How Keanu Reeves Saved The World @ The Arches

Get slack and see the truth

I have a serious art-crush on Amanda Monfrooe. Not only does she share my fascination with the beautiful slacker who is often accused of underacting, she even parlays this obsession into a playful and heavy lecture on the flux of meaning in the post-modern universe. She might not avoid the easy jokes - yes, a block of wood does stand in for Keanu – but she refuses to dumb down her essential message. Ironically, this makes it tough going as part as Arches Live – a festival that has settled into a programme of new, tentative theatre – and a rare example of a show that I felt could have been spread more easily over a longer span.

Monfrooe's thesis is that the films of Keanu represent a consistent philosophy, that insist on a rejection of consumerist hegemony. The Matrix's blatant dualism between appearance and reality is the core text: Monfrooe goes onto identify the theme in his earlier works, and in his friendship with the more respected, probably because he is dead, River Phoenix.

The cod-academic rigour, not without its own humour, does drop back, with Monfrooe revealing her working process in a series of sketches, ably supported by a variety of masks (including Keanu's beautiful face) and performer Lottie Maslin-Prothero. The lectures are recited to the subtle drumming of Glynn Forrest, dragging the show out of the classroom and enthusing the speeches with a jazz beat poetry.

If the structure is uneven – the truth behind Keanu is revealed in something close to a rant, and a few scenes wander around unrelated ideas – How Keanu Reeves Saved The World is quite unlike anything else on the stage. Passionate, intelligent, it draws equally from puppetry and academia, takes a much maligned celebrity and battles to forge meaning in a society that is increasingly losing its faith and purpose.

Lest We Forget, eh?

Jackie Wylie of The Arches discusses the new programme for Behaviour, featuring new works by Gary McNair, Kieran Hurley, Rob Drummond and Nic Green

Although the transition from The Arches Theatre Festival into Behaviour has seen it expand past its original vision of a sudden burst of creativity into a longer season of intriguing performance on the boundaries of theatre, dance and live art, it remains the flagship brand for The Arches' distinctive identity. Now that the National Theatre of Scotland has become involved – showcasing their Auteurs' project – and off-site events are common (Brick Award winner #TORYCORE is visiting the Southside's Glad Cafe), The Arches' status as Glasgow's home of innovative theatre is clearly recognised.

The NTS Auteurs programme takes five emerging performers and supports them to create new work that follows on from their earlier successes, with four of the performers already enjoying strong associations with the venue (Gary McNair, Kieran Hurley and Nic Green are all previous winners of the Platform 18 award, an annual prize that encourages young artists to be more ambitious, while Rob Drummond knocked out his Wrestling there in 2011). 

"They are all also connected to the NTS," says Jackie Wylie, The Arches' artistic director. "When we selected the artists, one of the criteria was this connection: [artists who] have gone through their development programme but were a stage beyond that – beyond Platform 18 or Arches Live!

"These artists need a platform because they work with their own energy and determination," she continues. "There has been a change in the way that artists develop. The auteurs are capable of driving things forward - not necessarily all of the areas all of the time – but in an overlapping combination of areas." 

This independence, however, is not the only thing that they share. "I wonder if there is something about all of them starting with a conceptual spark," adds Wylie. "What is special about all of them is their ability to come up with original, pioneering ideas." These performances form the backbone of Behaviour, simultaneously expressing The Arches' committment to local artists and experimental techniques.

This combination of themes is supported in the two winners of this year's Platform 18 – Amanda Monfrooe and Peter McMaster. They come from very different backgrounds: Monfrooe is, amongst other things, a puppeteer and a prophet of enlightenment through post-modern pessimism, while McMaster is a graduate of The RCS and enjoys tinkering with classic texts – in this case Wuthering Heights – to examine assumptions about masculinty. And while they both grapple with serious topics – Monfrooe's Poke parallels the escalating sexual violence of the early twenty-first century and McMaster prods at the nature of men in feminist times – neither are afraid to entertain.

Looking across Behaviour, Wylie identifies the quality that makes the Arches' seasons distinctive. "A lot of the work is politicised, even if we define political in a broad way.#TORYCORE is Political with a big P, but something like Peggy Shaw is political with a small p. Both of the Platform 18 shows are looking at identity politics, gender in very specific contemporary frameworks."

This mixture, present in all of the Behaviour programme, from Gary McNair's look at standup comedy through to Taylor Mac's political songbook, encapsulates The Arches' attitude to the possibilities of performance.


Behaviour Festival, 3 Apr-11 May, various venues across Glasgow

http://www.thearches.co.uk/events/arts/behaviour-2013

Arch Angelism

It would be easier to slip into conspiracy thinking than to try to work out how The Arches ended up getting shut down. The conspiracies are knocking about - a vendetta by the police, G1 passing brown envelopes to the Council - but none of this helps. If the council are corrupt, if the police decided that they didn't like the kind of person who went clubbing/made Live Art under Glasgow Central, there is little that can be done, other than feeling even more alienated in a world of capital and back-room dealings.

The announcement that the Scottish Parliament intends to act is hardly encouraging: it was only yesterday that Patrick Harvey was asking his fellow Glasgow MSP why he was the singular voice shouting on behalf of the venue. And the emphasis on The Arches as an arts venue and not a club suggests that the division between clubbers and artists is going to be the path along which the space returns to existence.

The debate in Holyrood revealed a concern for the people who are losing their jobs - which is very important - but called upon the very people who have precipitated the closure (the police, Glasgow City Council) to get around a table and sort it all out. Like the petition aiming to reverse the original decision to remove the late licence, this offers a slim hope that an organisation which has already made a decision might be persuaded to change.

The Arches was a victim: of an attitude towards drug use that stresses criminality over health-care, and a council that hasn't yet seen the connection between an ecosystem of venues and Glasgow's viability as a home of culture. But as an isolated event within a continuum of policies, approaches and conflicts, it is going to be difficult to work out a resolution without discovering a new paradigm.

At the same time, it is important to remember what the fight is about: ultimately, is is a battle to ensure that a business remains open. The business has a model that is about more than just the money - although it is about making cash - and this kind of business is rare in today's post-consumer (or whatever it is called) society. 

Its philanthropic concerns - giving loot to artists - might not be on the level of those Victorians who built housing estates for their workers, or swimming pools (Govanhill Baths, anyone), but it is still a rare example of a capitalist enterprise that thinks beyond the bottom line.

Five Reasons to see STAND at The Arches

1. Chris Goode lives up to his name
His ancestors might have added an 'e', but Chris Goode's theatre work is both ethical and well-made. Previously, he took kids words and put them in the mouths of adults (Monkey Bars) and rocked the Fringe (Men in Cities). For STAND, he is doing that verbatim thing again, only this time it is the words of activists. 

2. You want to save The Arches
There has been a lot of chat about the importance of The Arches as a cultural centre, and how the loss of the late licence threatens the future of performance in Glasgow. It is one thing to sign a petition, but another thing to turn up on a Sunday night and watch a show. It takes a bit more effort, but an evening of theatre is more rewarding then putting a tick in a box.
Besides, seeing the show keeps The Arches going, and proves its importance.

3. Activism is cool
STAND is all about the actions of those willing to make a stand. It uses their words, and offers up a space for discussion about what it means to act on beliefs. Even if Goode ruins the script, there is plenty of content for political rumination - and Glasgow loves a bit of that chat.

4. It's Sunday night
What else are you doing? Apart from church or going to see Mad Max again? Visit The Arches, make Sunday special again.

5. Be part of a community
I think I ranted about community as the commodified version of 'being together', so call me a hypocrite. However, and this applies to any live event, getting out of the house and watching a show offers the chance for chat, a cheeky pint and a recognition that Glasgow is a great place to be.

Bonus: If you come because of this post and it's shit, I shall write a personal and public apology to you on this blog
Or you can ask me to write about any topic. This is a special, one-time only offer.

CHRIS GOODE & COMPANY and OXFORD PLAYHOUSE present STAND

“A theatre-maker who’s up there with the very best” Guardian on Chris Goode

Drawn from real life stories courage and conscience from ordinary people, STAND examines what makes people elect to take a stand for what they believe in. For STAND Chris Goode interviewed six ordinary people and captured stories of the extraordinary moments in everyday life that prove the power people have to change their corner of the world. 

They’re ideas about how we make for ourselves a better, more sustainable future; how we live more equitably alongside those with whom we share our planet; how we protect from harm the places that tell us who we are; how we build our families and communities and raise our kids to have an instinct for bravery and kindness. And, most importantly perhaps, how we keep moving forward in the face of greed and corruption, and our own doubt and fear.

Chris Goode & Company is a collaboration between lead artist Chris Goode, producer Ric Watts, writer and critic Maddy Costa, and a fluid evolving ensemble of makers, designers and performers with a group of associate artists at its core. 

The company’s principal aim is to make space for unheard voices. They do this by talking to ordinary people about their lives and involving people who don’t think of themselves as artists. 

They also recover and present lost or neglected work by artists whose lives and thoughts have led them to be marginalised or overlooked and create bold original work that represents queer, dissident, and politically nonconformist perspectives.



Chris Goode is a writer, director, performer and sound designer, whose work has included four Fringe First award-winning shows: Neutrino (with Unlimited Theatre at Soho Theatre and on international tour), and Kiss of Life (Pleasance, Edinburgh and Drill Hall, London), which in 2007 traveled to Sydney Opera House as part of the Sydney International Festival, Monkey Bars (Traverse Theatre) and Men in the Cities (Traverse Theatre). 

In 2008 he won the inaugural Headlong / Gate New Directions Award for his production Sisters at the Gate Theatre. More recently he was part of the international touring cast of Tim Crouch’s controversial and acclaimed play The Author, winner of the John Whiting Award and a Total Theatre Award for Innovation.

THE ARCHES GRANTED ADVANCE

THE ARCHES GRANTED ADVANCE ON AGREED FUNDING FROM CREATIVE SCOTLAND AND GLASGOW CITY COUNCIL

Appeal against Licensing Board decision confirmed


The Arches met with stakeholders Creative Scotland and senior city officials yesterday (Tuesday May 26) to explore a number of possible avenues for the continuation of the venue’s cultural programmes and activity, following Glasgow Licensing Board’s recent decision to curtail its licensed hours.


Creative Scotland and Glasgow City Council have now agreed to provide an advance on their agreed 2015-16 funding to support The Arches in delivering its current programme in the short-term, and in gaining specialist advice to enable it to properly consider all future options.



At the same meeting, The Board of Directors for The Arches decided that, following legal advice, the venue will proceed with an appeal against the Licensing Board’s limiting of the venue to a midnight licence – a decision which would effectively close its club and have a devastating effect on its future as a cultural centre.



Lucy Mason, Artistic Director, and Mark Anderson, Executive Director of The Arches said: “The Board of The Arches is grateful for and has agreed to the funding package offered by Creative Scotland and Glasgow City Council, which provides for stability in the short-term as we look to find a more permanent solution in the weeks to come.”



“At the same time, having taken appropriate legal advice, we believe there are grounds to appeal the decision of the Licensing Board and will now proceed on that basis.”



All scheduled arts events between now and the end of June will go ahead as planned with club events moved to alternative venues.

Wed 3 – Fri 5 June: On The Verge 2015

Thu 4 – Sun 21 June: Being Human

Sat 6 June: The Big Glasgow Comic & Craft Fair

Sun 7 June: STAND

The following events have changed venue:

Fri 19 June: Deviation: Benji B & Kenny Dope – Now at La Cheetah

Fri 26 June: Nervo – Now at O2 Academy

Sat 17 Oct: From The Jam – Now at SWG3

Big-headed Idiot Critic Gets It Wrong.

The reader of my previous blogs on the revocation of The Arches' late licence will be aware that I considered its importance as an arts venue to be of little relevance to its potential defense.

And yet, an SNP chap has put this up on his Facebook feed:

A number of constituents have been in touch about the future of the Arches in the city centre. Removal of the late license may have an impact on the overall income stream for the venue and may limit its ability to operate as a daytime venue. Over the years, the Arches has become established as a focal point for creative arts in Glasgow, and is an asset to the wider city centre area.

Along with other SNP MP colleagues in the city, I've written to the City Council asking whether it would be prepared to work with the venue to identify alternative funding streams or options that may allow it to continue to operate, with or without a reinstated late license.

We've also asked what, if any, routes exist for the license holders to appeal the decision of the Licensing Board, and what steps the Council is taking to ensure that all venues covered by its licenses continue to take a zero-tolerance approach to the misuse of drugs and illegal substances.

Well, Patrick Grady is officially 'alright by me', and he totally disproves my belief that emphasising the arts is not an effective strategy. He is clearly using a two pronged attack to support The Arches.

First of all, he is looking for ways for the theatre and art activities to survive (alternative funding streams) - and if that involves Glasgow Life having to dip their hand into their pocket, they might well reconsider...

He is also hinting at the worry that The Arches has been the target of unfair policing: what steps the Council is taking to ensure that all venues covered by its licenses continue to take a zero-tolerance approach to the misuse of drugs and illegal substances.

Of course, zero-tolerance is not something I approve: a more mature attitude towards drug use and misuse has been a necessity for years. But I get where this might go, forcing the police to reveal whether they have, indeed, had a bug up their panda car about this particular club. 

Arches Round Up!

This is going to run and run.

Further to the removal of The Arches' late licence, Dr Iain McPhee of the University of West of Scotland, who specialises in policing and drugs laws, condemned the force for some of the conditions put on the club.

The report in The National (Scotland's independence supporting tabloid) relates that Dr McPhee has concluded that the police are acting unfairly. A source within The Arches (anonymous, of course) reckons they are more like a bunch of gangsters.

“It’s been a sustained campaign against The Arches – and, I suppose, what it symbolises, you know? A pretty renegade, two-fingers-in-the-air sort of venue.”

The accusation of acting like a racket was backed up by McPhee. “In a free and fair society, Police Scotland should not be operating like an illegal protection racket,” he said.

For libertarians, and Robert Anton Wilson, the police are always a gangsters (the state is the biggest robber baron in history): while the suggestion that The Arches is 'pretty renegade' is weak - it's not an illegal shebeen, and electronic dance music is hardly an underground phenomena in 2015 - the possibility that the police have been trying to muscle in on the financial action is... if not yet persuasive, the closest thing so far at an attempt to analyse the meaning of the removal.

At this point, I am far less interested in the catastrophic loss to Scotland's arts scene - although I recognise that this is a concern - than what the process is revealing about the behaviour of the state. 

Freedom to Dance?

If I can just get my teeth back in, I'll say something about The Arches.

Back when I was a lad, I used to like to go raving. I didn't take the ecstasy, I used to get very tired at about two in the morning, and wish that I could go home and have a sleep. I did like the music, though, and the dancing. If senility isn't set too deep, I have plenty of funny stories about my dancing days, that probably won't raise a laugh unless the listener was there with me.

Still, I can remember the cold, harsh wind of the Criminal Justice Bill, the massive ruckus whenever the police decided to 'contain' the protests and the sense of exclusion generated by a tame media that was describing me and my mates as drug-crazed degenerates. Sometimes, I refer to the rave era as 'a revolution that failed' and imagine that I am some Che Guevara character in defeat, trying to recapture the excitement of those early warehouse parties, when I did the running man to put the world to rights.

And like many of my contemporaries who park up the zimmer frames and limp sadly into clubs, I reckon the spirit has gone out of the scene. But that is because I am old, the beautiful women ignore me and they don't serve vintage whisky at the bar. If I don't feel like a revolutionary anymore, that is hardly the fault of the DJ.

Where was I? Just let me take my medication...

Right, yes: clubbing was a political action. There was plenty of chat about equality, about music that bought together the gay and the straight, the black and the white, the rich, the poor, the rural and the urban. Of course most of it was chat, and the egalitarian ambitions of raving soon divided into the sectarian genres of garage, drum'n'bass, old school and so on and so on. But once the press got over-excited about the thought of young people having a laugh, the very act of turning up and throwing a few shapes became dangerous. 

I haven't got into the reasons for The Arches' loss of licence yet: I have a vague suspicion that the Glasgow Police Force has had a bit of a hard-on for getting it shut of late, and there are a few entertaining, if unlikely, conspiracy theories going about. But this is a howl of rage, and disappointment until I can become more articulate about it.

I can't help thinking that dancing is still something that frightens the forces of Law and Order, and that there is a political agenda behind the activities of the GPF.  I am going to investigate this, just as soon as I've had my afternoon nap.

Queer Futures @ The Arches

Early Days (Of a Better Nation) @ The Arches

I had to have the last word.

Early Days is not a play: it is a big role-playing game that gets the 'audience' to pretend that they are part of a 'unity' parliament, in the future, in the imaginary nation of Dacia. Divided into three competing groups, the 'audience' get to decide on the path that this country takes after a civil war. 

Quite who fought the civil war is unclear - there was this nasty dictator who got kicked out, and a vague 'world government' is offering aid. But the main event consists of people having a good old shout at each other, with the 'actors' noticeable in their enthusiasm for antagonistic positions.

I think I got the last word: after we decided where we'd spend Dacia's resources, there were a series of questions, gauging how the event had been experienced. The final question - who is going to vote in the upcoming (real life) elections - led to me sitting all by myself as the only 'no'. So I got to explain why I was sitting on the opposite side of the room to an 'audience' who had been practicing their shouting for the previous two hours.

Apart from giving me the chance to voice my anarchist objections to representative democracy (it is a commodification of activism, actually), Early Days was all about presenting an experience: how would you behave if you were in a position of political responsibility?

Apparently, I'd sit about on my arse and watch other people shriek. 

Early Days, in spite of the second act, which is performed in darkness, and the bonhomie of the actors, is tremendously earnest. It's good fun if you like pretending to be the victim of a civil war, or voicing pseudo-feminist systems of hierarchy. It seems to intend to say something about the difficulties of resolving conflict, or maybe something about the economic foundations of civil society. 

Matt Trueman has plenty to say about it. I don't. It sets up a situation that may or may not reflect the reality of a post-civil war society, encourages the audience to pretend that they have a stake in something, and asks the kind of questions I would ask my standard grade students after a role-play session. 

I actually wonder whether turning a situation which has been fairly familiar over the past century into a board game for theatre students is immoral. Encouraging an empathetic understanding of civil strife seems like a good idea, but encouraging people to pretend they lost their kids in a famine leaves a bad taste. 

Dark Behaviour: Queer Futures

Denton and Me

Bodyhoods @ The Arches

If pedagogy is a vital root of the theatrical rhizome, then...

Sorry. I'll start that again.

If one of theatre's functions is to teach an audience, then Bodyhoods is a dynamic example of the form. Bel Jessica Pye attacks the easy identification of disability, repeatedly challenging the audience to spot her disability and recalling incidents in which disability is denied. A sneaky joke about the enthusiasm of the government to get people back to work aside, Bodyhoods homes in on the personal politics of disability, throwing in references to the gay ballroom scene, notions of authenticity and, since this is Live Art, some signifying nudity.

Pye never reveals her disability, but constantly questions notions of how disability is understood. Her 'realness' catwalk competitions takes its cues from the ballroom scene's obsession with 'passing' as straight: in a month when a major motion picture has an actor 'cripping up' to play physics brainiac Stephen Hawkings, her 'crip realness' cakewalk has a harsh, witty resonance. Throughout her performance, Pye presents the challenges of disability: not those caused by any physical problems, but by social stigma and prejudice.

With strong dramaturgical support, Bodyhoods could become a meditation on society's problems with the 'differently abled' that entertains, provokes and educates: there's an intelligent sensitivity and a dry humour that lifts the work beyond autobiographical musing or indulgent rhetoric. It challenges without compromise and balances personal passion and social critique in equal measures.

KAM-RI DANCE THEATRE: The Typist

Fatherland @ The Arches

It's tempting to describe any Nic Green performance as an event: after her Trilogy became a shining example of a new wave of feminist theatre that has emerged in the past five years, her influence on theatre in Glasgow - specifically on performance that tends towards live art - has been huge. Feminism, and redefining female nudity on stage, have been defining issues for much work that has come from the Royal Conservatoire, Green's alma mater and her approach, combining down-to-earth observations and an expansive, environment focussed philosophy is distinctive and accessible.

Certainly, this one-off presentation of Fatherland has attracted a large crowd and the enthusiastic applause reflects Green's popularity. 

However. Green does not seem to be chasing the grand statements that marked Trilogy: Fatherland is far more intimate, and short. With only a drum beat for backing - and a bagpipe solo in the finale - Green is alone on stage, in circle, reflecting on a single meeting with her biological father. She develops her fleeting memory of this experience into a wider meditation on Scotland (via a Scottish fling dance) as a fatherland, and evokes masculinity's tropes through a very smart suit and the chanting of the audience.

Green adapts the movements of the fling to her own body, building towards a finale that celebrates its energy power (arms held aloft, like The Monarch of the Glen's horns). Whether Green is evoking Scotland's landscape to become her father, or recognising that it has nurtured her as an artist in the way a father shapes a child, Fatherland  is a personal ritual, an artist testing what masculinity means for her - she removes the suit gradually, finding freedom from the constriction of shirt and trousers - and suggesting meaning in the traditional Scottish elements of dance and the whisky (free to the audience). 

The format, ironically, shies away from the big event or statement. Like Ron Athey, she confounds expectation and offers allusive references to grand ideas without settling on fixed meanings. For all the enthusiasm of the audience, it is an introduction to a conversation (designed to fit perfectly within a festival, short and pithy), to engage with other works, other ideas, a starting point rather than a conclusion.

Notes on Dowry @ The Arches

...a long veil which covers the female body but also connects us across a long room...

An uncovered female body, pale in the darkness of the room, beckons and entices. The passing of a yoke, both erotic and an exchange of power, becomes a symbol not just of marriage but more sensual unions.

We stand together, reflected in the mirror, as a couple.

I am given a chain which is both jewelry and a symbol of enslavement. I am adrift in a featureless room, floating through a sexual transaction.

The erotic is not the pornographic as the pornographic is sexuality

define by politics...

...politics being power relationships...

An immersive silence, as if these actions are too weighty for more words...

Play only possible when the political is excluded. Discuss.

Wait.

Revelation.

Body as commodity.

Innocence compelled.

Innocence and naivety discarded.

I am still thinking.

We are both yoked.

Yoked together by external forces.

Beyond our power.

Ritual is erotic, or at least...

physical, embodied.

Ron Athey @ The Arches (2)

Music Theatre Magic Moments

As a prelude to this week's Cryptic production These Delicate Things, I am mulling over some magical musical moments. In our conversation about his show, Josh Armstrong was sceptical about my claims that 'post-visual theatre is the next vital wave of performance' and polite enough not to punch me for confusing musical theatre (jazz hand, jukebox selections, maudlin sentimentality and hands-in-the-air triumphalism) and music theatre (carrying a message through the relationship between music and... theatre, and no jazz hands). So here are a few moments from the past year that exemplify how music can carry the meaning in a theatrical context.

Al Seed moves against the jazz (Oog @ The Arches)
Although I have mentioned Guy Veale's soundscape before, the particular moment when he drops Jean Goldkette and his Orchestra (1920s jazz action) into the mix is a devastating juxtaposition of the music's sensual optimism and AL Seed's character's desperate situation. Crackling and distant, Goldkette may sing of love but within Seed's survivalist drama, it becomes a harbinger of decay and despair.

David Pollock and Sita Pieraccini get busy (Make a Hoo @ The Arches)
Sita Pieraccini mostly abandoned words for this physical drama, but Pollock's score gave the work a tight, oppress focus. By framing her movements within an oppressive mesh of urban sound.

Ballet in Real Time (Still It Remains @ Tramway)

credit: Andrew Ross

It is no great surprise that an evening with Scottish Ballet would feature music as an essential part of the proceedings, but James Cousins' choreography had an almost unfashionably intimate relationship with the Kronos Quartet's Mugam Beyati Shiraz. An all female quartet are relocated from the stage into an imaginary and desolate and arid plain through the Quartet's evocation of the Middle East - yet are saved from a mere orientalist fantasy through the stringent strings and movements. 

Ron Athey, dating and me

TUE 11 + WED 12 NOV, 7.30PM

THE ARCHES
253 ARGYLE STREET, GLASGOW G2 8DL
Tel 0141 565 1000
Tickets £15 (£10 conc)



The fourth installation in the Incorruptible Flesh series, “Messianic Remains”, is a solo performance commissioned by Performance Studies international, debuting at Stanford University in June 2013. Returning to the laid-in-state-sexualized corpse scene presented as a static image in [Dissociative Sparkle], the messianic impulse/prophecy is activated. Dressed in vestmental finery, a funeral procession draws its pulse from Genet’s Our Lady of the Flowers, and Athey arises from the viewing into a walking meditation. As in earlier works in the series, Athey rides the grandiose myth of enlightenment that only the face of death may reveal.

The concept of the Incorruptible Flesh series took form a year before the three-therapy HIV drug treatment would give hope by halting the numbers of AIDS deaths. In a research residence at the CCA Glasgow in February 1996, Athey and collaborator, Lawrence Steger studied the lives of saints, the relics and in particular, the display of the ‘incorruptible’ bodies, most of which are wax sculptures with a corpse inside. Applying the status of ‘incorruptible’ upon their own dying HIV+ bodies, Athey and Steger wove solo actions into interactions – including “The Trojan Whore” which Athey performed at the memorials for Leigh Bowery in 1998. 

 The final action in the piece contained the image of the living corpse on display: Athey laid out on a simple plank, tended to by Steger (with monstrous special affects makeup suggesting decomposing). The live AIDS body, on-display, anointed (greased), bathed in golden light marked the glorification of the live AIDS body, which in future performances in the series, “Dissociative Sparkle” and “Perpetual Wound”, became the more esoteric post-AIDS body. Lawrence Steger died in February 1999.

“Dissociative Sparkle” was performed in February 2006, exactly 10 years later, for the National Review of Live Art in Glasgow and was later repeated at Artists Space in NYC . Athey presented his first durational piece – a 6 hour solo performance. Honouring the anniversary of his collaboration with/and the loss of Steger, Athey used the static, martyred image of his body, suffering on a rack. The audience were allowed to take the role of Steger and anoint Athey’s body in grease. As in “The Trojan Whore”, the body was enhanced; tortured, but not vulnerable. Invaded by hooks, bat and rack, his skin was bronzed and shining, genitals inflated to grotesque size with medical saline.

For “Perpetual Wound”, 2007, Athey worked in collaboration with a younger artist, Dominic Johnson, and focused on this trans-generational relationship mythologically, characterizing Sophocles’ pairing of Philoctetes and Neoptolemus. Philoctetes (Athey), in exile for possessing a stinking weeping wound that would not heal, was seduced by Neoptolemus (Johnson) into returning to battle and directions to receive healing. This reality comes to fruition during the start of a dance, wherein a sheet of glass on a stand is used as a prophylaxis, protecting the younger man from the shared wound.