You Need Tough Love

Although Tough Love is on in Edinburgh, it has the sparky iconoclasm that Glasgow used to have, before the city council realised that art could be a tourist attraction. It takes its cues from the 'Scratch Night' (an event that features works in progress and theatre as it is being made), but curator Lewis Sherlock is going for a more... dynamic... audience engagement. 


19th March 7.30pm
Woodland Creatures, Leith Walk, Edinburgh.
Cost: Pay what you want.

Tough Love is a social event blended with an alternative Scratch Night. It offers a platform for performers and makers to try out new and risky ideas, with attendees deciding if they're worthy of attention.


Forget the formality, feedback and function of the ordinary scratch event. You need pay no heed if what happens is not of interest to you and are welcome to try an assortment of distractions for your pleasure. Our performers are self reliant risk takers who have applied for the chance of indifference. The feint hearted will not be accepted. They crave your Tough Love.

ACT INFO:


Voice Box Theatre

Escape from Wonderland

Trapped on the wrong side of the looking glass, Alice is desperate and determined to escape. This sick circus variety number will be shocking and might be offensive to some.

Voice Box Theatre has been providing beginner to professional support, training and performance opportunities to circus practitioners and performing artists since 2009. They are a multidisciplinary company, dedicated to creating experimental and challenging performances, along with having as much fun as possible. That said, this is not a typical example of their work and we expect to be surprised.


PUNCH'N'JUDYMANby Calum MacAskill

A durational walkabout-installation

performance exploring nostalgia and primal fears. Let the PUNCH'N'JUDYMAN bring back your childhood days of Summer... and despair.

Since graduating from the Adam Smith Physical Theatre Diploma course, he has also created and performed in many large costume solo performances at the Arches, Glasgow and Summerhall, Edinburgh, his most noteworthy to date being MINOTAUR/MONITOR which utilised a massive bull-head mask to explore mental/physical disability and emasculation through Greek myths.


Morsus
by David Gillan:

"Illusions commend themselves to us because they save us pain and allow us to enjoy pleasure instead. We must therefore accept it without complaint when they sometimes collide with a bit of reality against which they are dashed to pieces"

- Sigmund Freud

David Gillan is a performance maker and

designer who combines art and illusion to look at a plethora of social, philosophical and psychological issues.

David also works as a professional magician and is currently studying Contemporary Performance Practice at Glasgow's Royal Conservatoire.


'Who/Here' by Rebecca Green

Who/Here is an interactive performance poem based on a list of questions that the people in the room are invited to answer by raising their hand.


Finally, the work of Klaus Pinter in the form of activities to thoroughly distract you as an audience member- bringing subversive in a way that defies the usual art practice, Pinter brings you 'Project Dance.

Klaus Pinter, born in 1940 in Schärding / Upper Austria, was co-founder of the Haus-Rucker-Co. (Vienna, Dusseldorf) and Haus-Rucker-Inc. (NCY). After seven years of New York and perennial stays in Bonn and Belgrade Pinter lives in Vienna and Paris.

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

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

Nights at the Circus

The landscape of performance is changing. Back when I started The Vile Arts Radio Hour, most of my guests were firmly in one camp or another: here's the musician, next up, it's cabaret time, and we'll be joined later by a visual artist. Suddenly, I'm having guests who are working several angles. I mean, we invited Mark from Natalie Pryce on because his band had a new album out. A few weeks later, and they are putting on a variety evening.

I am not claiming that the Radio Hour has been instrumental in this shift towards eclecticism, only that it does suit the show's own short attention span. I shall point out that two of the artists on the bill for Nights At The Circus have already visited me at Subcity this year, and allow the reader to draw their own conclusion on whether the approach of Vile Arts is accurately reflecting this new wave of promoters and artists who are interested in crossing aesthetic boundaries.

In the meantime, let's cut to a shout out for Natalie Pryce. The album is a rough-edged take on the sinister blues that have served Nick Cave so well, given a punkier, youthful vitality, and the event on Thursday 18th October sees them line up alongside fellow creatives of a more DIY, visceral edge. The curation seems to have picked up on what the cabaret revival was always threatening - a genuinely diverse bunch of artists, united only in a broad enthusiasm for the darker side of human emotion.

Rather like Edinburgh's Kabarett, Nights at the Circus aims more for quality than uniformity: three bands (Pryce, the more traditional blues rock of Big Hogg and Dog Moon Howl), live art maverick and sometime Minotaur Calum MacAskill, Derek McLuckie turning out a spot of "short theatre" (last time out, I saw him in a genderqueer reading of Genet's The Maids, a dizzying slap at sexual and social power games), a couple of acrobats and burlesque from Miss Hell's Belle, who has been known to stray into Nick's dark Cave of erotic terror.

It's interesting to see how each of the acts can play off each other: burlesque's downfall was always the ubiquity of certain routines (the fan dance, the reverse striptease) appearing at every show, and rock gigs degenerated into bland rituals in around 1974. Poetry - here read by Claire Askew - is pulled out of its polite ghetto into Stereo's basement and MacAskill always brings the discomfort.

Vile Radio is back...

"Good to have you on board, Daphne," grinned Vile, leaning back in chair and swigged from a bottle of wine. "How long has it been since we worked together?"

Daphne grimaced. "Long enough for me to forget what working with you is like. When was the last time you tidied up this house?"

"I've been busy. I just asked Calum MacAskill if he could make it onto the show this week to talk about his show at Arches Live! That was intense, because he dresses up as a Minotaur."

Vile nervously adjusted a pile of CDs on his desk. "It's not a house, it's an independent media node. All this - disorder - is my exact filing system. Anyway, who do have lined up for me as guests this week?"

Handing Vile a file of immaculately typed papers, Daphne sniggered. "Here. No excuse for no research this time. We are starting off with Gillian Gourlay. She's the Head of Outreach at the National Theatre of Scotland."

"Nice start - got any more from the national companies?"

"Ronan Busfield is coming in at the back of seven. He's one of the rising stars of Scottish Opera. Do you have that CD of La Traviata handy? He's touring in that this month."

Vile flicked lazily through the file. "I see that the Opera are doing a special offer - "

"Don't read it out in the preview. Try and give your audience a reason to listen in. Apart from the guests. because they surely don't tune in toy hear your opinions."

"Well, I have got plenty of them."

"Thanks to me, you've got plenty of guests. Niall Morris said he'd nip in and chat about Subcity and their big event at Le Chambre."

"I can't believe you've invited the boss of the station... he might listen to the show. When he hears it, I'll be off the air in a fortnight. Why did I ever employ you?"

"So that you could spend more time with your bitterness and sense of entitlement. Someone has to remember to remind you to turn the volume up... and text Fielding Hope and beg him to bring along some music."

"What's wrong with my choices?"

"Apart from the fact that your record collection stopped in 1998? You thought that the last Beastie Boys album was To The Five Boroughs. Anyway, Fielding is busy with Cry Parrot, and I think he is bringing SWANS back across."

"Thank you, Daphne. Ever since my Producer Harry got that record deal, I have been adrift, you know."

"We'd noticed. By the way, what exactly is my job on the show?"

"I think I ought to discuss that with you, and not the imaginary version I conjure up to help me write up these previews."