Dashing Dramaturgy: Jenna Watt explains how...

Jenna Watt presents

How You Gonna Live Your Dash

A co-production with Platform & in association with Showroom

The latest thought provoking production from Jenna Watt, one of Scotland’s most visionary theatre makers. Following on from her award-winning production Flâneurs, this shattering piece explores the life-altering decisions we make in order to get the most out of our time on earth.

Based on real life testimonies and featuring beautiful pyrotechnic effects, this epic performance looks at the moment people choose to detonate their own lives, the smokey fall out and how they piece together a new future.

From giving up a high-flying career, confronting an addiction and dropping it all to move to a new continent, How You Gonna Live Your Dash looks at how people live their lives and the momentous decisions they make.

A departure from her solo work, How You Gonna Live Your Dash is a two hander performed by Jenna Watt and Ashley Smith (Scot Squad, Butterfly, Uncle Varik, The Sash). Pyrotechnics play a significant role in the production and are fired by Jenna and Ashley as part of the show.

Where did the process for Dash begin for you?
It began one afternoon about three years ago when I watched Werner Herzog's documentary Into the Abyss.  It was here that I first heard the phrase 'how you gonna live your dash' and within the context of the documentary, and at that point in my life it felt very pertinent.  I remember quickly scribbling the phrase down on a post it and putting it on my wall, and thinking that's my next performance work.


Would you describe your work as within any particular tradition - or are there artists you recognise as working in similar areas?
I would describe it as contemporary performance with a live art influence.  My works tend to start out life as pieces of live art before they're shaped into works of contemporary performance for theatre spaces.


What kind of response are you hoping to get from the audience?
A contemplative one.


And are there any particular strategies that you have used towards this end?
Our pyrotechnic effects have a particular quality that allow space for an audience to be reflective.


Is Dash  typical of the way that you make work?
In some respects, for example it's previously been staged as a live art installation at Buzzcut Festival and I've worked with a dramaturg.  However, this project has received support from Creative Scotland in its development and production, which has made the making of the performance quite different. It's allowed me to surround myself with a supportive team, and open up my practice to more collaborators, which I've really enjoyed.


How far does the content of Dash  determine the performance format?
I would say the aesthetic of the smoke effects has determined more of the performance format than anything else, because I knew before I'd finished writing the show what it would look like visually.  

So much of the performance format has been influenced by how to frame the pyro effects.

What made you feel that performance was a good medium for your art?
It's live.

Jenna Watt is an award-winning writer and theatre maker based in Glasgow. Jenna is best known for creating work that explores socio-political issues using real life testimonies as source material. Jenna’s work includes: Remote by Stef Smith (Macrobert Young Company/National Theatre Connections), Parents Be Like (Macrobert Young Company), Flâneurs (co-production with Capital Arts), It’s Okay It’s Only Temporary and Little Vikings Are Never Lost.

In 2012, Jenna was awarded a Scotsman Fringe First for her production Flâneurs during the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, it then toured around the UK in 2012 and 2013.


In 2015, Jenna was awarded a Flying Solo Award from Contact, Manchester and is currently on an artist attachment with the National Theatre of Scotland to make a new work about Faslane in summer 2016.

Which one will you pick?

So - I am in a foul mood. My belated enthusiasm for football has me on an emotional roller-coaster, and the comprehensive defeat by Peterborough of Watford has me in a very bad temper. It makes a nice change from the anger that I feel about my personal failures, I suppose. At least when the Hornets get drubbed, I don't blame myself.

However loud I shout, the team won't hear me in the south of England. Instead, I'll find something else to complain about...

One of the things that has preoccupied me as a critic is the idea of the curator as an artist: manipulate, Arika, Svend Brown with Minimal. Simon Reynolds suggests that this is a very contemporary response to art: in the mood of the internet, it becomes collation rather than creation that is the focus of artistry.

And I have been positive about this development. Taste, determination, the ability to see connections between disparate artists: the curator does need a skill set that could probably be taught in an art school. But let me add another quality, something from the stock of the comedian: timing. It would be wonderful if the audience weren't forced to pick between events.

For fans of music outside of the mainstream, here's the choice for next week: first up we have Outskirts. It might be a little old school - having a band at the top of the bill and all- but it is at Platform, meaning that there's a chance for a swim if anyone turns up early and it features two artists - Xana Marwick and Greig Sinclair - who get into the music/live art cross over action.

Second choice: Freedom is a constant struggle, from Arika, at Tramway. I have quite a bit to say about that, and look out for updates in the coming days...  however, this ought to appeal to anyone who likes chat as much as music: Arika are all about the dialectic.

Third choice is at The City Halls. A special mention must go out to UNESCO, city of music. They have a lovely website that tells you all about the events in Glasgow without mentioning their own weekend of Man and Machine. Being disconsolate that Watford only managed to pull back two goals towards the end of the match, I am just going to cut and paste the press release...

Robots and Space

Fri 19 April, 7:30pm

Glasgow Royal Concert Hall, Main Auditorium
The amazing M&M robot orchestra from Gent fills the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall auditorium with its magical offering of musicality and machinery. Musicians interact with the machines – part techno magic, part steampunk fantasy – to create a moving and theatrical performance.

Andrea Sartori (from Bologna) makes music characterized by fine grooves, evocative moods, humid reverbs and hypnotic synth patterns. The grand finale is Volkwerk Folleto, again form Bologna: audio visual fantasists with a lyrical edge.

Please note there is nudity at this performance.





Man High and OdeusSat 20 April, 7pm
City Halls, Recital Room/Old Fruitmarket

Man High brings together live and electronic music with spectacular live manipulation of visuals to pay tribute to a pioneer of the space age, Joe Kittinger. In 1960, Kittinger set the record for the longest skydive, from a height greater than 31 kilometres. He recently hit the headlines again for helping Felix Baumgartner break this skydiving record.

A club night of outstanding sound and vision from across Europe and a rare gathering of digital artists, innovators, visionaries and mavericks. Odeus, a digital ‘orchestra’ from Seville fill the Recital Room with ravishing cinematic soundscapes using the latest technology.

Part of Man and Machines: UNESCO Music Days in Glasgow.



I take one weekend off and miss three things that would have excited, intrigued and fascinated me. I guess there are three workshops on being a curator. The "what" you put on is sorted, and the "where" (all the venues are worth a visit on their own, let alone when packed with happenings). It's just the "when" that needs some work - a date without competing events is a good idea: all three of these events will be of interest to similar audiences...

TORQUE and LUTES

INNOATIVE NEW PERFORMANCE EXPLORES THE ELUSIVE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEEN ART AND SCIENCE
It is choreographed by the mischievous Caroline Bowditch. It is designed by the mighty Brian Hartley. She revolutionised Scottish Dance Theatre's attitude to inclusive performance: he worked with me at the IETM. Add in Pippa Murphy on composition duties, a scientist and workshops aimed at school children's attitude to energy, and Paragon have made another boundary booting bonanza. 

Torque is about wind power. “The relationship between art and science is often overlooked; they are considered quite separate from one another," says producer Ninian Perry. But wind turbines are changing the landscape, acting like kinetic statues as well as power stations.

PLATFORM THEATRE, EASTERHOUSE, GLASGOW

WEDNESDAY 13 MARCH 7.00PM

THURSDAY 14 MARCH 7.00PM

Moving back in to the city centre, Vile Arts favourites The One Ensemble are going to be at Nice'n' Sleazy on Friday. They are supporting composer and lutenist Jozef van Wissem who will hopefully rescue the lute from that disgrace that Sting inflicted on it a few years back. van Wissem is all about adapted the lute for the modern age - a bit of minimalism, a touch of improvisation - without messing about with the distinctive timbre of the old school instrument.

I am happy to stand up for the lute - John Downland did a few numbers on it back in the pre-classical era that make The Smiths sound like Girls Aloud, in terms of misery. Wissem has thrown down with Keiji Haino - extremely self-indulgent guitarist and startling creative vocalist, well-known to fans of Arika - and James Blackshaw. Less obscurely, he wrote some tunes for a medieval version of that Sims video game.

Besides, if he is rubbish, The One Ensemble are worth the entry alone.

Richard Youngs meets Vile...

Richard Youngs meets Vile by The Vile Arts on Mixcloud

Mixcloud Mania today... 

Love is be-Viled

Vile Meets Gerry Love by The Vile Arts on Mixcloud

I met Harry in the office. He taught me how to do this.

Welcome to the first Vile Blog/Mixcloud Mash up.

Platform Introduction

Since the festival begins on Friday evening, it's time to mention the mighty Eastern Promise festival at Platform, It's been running for about three years - a little research would clear that up - and is yet another example of how Platform is becoming one of the most forward thinking venues in Glasgow. It's a bit out of the way, but there is a bus running directly from Mono to Platform: the line-up over the two days includes local favourites and some more international names.

For some reason, I didn't realise that Richard Youngs is Glasgow based - it's probably because I first heard about his work in The Wire, so assumed he was working out of an obscure hipster enclave somewhere in the USA. There's a Vile Arts interview with him coming up on our Mixcloud, along with a chat to Gerry Love from Lightships. 

It was a real pleasure chatting to them in the studio - possibly because Youngs grew up in a similar part of the world to me and remembers the thrill of poking through the record racks in the local Our Price, and I can remember seeing Love in Teenage Fanclub back when I could convince myself that I was young and hip. But unlike me, both men reveal an enthusiasm for making music, a genuine interest in other artists and a mature perspective on how the industry and technology has changed in the past decade or so.

Platform, Friday 5 and Saturday 6 October