder of how involved the band have been in the inclusion of rock'n'roll on the stage.

Are there any aspects of your own work or practice that you feel are defined by Glasgow? If so, what are they and how would you describe Glasgow's influence?

I think the dark humour present in our work is definitely influenced by living & growing up in Glasgow. Fifteen years working for the late, great Ian Smith of Glasgow based surrealist interventionist company Mischief La bas has had a huge influence on our work. 

As this work goes on, there is going to be much consideration of Mr Smith's contribution. Thank you, Louise for being the first to mention him... given the sort of antics Mischief got up to, I ought to ask which costumes you ended up wearing....

Working for Mischief informed the creation of Club Tromolo; a night of wonky cabaret with a host of surreal characters including Jazz Badger (a badger playing Jazz) & The Govan Seer (a psychic from Govan). Diane Torr was a regular at Club Tromolo & we were introduced to Diane through her involvement with Mischief La bas. 

I used to go to Club Tromolo, and love it: I went because I had heard Diane Torr was involved, but after a night of fun  - including a set from the band and loads of mad antics - I was grumpy because I seemed to have missed Torr's act. Years later, when I became a critic, I got a picture of Torr as a male character, and realised that I had not missed the act but had been completely fooled by her male impersonation. Then I saw her do the banana dance in The Old Hairdresser's venue and my art crush was full blown...

 

Our 'training' with Mischief La bas also informed our music video collaborations with Uisdean Murray & the culmination of all the strands of our work in recent multimedia performance Biding Time (remix). Ian was a 'doer', not just a talker & we definitely inherited his 'just do it' attitude towards performance & creation.

Can you name any other Glasgow-based artists with whom you feel an affinity? What shared characteristics do you have with them?

I feel an affinity with Vanishing Point with whom we worked with on The Beggar's Opera. I think Vanishing Point are also greatly influenced by many cultural spheres outside of theatre & performance & strive to break theatre conventions. I also feel an affinity with the work of Eilidh Macaskill of Fish & Game, as a fellow female theatre maker & someone who is pushing the boundaries of what theatre & performance can be & finding different ways of engaging audiences.

If you had to describe Glaswegian performance in three sentences, or phrases, or even words... what would these be?

DIY, irreverent & self-effacing.


Are there any events or festivals throughout the year that you would say are influential in developing particular sorts of work? This could apply to both theatre and non-theatrical events.

Arches Live, Behaviour, Sonica, Glasgow Film festival...

This mix is what I am talking about: bit of music, bit of film, bit of theatre. 

How would you describe your own practice (as an artist or participant in the arts in whatever form)?

Multimedia meltdown...


Do you have any further thoughts on the relationship of the performance arts and Glasgow?


I think Glasgow has always been cooler, darker & edgier than most places. It knows itself & as a result has a self confidence & belief that can produce work with great swagger & down right cheekiness as well as having a big daft heart.

This is brilliant stuff: not only does it help me in my process, it provides a really good introduction to what A Band Called Quinn are doing. 'Work with great swagger and down right cheekiness' could describe Biding Time - although I hope that the 'big daft heart' wasn't what the rabbit was cooking at the end of the show....

Glasgow School: The artists reply ii: Harry Giles

Harry Giles replied to my last facebook post with a great question. He's an artist based in Edinburgh and frequently asks about politics in a way that warms my little anarchist soul. By getting involved in my survey, he has demonstrated  - for me at least - that my idea of making this process 'open source' was pretty smart, even if it risks annoying people by slamming my words onto their timeline. 

Harry said:


I'm not based in Glasgow, and didn't train there! But it is an influence on me. Do you want me to speak as a Scottish artist who's influenced by and often works in Glasgow?

This is an easy one to answer. Totally: that would be great. Since I usually bump into you at the Forest Cafe or cycling along the Royal Mile (or more excitingly, outside a booth labelled Peep Show  during Fringe 2013), I ought to have known this. But I want you in on this - you'll get labelled as an outside eye, I guess, which makes you like a dramaturg on my work. 

I think one question I'd have is whether there's a specifically Glasgow school, or whether it's more broadly a Scottish school. 

And this is a good point. The reason I am sticking to Glasgow is because it is almost manageable as a unit for discussion. I follow the school of thought that 'the text' is 'what the analyst is observing' and the only real job I have is to draw up some parameters. 

But you are asking whether any conclusions I might draw might express a Scottish identity as much as a specific west coast one. It might well do - and I hope this might provide a foundation for that sort of research.

Also, drawing connections and comparisons between Buzzcut in the west and Anatomy in the east could be pretty exciting, especially as we started at almost the same time.

It really is. I promise I shall get around to this, once this job is out of the way. Actually, Harry: that is a more interesting question than mine, because it is more clearly delineated and can cross several disciplines (economics, context, audience response, marketing (which we both love as protestin' types)) and lead to a more focussed survey. 

You ought to be doing a post-graduate dissertation, not me. 

Glasgow School: the artists reply i

Rosanna Hall is both a critic for Exeunt and one of the driving forces behind Newsboy, a night of DIY political theatre that had a residency at the Tron. She is also one of the first people to reply to my questions about Glasgow performance, which makes her an official VileArts favourite. And that's before she gets the props for a bunch of intelligent and thought provoking answers.

Newsboy  is a new addition to Glasgow's programme (at least relative to my time covering the scenes), but I have a suspicion that chimes with some of the qualities that might make up any definitions of the city's theatrical identity. Unashamedly political, it is an open forum - curated, but welcoming - for artists to try out ideas. It is one of those events that is hard to review: is it necessary to talk about the specific acts in a show, or ought the concept be the matter under consideration. Since it is a mash up of sketches and short plays - including the first example of Forum Theatre that I have seen in Glasgow - it is another important strand in the city's provision for works in progress. 

But here is the conversation, in full. It's an example of how I am going to be making burgers with some prime beef.

Vile limbers up with a deceptively dull question...
Are there any aspects of your own work or practice that you feel are defined by Glasgow? If so, what are they and how would you describe Glasgow's influence?

Glasgow audiences are often mixed in terms of the type of people you get in the door. This helped us at Newsboy to create a variety type show, which would hopefully have something for everyone. We found that audiences are very forgiving, and therefore the scratch-style of our show is allowed to work as more of an experiment than a finished/ closed off show. This draws on a legacy of Scottish political theatre tradition. 

And gets a smart answer - Newsboy is given a context and the idea of a political tradition is noted. A generous recognition of the audience's role, too - something too often ignored in critical analysis of an event's 'value' (star ratings).

Can you name any other Glasgow-based artists with whom you feel an affinity? What shared characteristics do you have with them?

A: I love the heart and head combination of Stef Smith's work, and the get-up-and-go philosophy of writer/performers such as Kieran Hurley. I believe I share the drive to get work out there as soon as makes sense to do so and see how it works in the living breathing space even if unfinished or imperfect. I love Jamie Wardrop's visual work and Rosana Cade. The culture of Glasgow having lots of free spaces and audiences willing to come to scratch nights facilitates this culture of shoving the shit out there and letting audiences suck it and see. 

Some interesting names mentioned there - they really ought to be part of this process. Stef Smith has a wide range of work, but she does scripts (although she has said that she likes letting directors run with the words). And Jamie Wardrop is a multi-skilled maker who did the visuals for Kieran Hurley's Beats and knows how to drop video into theatre.

If you had to describe Glaswegian performance in three sentences, or phrases, or even words... what would these be?


A: Raw, Brave and Unpretentious. 

The opposite of me, then.

Are there any events or festivals throughout the year that you would say are influential in developing particular sorts of work? This could apply to both theatre and non-theatrical events.

A: Festival events like Doune the Rabbit hole and cross- disciplinary places help fuse theatre/ performance with other forms. For example I am looking to do a digital storytelling project with a computer games designer and the audio-visual art at a festival inspired me into looking to do this. I've also been inspired by working extensively with youth theatre.


How would you describe your own practice (as an artist or participant in the arts in whatever form)?

A: A playwright, a maker, and a former critic/ cultural voice. 

A former critic? For shame!

This last question is my lazy bucket for anything the respondent fancies adding. Luckily, Rosanna is more engaged than I am...
Do you have any further thoughts on the relationship of the performance arts and Glasgow?


A: The performance art in Glasgow has always seemed to me a bit more closed off than the 'traditional' theatre world, and I am excited by makers who look to blur these divisions. Distinction has been made between writers and 'wrighters' who make work as one might wrought iron, crafting it like clay. We've run into problems unionising everyone because of this, as what a 'script' is becomes more and more unclear.


I would like to see the theatre world in Glasgow become more inclusive and more egalitarian. I feel there is not always enough critical responses to performance art, finding more critics who feel comfortable writing about this would stop this.

I don't even need to add anything to this - although it has me thinking, hard. I am going onto the porch to think a bit harder!

The Glasgow School XI: some questions

 Here we go, then. Hoping to get this lot deconstructed.....


The Glasgow School: what is it all about?

The research is an attempt to discover whether Glasgow performance can be said to share any particular concerns of style. Through email interviews with various creators and interested parties, the research will assess whether there is a continuity of approach or concern.

By answering these questions, you will become part of my wider survey, and your words will help me to develop an overview. Your opinions will be attributed to you, with some detail about your own practice – your work is an example of work made in Glasgow, and helps to clarify the scope and object of my analysis.

You will not be asked to make any critical comments on other artists, except in terms of positive influence or association.

This will be explored in any essay format, and statistical charts, using your words as part of the research – the conclusions will be mine, but your contribution will be fully acknowledged.

The final dissertation will be submitted to the University and available for future researchers. Your contribution, if you so desire, can be released as part of my blog as a mini-article. You are welcome to make use of my work in any way that is useful...

Are there any aspects of your own work or practice that you feel are defined by Glasgow? If so, what are they and how would you describe Glasgow's influence?

Can you name any other Glasgow-based artists with whom you feel an affinity? What shared characteristics do you have with them?

If you had to describe Glaswegian performance in three sentences, what would these be?

Are there any events or festivals throughout the year that you would say are influential in developing particular sorts of work? This could apply to both theatre and non-theatrical events.

The Glasgow School X: The Three Festivals

Again, these were tentative notes...

The three theatre festivals represent different strands of performance. The youngest, Buzzcut, is entering its third year, having been instituted as a response to the absence of New Territories, a festival that programmed high quality experimental performance. Founded in 2012 by Rosana Cade and Nick Anderson, Buzzcut has a mission statement that emphasises the creation of new spaces for performance and bring new audiences to live art. For 2014, it runs between 23^rd and 27^th April in The Pierce Institute (Govan).

In past years, it featured a mixture of local and national artists working in similar territory to The National Review of Live Art, which was held in Glasgow until 2010. Unlike the NRLA, it does not pay its artists, and has an open application process. Although the majority of performances are live art solos, it has included musicians (Glasgow experimentalists In Posterface in 2013), video game competitions (Thom Scullion) and readings from poets.

In its first year, Buzzcut was advertised in The Arches' season as part of Behaviour: although this was never a formal connection – it was independently curated – it emphasises the programmes' shared aesthetic. In 2014, Behaviour runs from March until May: in previous years, it has picked up on successes from the Edinburgh Fringe, supported new performance from emerging artists through its Platform 18 fund, offered international names – Ann Liv Young has been a regular visitor - and a season of 'auteurs' from the National Theatre of Scotland.

Behaviour, previously known as The Arches Theatre Festival, is curated by Jackie Wylie with the intention 'to create a platform for the best Scottish work and put that beside companies with international status.'

Mayfesto was founded in 2010 by the artistic director of the Tron, Andy Arnold, to 'connect the city's strong political traditions with its love of theatre. Now in its fourth year, it runs from 6 -31 May in 2014 and has a theme of 'post-colonial theatre,' and presents work in association with the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, which is also based in Glasgow.

Previous years have seen new plays from Scottish authors, including David Greig and Cora Bissett: Andy Arnold has directed several productions and while there are two available spaces in the building (a main auditorium and a studio space), the emphasis has been on scripted theatre.

Each festival has its peculiarities, most notably in venue choice. Buzzcut has moved to the Pierce Institute in Govan, an area not known for theatre and recognised as needing regeneration. The Arches, a converted series of tunnels beneath a railway station in the city centre, is a multi-arts venue, featuring gigs and clubs alongside theatre. The Tron, meanwhile, is a traditional theatre space in the city centre.

The Problem of the Question

The framing of the question – whether 'Glaswegian festivals' share not just a geographical location but also an aesthetic sensibility – is deliberately problematic. Discussing cultural homogeneity relies on the assumption that a culture can be broadly defined: in Scottish Drama and the Popular Tradition, Elizabeth MacLennan claims that 'Scotland is distinguished by its socialist, egalitarian tradition, its Labour history, its cultural cohesion' (ed. Stevenson and Wallace, 1996: p180), a generalisation neither supported by evidence nor easy to prove. As Wolfgang Iser (ed. Counsell and Wolf, 2001: p180) reminds, the impossibility of determining objective truth ensures that all analysis becomes an analysis of perceptions. The interrogation of the festivals' takes on Glaswegian identity will be based on the assumption that there is no final definition, but a series of interpretations that inform the programming, performances and reception of the festivals.