Anatomy: a tribute

ANATOMY

Somewhere between a variety show and a step up from scratch, we are looking for fearless proposals, 5-30 minutes in length, of things that can happen live in a room with an audience, regardless of trend, style, medium or solstice-based festival affiliation. Also, if you prefer, regardless of our theme. Our fabulous nonsense does not have to inform your proposal, but it can if you like.

ANATOMY is especially welcoming of artists from marginalised and disenfranchised groups, and artists who identify as disabled. If you feel you are often excluded from performance opportunities, we would like to include you and hear how we can do that better.

Please download this form and return, completed, as a single file (.doc .pdf .odt are all fine)

to anatomynight@gmail.com by Sunday 16th November 2014.

We welcome proposals in alternative formats if this is better for you; please contact us for details.

(original images by David Zellaby and Fredrik Matheson on Flickr; licensed and published with some rights reserved under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic)

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. 

ANATOMY #6 RUIN MACHINES

Being somewhat of a melancholic disposition, and finding myself still not in full possession of my facilities - although the letting of blood last night has restored a notion of my habitual vigour - the manner of the Anatomy happening has always filled me with a tremulous anticipation. It is not merely that I approve of the format - the hosts endeavour to create a vaudeville atmosphere that could be familiar to both pre- and post-apocalyptic audiences - but that it seems to be encouraging artists to step out of their comfort zones. Then, the latest evening has been entitle Ruin Machines, a nomenclature that suits the state of my physical shell at this time, more than previously.

ANATOMY #6
RUIN MACHINES
Saturday 28th September 2013
Summerhall, Edinburgh

Sortes Virgilianae  (Hope & Anchor) takes its cue from an ancient Roman tradition, which used Virgil's Aeneid to predict the future. Funnily enough, I used to encourage my students to do this when we were studying Aeneid VI - since it involves a trip to the Underworld, they discovered their future held all manner of tortures and torments. 

Hope and Anchor have some connection to a publishing house that makes rather charming, old fashioned pamphlets. Unfortunately, it is not clear quite how close this connection may be for, like the future itself and the words of the Sybil to Aeneas, their biography is written in allusive and obscure language. But they are using 'archaic technologies,' so they are well in with the theme of  clanking ruin machines. 

This could, of course, mean that they are getting out a couple of 303s and an 808 and are going to do a set of pumping Detroit techno. It's more likely that they are doing a live action print routine.  

Calum Macaskill is back again: having checked out the Minotaur, he's going for some hot action with another classical monster through 'projected media based physical theatre.' This time, it's the Cyclops - who also had a guest appearance in Virgil's Aeneid. Calum has most recently been seen shaking his bones at cabaret nights in both Glasgow and Edinburgh (he's a funky monster in tight trousers), and checking out Poundland to make a show at Arches Live. 

His particular set of skills - he can do the object manipulation, he's good with the animation technology and knows how to choreograph his movement - have seen him become one of the more intriguing cross-over artists in Scotland: he can cabaret and Live Art with equal understanding of both genres. A few years ago, he turned Doctor Faustus into a one man spectacle for the Fringe. He might even count as 'Visual Theatre,' the category that contains everything that is not about the script or the movement, but the powerful image.


Elsewhere on the blog, I am churning through a response to Ben Walters' intriguing analysis of the cabaret scene (he is drawing a line between the cabaret community and outsiders, coming in from 'the high arts,' before encouraging them to play nice). In this light, it is exciting that one of Glasgow's most well-known and successful burlesque performers is included in this line-up: Cat Aclysmic is offering Pandora ('Magical realism and circus aid the reinterpretation of a classic fable on discovery and redemption).

While the blurb doesn't give much clue as to the format of the piece, Cat Aclysmic has spent recent years adding to her expertise - she was always handy with the fire, and has been recently chucking in contact juggling. This might count as an example of what Walters explains as a willingness within cabaret to take risks, to expand theatrically: like MacAskill's forays into cabaret, this sees the cabaret scene take a walk into new territories. Undeniably fitting in with the atmosphere of ANATOMY, Pandora promises an appropriately gothic tale of mystery.


The Drone at Play (Harry Giles)

Giles is one of the minds behind ANATOMY, but he has previously offered advice on debt and served as MC for previous events. His vision of  the ruin machine may be contemporary, but involves lending a more emotional edge to a sadly maligned modern military mechanism.

A military unmanned aerial vehicle gets sad, goes shopping, tries to get away from it all and only finds herself. Poems, music and video: all drones.



Other acts also performing on the night

Memories of a Lullaby (Sáras Feijóo)

In a parallel country, I grew up.
During the nights, the sound of gun shots fights
were my lullaby.
No, it was not THE war.
No, it was not a war!
No, it is not THE war!
No, it is not a war!!!!
is this war?

During the days,
hurry up steps
looking around all the time…
That was my state.
Run
Run
Rum????
Yes please, a double on the rocks.



Black Onion (Shakti Gomez)


Black Onion is a piece that I made as a comment or statement of the constraints that I feel by different means and in different cultures. These constraints are visible or invisible rules that have a general acceptance in the culture where they are based, repressing women’s wide expression and female energy, and promoting gender dualism.









Kristin Rose

She was born with a magical voice and the ability to touch people through incredible vulnerability and uninhibited singing. Through her voice she expressed the vulnerability she felt towards life and through it, reached into the hearts of her audience.

What is it that we love about clowns? What is it that we love about great artists like Judy? – We all sometimes feel life is just too much to handle. We all have different escape routes, but when life sucks, we need to GET HAPPY!

This piece is a short exploration into the intimate and vulnerable soul of the artist through the songs and life of Judy Garland, clowning and the will to sing.



Rupture Therapy (Lewis Sherlock & co.)

The femdroids are rebelling. Built to clean and for sexual favours they've had enough of their male counterparts. They gather together and form parodies of men. They've just finished their latest therapy session and pirates was its theme. Prepare the leviathan, MAN the sails. Captain Rupture is coming.

PEEP/ANATOMY

I'll get around to making salacious comments about this later. In the meantime, another unedited press release which might be of interest to any performers....

PEEP/ANATOMY

…though keyholes of flesh…

Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2013, 7-9pm

Assembly at George Square Gardens

CALLOUT FOR PROPOSALS

ANATOMY is proud to announce a unique collaboration with Natural Shocks to curate a season of experimental performances inside PEEP, in George Square Gardens as part of Assembly’s Fringe programme.

PEEP is a brave new space: it was premiered at the Pleasance last year with a repertoire of theatre, but is expanding in 2013 to a full program of theatre, dance, cabaret, sound installation and live art. The audience are seated in private booths peeping on the unfolding show – but the artists can’t see them. It’s a peepshow, but definitely “not for the raincoat brigade” (The Guardian).

We are looking for exiting proposals of durational performances that capitalise on the venue’s unique spacing and connotations. Voyeurism, intimacy, the unseen, sex, gender, the body – we would actively encourage practitioners of all live art and performance to consider their discipline welcome and to engage with the space, theme and their own relation to the audience experience.

Accepted pieces may be programmed for 1-3 two hour slots over the course of August; please indicate in the form your interest in multiple performances, whether your work requires multiple performances to be fully played out, and what your availability is in August.

Entrance for each performance will be sold at £2 to encourage diverse audiences to sample PEEP; we anticipate high audience throughput, with audiences peeping in on just part of each performance, so proposals should keep this context in mind. Box office takings will be split 70/30 in the artist’s favour, net of all venue charges. Projected financial breakdowns are available on request.

Anatomy #5: No! Anything But That!

Despite his genial failure to be much of an ally on Avengers Alliance, I have a soft spot for the Live

Art stylings of Calum Macaskill. Last time that he did a turn at Anatomy, it was as part of a trio: this time, he's going solo. Quite what Moon Bridge is going to be, I cannot say (anything that is described as 'half vegetable, half creature, all madness' is either a critic or a character from HP Lovecraft's mythos). Given Macaskill's previous vaudeville acts, it'll be worth catching. 

Mind you, Anatomy is always worth a trip: nine acts at six pounds, it's probably the last event to offer value for money before the Fringe grinds into action. I am never quite sure what each turn is going to be like ('anti-circus'? 'performance film'?). That is part of the charm - the other part being seeing something really good, like a singing bumhole.

I could trade words with the press release, but maybe I should let it explain itself....

Roxy’s HensOliver Benton

A public pseudo-performance film following a hen-night-come-fertility-rite, heavy with ritual and superstitious behaviour; absurd, comical and perhaps a little sinister, we follow Roxy’s Hens around the city as they drink, flirt and invoke the old gods in an increasingly deranged and debauched Saturnalian celebration of sexuality, fertility and phallic symbolism, culminating with an offering to Mutunus Tutunus (the priapic deity of marriage) himself.

There really is a Roman god called Mutunus Tutunus, and he had a very interesting ritual. Even the Roman writers didn't mention him much, probably because describing his aspects would put most people off their dinner.

The TrickKat Borrowdale

There is no room for failure in the sharp-sequined arena of Cirque du Flambe! where bodies are finely-honed tools programmed to create the perfect illusion of non-humanness. So what will happen when the one thing the performer’s body was trained so hard to do just won’t work anymore? Can an audience ever really forgive a failure?

Alteration
Nina Falk

The film addresses the grey areas between medical and aesthetic modifications. How far can we go to create ourselves? When do I stop being me? Does it matter if the alterations are voluntary or not? How much can I change, alter and remove? Can I re-construct, de-construct, and even construct my own identity? This is all an underlying thread; is an artificial disfiguration and manipulation of ourselves now a part of our identity?

Pubic Hair Scarf and Matching Ear Muffs For Cindy (Or Similar Size) DollRebecca Green

The artist will knit a scarf and matching ear muffs out of her own pubic hair, suitable for a Cindy (or similar size) doll, and would like to offer it as a bingo prize at Anatomy 5.

The winner will be required to show that they own a suitable size doll in order to claim the prize, as Rebecca wouldn’t want to give it to any time wasters. You could bring your doll with you.

MargaretLauren Sarah Hayes and Marcin Pietruszewski

Margaret is marriage of modern computer techniques with intense analogue synthesizer. Margaret is an improvisation projected around the space, through an array of speakers. She appears in complete darkness, punctuated by flashes of light. Margaret is a collaboration between composer/performers Lauren Sarah Hayes (Scotland) and Marcin Pietruszewski (Poland).


Graceful WarriorCharlotte Jarvis

always a work in progress

Charlotte continues to explore movement, humanity, and the resonance of life…Graceful Warrior is a discovery of who and where we are today, in this very moment. To dance the truth, with love and freedom.

Gasmask GeishaLottie Kixx

Ms Kixx is a dark and decadent performance artist whose lyrical shows offer an indulgent mix of seductive music, impeccable choreography and exquisite style.

The Moon BridgeCalum Macaskill

The irresponsible whispers of the past unfold before you in gelatinous, muscular form. Half-vegetable, half-creature, all MADNESS.


Twitch
Sara Zaltash

A girl is caught in a trap, suspended high and recorded. She sings all the time as live crickets climb across her patterned skin. See her, hear her. 

Anatomy #5: No! Anything But That!
Friday 14th June, doors at7.45pm
Summerhall, Edinburgh,
£6

Three from the Inbox

So - new Anatomy Night ahead. It's episode four for the post-punk Live Art Vaudeville Jam, with a selection of artists from feminist film makers (Phoebe Cottam's Beautiful Art Feminist) through boylesque beauties (Tom Harlow, who is doing turn from his new one man show) to piano bashers (Will Pickvance hints that he might just be taking one apart, either literally or metaphorically).

The last time out was a grab bag of experiments, comic interludes and singing arses (literally not metaphorically): Oli Benton's short film Walk was a nasty flashback to those evenings out that never seem to end, while Eddy Dreadnaught did exactly what he promised by a dark pantomime singalong. Glasgow has traditionally had the edge on Edinburgh when it comes to the sort of antics Anatomy arranges, but Summerhall's surprising seasonal success suggests the east is encouraging eager experimentalists.  

ANATOMY #4:
Silence/Noise/Silence
Friday 8th March
7.45 – 11pm
Summerhall, Edinburgh

Getting back to No Mean City, The Common Guild takes a break from its excitement around Scotland's cheeky link to Venice to present an exhibition on The Foamy Saliva of a Horse. It's the first solo show in Scotland by New York's Carol Bove and is a remixed version of the installation she had at the 2011 Venice Biennale. 

As always, what looks like an interesting exhibition has a nice bit of International Art English to decode: here we go.

"Featuring a collection of found and hand-made objects, such as a piece of driftwood suspended in a polished bronze frame, the installation brings together seemingly random (and even contradictory) objects that, while natural in origin, call to mind the artifice of cultural value and meaning.

Bove presents each item in a way that heightens the potential symbolism of the disparate objects and the relationships between them. The meticulous composition highlights the cultural, spiritual, mystical and even psychological associations of each object, offering multi-layered meanings that operate on aesthetic and cultural levels.

Bove’s earlier works have included a number of socially significant texts and images that reference popular culture more explicitly. Spiritual guides that were popular in the 70s sit alongside images from the pages of Playboy magazines and art history books from a similar period, drawing parallels between potency of their content and their moment of currency."

To put it another way: juxtaposing objects with other, perhaps unexpected objects, can suggest associations that don't happen when the objects in question are in their usual environment. 

Carol Bove 'The Foamy Saliva of a Horse'

20 April to 29 June 2013
21 Woodlands Terrace, Glasgow, G3 6DF

Heading north, Bgroup are presenting a new show by Ben Wright at Aberdeen's The Lemon Tree. While this press release isn't so guilty of IAE, it's tough to work out what this will be like: "Just As We Are begins at walking pace and culminates in an invitation for audiences to consider joining the spectacular finale." 

Just As We Are
Thursday 28th March, 7pm
The Lemon Tree

Anatomy Number 4

Having finally made it to ANATOMY for their third edition - and enjoyed the mix of live art, comedy and film footage - I was considering what I can propose for their next edition. The theme is SILENCE / NOISE / SILENCE, it happens on Friday 8th March 2013 at the increasingly fashionable Summerhall, and by the time I came up with an idea (me being quiet, then shouting, then being quiet again), they'd announced the line up.

Making use of Summerhall's idiosyncratic space, an old lecture theatre that was once used for cutting up animals to teach young vets how to save them from sickness, Anatomy is one of the many nights that gives space to emerging artists - or veterans wanting to try something new - in a cabaret style format. The third edition was hosted by Ali Maloney and Harry Giles and was an intriguing mixture of electronic music (JL Williams and James Ironmonger as Opul), live art mayhem (Jamie Wardrop and Rebecca Morris), a dancer's bum (Uranus by Moreno Solinas) and film (Walk by Oli Benton and The Deadwood Stage). And, of course, a dark pantomime singalong from Eddy Dreadnought.

From first glance, the next programme is equally eclectic. Tom Harlow, who is a one man campaign to bring boylesque out of the sidelines: following the blazing charm of Cherry Loco, it seems Glasgow is becoming home to a more interesting male burlesque performer. Beautiful Art Feminist
by Phoebe Cottam is experimental cinema, while Will Pickvance is promising to do something interesting to a piano. 

This mixture of styles is both a throwback to the old music hall and a version of the way that the internet has begun to order content: it's also the best way to see new work, as everything rushes past and if one fails, the next may rescue the evening.


ANATOMY #4:

Silence/Noise/Silence

Friday 8th March
7.45 – 11pm
Summerhall, Edinburgh
£6

Anatomiser

My enthusiasm for Live Art and Performances Beyond Definition does not stop just because it is Christmas. Before I decide to celebrate the end of the world with Red Note, I'll be taking one last glance at Scotland's alternative theatre thanks to Anatomy, who are now offering their third edition.

Anatomy has based itself around similar ideas to the old National Review of Live Art: the vagueness of the genre allows anything to be included. There are films as well as performances, a spot of musical entertainment. There's a few familiar voices from the poetry scene and nearly half of the performers have been on my radio show at some point.

Here's the line-up, with added Vile commentary. 

Walk (Oli Benton)

Benton splits his time between making short, playful films and working on fashion and portrait photography. This one features a familiar journey from club to bar, with added cross country foot pain.

I’ll Be Home for Christmas: A Suicide Note (Victoria Bianchi)

Last seen at Arches Live promising to make a better go of it, Bianchi is worried about the end of the world and has decided to go first. Given that she recently admitted that she can't stick at anything, there's no need to worry that she'll be achieving her aim, but she might leave behind something that veers towards stand-up comedy.

The Snow Queen (Eddy Dreadnought)

Fresh from sharing a writing gig with other red headed artists, Dreadnought will sing a number from his pantomime, The Snow Queen. Expect something like the end of The Pavilion Pantomime, with more death and less Jim Davidson.

The Blood that Binds (Laura Edwards and Calum MacAskill, with Janine Fern)

Loop Theatre's Edwards and Fern team up with Radio Show regular, and sometime Faustus, MacAskill for a three way look at writhing and departure, reconnection and home. Insert gag about my usual Saturday night here.

Both Edwards and Fearn specialise in outreach through physical theatre, while MacAskill likes wearing big masks and horns. 

Scheduling Spontaneity (Rebecca Green)

Stole this from her website: rather like the sound of it. "She maintains a diverse practice, which is intimate and universal... a mixture of improvised surreal intentions, extraterrestrial dreaming pathos, willfully alluring insistent humour and a collision of empathic bewilderment amid a searing focus illuminating the natures of individual human interactions and relationships.  Scheduling Spontaneity seeks to establish connectivity through tokens of love, instinct and sentiment."

Walk the Line The Deadwood Stage (Charlie Murphy and friends)

A whole new breed of pantomime pony – to perform a series of guerilla dressage acts. Responding to formal equestrian disciplines and traditional British pageantry, these eccentric, home-made ponies turn some playful tricks and turns in some unusual places.

The Man in the Dress and The Principal Female Boy(Greg Sinclair)

Sinclair's recent Sonata For A Man and Boy was both charming and a fine example of how experimental music needn't involve boring boffins tweaking computer settings. A song, a laugh and an original take on the gender confusion of the English pantomime (because Scottish pantos don't have as much cross-dressing as I'd like).  Doubtless includes some hot cello rocking action.

Uranus
(Moreno Solinas)

Oh yes. Click on the link and some math rock kicks in. Solinas has worked with DV8 and promises "love and sex, need and fear, spirit and fluid." Sounds promising, but that title and that photo are not a good juxtaposition.  

Opul (JL Williams and James Iremonger)

Great former guests of the Radio Hour: it's poetry with added electronica. See - electronic music doesn't have to be all about boring old men twiddling with their knobs. Poetry with an edge, electronica with lyricism... sometimes rough and sometimes smooth but always experimental.

To Elucidate(Jamie Wardrop and Rebecca Morris)

They begged me not to give away what they have planned. I won't, but it is spectacular. 

There we have it: an afternoon of research and the best I could come up with is a pun about bums. However, Anatomy will be better than this... 

ANATOMY #3:pantomime.for.the.end.of.timeFriday 14th December7.30 – 11pmSummerhall, Edinburgh

Anatomy Seeks Artists, Vile Seeks Credit

It must have been Arches Live! 2011 when I predicted a future pantomime emerging from the grotesque cabaret of Ali Maloney. When the call-out for Anatomy's third Live Art inflected, cabaret style evening went out, I immediately contacted Maloney, claiming that this was my idea.

Here's the press release.




PANTOMIME FOR THE END OF TIME

Friday 14th December 2012
Summerhall, Edinburgh

CALL OUT FOR PERFORMANCE PROPOSALS

Following on from the sell-out successes of of ANATOMY #1 and #2, we are delighted to announce our return to a more regular spot. ANATOMY#3: PANTOMIME FOR THE END OF TIME is the first in a regular year-round programme of our spectacular performance variety.

A contemporary take on the music hall variety show, ANATOMY is a
platform for performance artists of all disciplines. Beyond scratch,
it creates a stage for risk-taking performance and breath-taking
theatrics in Edinburgh’s exciting new multi-arts venue, Summerhall,
within a historic anatomy lecture theatre.

ANATOMY seeks proposals from theatre practitioners, artists, dancers,
music makers and destroyers, sculptors, story tellers, film makers,
clowns, poets, photographers, mimes, installations, painters, weirdos
and burlesques; the abstract, the comical, the terrifying, the
sublime, the unfathomable, the beautiful, the life-changing and the
oddly mundane.

Proposals should be for pieces of 5-20 minutes in length.

There is, as the more eagle-eyed may have noticed, a vague theme for
ANATOMY #3. Celebrating both ‘the season’ and the pre-scheduled end of
all life and existence as we know it, we would welcome proposals
involving, responding to or becoming a PANTOMIME FOR THE END OF TIME.
This theme is loose and you are free to use it strictly, loosely or
not at all; adhering to the theme is not a deciding factor in
selection.


If ANATOMY is somewhere that you and your art belong, please download
an application form and return, completed, as a single file, by 9th November 2012 to:
anatomynight@edinburghpeergroup.com

Selected acts will have access to rehearsal space in the week before
the show, technical support, and a small expenses budget of £30.

For further information, please contact
anatomynight@edinburghpeergroup.com, or visit here
The deadline is Friday 09 November 2012 at 00:00.


Unfortunately, Maloney had, in fact, called his Ratcatcher "a dark pantomime" and I was simply stealing his idea. Artists can apply to perform without worrying that any profits made will be ending up in my pocket, and my lawyers won't be in touch. 

Anatomy @ Summerhall

Summerhall's campaign to become the most important venue in Scotland continues apace: not content with a successful Fringe - it ended up being the BBC's location of choice for serious cultural interviews, and had a really cool underground radio station in the old labs - it is presenting a programme of events throughout the year. Anatomy, which sold out in its first edition, returns for a second slot, and demonstrates that Edinburgh, contrary to expectation, does have an alternative performance scene that can, if not rival, at least challenge Glasgow's hegemony.

Co-director Harry Giles, who pointed out my political naiviety in a recent interview, is enthusiastic about round two. “Our first night proved that there’s a huge hunger for nights like this in Edinburgh – places where people can come to enjoy new and experimental work, and where artists can share strange and wonderful ideas." The line-up, which includes  live film soundtrack, nauseous puppetry, tender dance, dystopian crooning, barnacled storytelling, experimental theatre and visual art, touches most of the experimental bases and manages, in a single night, to argue for a lively aesthetic underground in a city better known for having bad public transport and one month of artistic excess against eleven of drought.

Like Arches Live!, Anatomy is best experienced as a whole: individual artists' work is juxtaposed to create an atmosphere of bold adventure: Jack Webb revisits the dancing persona that he has been evolving since his season at Dance Base in 2012 with GlitterGrid; Julien Longchamp and the Apostrophe Ensemble live score Fall of a Window Cleaner, via workshops with the AIC ensemble and Mr McFall's Chamber; Lewis Sherlock and Lisa Hayes prove that clowning can be for adults and contemporary through a variation of the classic joke set-up (one's a nuclear physicist, one's a Gothic mistress of darkness).

Anatomy is set somewhere between a scratch night - a night for untested work to receive a first go at an audience  - and a minifestival. What the artists share is a sensibility towards alternative versions of existing art-forms: Michelle Hannah may be a lounge singer but she is more interested in deconstructing her self than recommending the chef's special. Shambolica have recognised that not only is puppetry for adults, it can be used to be offensive and disorientate. And Oliver Benton, using film and Bakhtin's description of the town square as the model of an inclusive state, is acting the fool to King Commerce. Even storytelling gets a contemporary update, through Conrad and Willy Molleson.

Since Anatomy 1 sold out, there is clearly an audience for this kind of event in the capital: and when Michelle Hannah invokes the spirit of cabaret for her lounge routine, she is unconsciously identifying how Anatomy itself comes from the spirit of early twentieth century variety: not the predictable light entertainment beloved of television, or the increasingly mainstream vision of the neo-cabaret revival, but the tough, subversive wit of Weimar cabaret, or the riot-grrl ambitions of 1990s neo-burlesque.


ANATOMY #2: 28th September 2012, 7.30pm, £6