In Part, Minimal

Kicking off the 2012/2013 Minimal Programme - a Glasgow Life innovation, programmed by the imaginative Sven Brown and now racing into its third year - a weekend of Arvo Part is a safe bet. Part fuses a post-modern fascination with the ancient - his stripped down arrangements evoke medieval sanctity - and a rare ear for a minimalist melody: while the Americans Reich and Glass took their cue from the driving grooves or urban anxiety, Estonian Part retreated into a pastoral religiosity.

Although his Stabat Mater is the headlining number in Saturday's performance, the first half presented the breadth of Part's interest. While some of his religious pieces struggle to emerge from a generic, gentle contemplation, his arrangement of St Patrick's The Deer's Cry uses the simple prayer to weave a complex web of sound, imitating the fervent desire of the song to be wrapped in God's protection. A version of Burn's My Heart's in The Highlands relocates Scotland to the northern border of heaven - despite the slightly ponderous rhyme - and Part's refusal of melodrama allows his choral compositions to reveal a compassionate, meditative Christianity.

Stabat Mater has the distinctive Christian mash-up of almost erotic brutality and kindness: the words follow the experience of the Blessed Virgin watching her son die, and the language more familiar from cheerful carols is twisted into a visceral vision of salvation through bloodshed.

The balance of three musicians - a trio of violin, viola and cello - against three voices echoes the words emphasis on juxtaposition: the musicians are more than accompaniment, conjuring the scene of the crucifixion through vivid interludes - although Part still avoids histrionics - as the singers long to share in Mary's almost ecstatic misery.

Part's connection to the minimalist movement is itself minimal: without the powerful pulse of the Americans, and avoiding even the romantic exultations familiar in much religious classical composition (even Scotland's James MacMillan will arrange his voices in rising harmonies of praise), Part returns to Bach's rigorous and precise depiction of the divine.

Old Thoughts on Nudity in Theatre - Still Vaguely Interesting, I am surprised to note

I did not understand quite why Anti-Christ upset cinephiles with its explicit violence and apparent misogyny. Anti-Christ is a movie, and protects its cast with the same trickery as TV does for Derren Brown and 1930s radio for ventriloquists. Hanging out on the cabaret and Live Art scenes, I regularly cheer along as real people pull things out of orifices, cut themselves, run about naked and drink blood. It’s a shame that The Daily Mail lacks an adventurous reporter: then they could have some real “BAN THIS FILTH” headlines. 

The place of nudity in live performance is contested. In Nic Green’s Trilogy, there is a great deal of female nudity that has worried some critics, especially in an avowedly feminist work. And in burlesque, does the majority presence of women as promoters and performers, audience and advocates really avoid the accusations of exploitation? Regulars at Tramway might be disappointed if they go home from a Belgian production without some flash of flesh, but does the status of art protect it from the censorship that governs other media? 

In Trilogy, the nudity is framed so that it deliberately anti-pornographic: similarly in burlesque, the stripping is justified by comedy and rhetoric of self-esteem and inclusion. These could be mere fig-leaves of distraction, hiding the more fundamental tensions that emerge when sexuality and society collide. 

Of course, these productions are aimed at adults, aside from the occasional absurd piece of programming as at Latitude, when Fancy Chance was booked into a daytime slot. It is telling, however, that Chance didn't perform her usual routines in front of the liberal parents and their untamed toddlers. And in London, burlesque nights are being expected to have the same licence as lap-dance clubs, a clear sign that for some bureaucrats, there is little difference. 

Inevitably, I defend the right of performers to undress, even cut themselves on stage. There might be the odd director or actor who is indulging their own exhibitionism, voyeurism or aggressive need to control, but to legislate against them is to exclude those who use nudity as a strategy to provoke and expose. 

At Itsy’s Kabaret, Empress Shah did two acts that could reasonably described as self-harm: pouring molten wax on her stomach and inject a syringe into her arm. Despite the polish and finesse, which distracted from the brutality of these actions, they were part of a serious and profound comment on the nature of passion. When she toasted the audience with her own blood in a champagne glass, it had the symbolic intensity of a nightmare, and nailed the self-destruction that lurks behind so much romanticism.  

Nic Green, on the other hand, takes any erotic bite out of nudity, celebrating the body as shameless: some of the scenes in Bloody Town Hall are all the more innocent because the actors are naked. And many burlesquers recapture a charming sensuality, removing striptease from harsh commercialism and re-inventing it as humorous and sincere. I wouldn’t defend nudity purely on the grounds of its lack of eroticism, however. Nightshade, a production by Victoria that paired strippers and contemporary choreographers encouraged a sexual response, which made the accompanying messages - which varied from critiquing the male gaze through to more direct associations of eroticism with vulnerability or exploitation -  more immediate.  

Theatre can’t use its isolation as an excuse: performance happens in, and impacts upon society. But frankly, when the internet has such an exotic selection of material, and my local newsagent has two rows of magazines that boast SEX HUNGRY BABES, attacking the liberal arts is always going to be a token gesture. Sexual content does have a habit of warping perspectives, which is why it is so valuable as a strategy but also why the debate around it is frequently ill-informed or self-justification masquerading as reason. The relationships between the body, sexuality, consumerism, feminism and social values are endlessly fascinating, and it seems utterly appropriate that performance wants to map them. It does a far better job of it than philosophy or tabloid editors.

Entartet by Kai Fischer

Kai Fischer is perhaps most famous as the scenographer for Vanishing Point's productions: his use of a glass "fourth wall" gave Interiors, Saturday Night and Wonderland their claustrophobic intimacy, despite being designed and built on a massive scale. 

A regular artist with The National Theatre of Scotland, Fischer has become a rare thing: a set designer who is perhaps as well known as a director or actor. And while Entartet contains performances by Pauline Goldsmith, it is primarily an installation inspired by one of the most popular, and controversial art events of the twentieth century: the 1937 Exhibition of Degenerate Art.

The Degenerate Art exhibition was another rare thing - a spot of Nazi propaganda that blew up in their faces. It was made up of pieces seized from public galleries, mostly modern art, and was supposed to demonstrate how artists were destroying the moral fabric of the nation. Inevitably, it became a massive success - the Nazis then decided to ban the various artists from exhibiting at all. Having failed to prove their case, they used whatever bullying tactics they had as a government.

Fischer and sound artist Matt Padden took the text of the exhibition's guide book to create an audio guide to this new installation. A reminder from history about the sometimes awkward relationship between the state and art, Entartet offers lesson in the ways that art can still challenge and scare - and how censorship can be more than just a matter of aesthetics. 

Tickets for the performance element of Entartet are free, and can be booked by calling Traverse Box Office (0131 228 1404). Also available on the door up to one hour before the performance. EntartetOld Ambulance Depot, 77 Brunswick Street Edinburgh, EH7 5HS
Wednesday 7 and Thursday November 2012:
Installation 11am - 4.30pm / installation & performance 5.30pm - 8.30pm
Friday 9 and Saturday 10 November 2012 –
Installation 11am - 2pm / installation & performance  3pm - 6.30pm

Ben Frost

Ben Frost makes marvellously masculine music. In the up-market environment of The Fruitmarket, his  glacial slabs of noise and juddering bass is oddly alienating and disorientating: despite the dynamic ebb and flow of sound, punctured by melodic piano and the crackle of electric synapses, By The Throat becomes less a visceral assault and more a soundtrack to a film that is never shown.

The format of the concert does Frost few favours: somewhere between the idolatry of a rock ritual and  the serious attention paid to a classical recital, the energy of Frost's soundscapes is sacrificed for a reverential recreation of an album that emphasises the sinister and cerebral. While his dedication to intensity is unquestionable, and the patterning of drones, samples and slashes of distorted guitar build towards climaxes that never resolve into simple thrash, Frost's reworking of the album adds little to the listening experience.

There are moments of stunning immediacy: the sporadic appearance of the drums, tribal and driving, give the washes of sound an abrupt focus, and the slow fade towards the end reveals how Frost uses volume as part of a subtle manipulation of the emotions. Passages evoke snow-covered tundra, or the desolation of forests over-run with wolves, and his sudden slips into sub-bass suggest a more vigorous and violent narrative. The structure is precisely calculated, the songs acting more as movements in a symphony built on noise and electronics - the snatches of crackle that animate the early passages are shocking and strangely melodic.

Ironically, the live performance is far more cerebral than the recorded version: there is almost a sense that this is an exercise in sound play - effectively rejecting the potential of a live show. Frost establishes his skill and the scope of his music and although it is rarely less than satisfactory, it struggles to elevate the source material into an immersive whole.

A Quiet Word with David Hughes

While people don't really believe a word a say, I do believe that Scotland could be on the cusp of a great dance revival. It's not so much the appointment of new artistic directors to the big two companies (Scottish Ballet and Scottish Dance Theatre) in the past year -but the diversity of companies knocking around the country. My own enthusiasm notwithstanding, and the efforts of the state to Get Scotkand Dancing, Scotland seems exceptionally  well-served with choreographers who are moving in distinctive, even unique directions,

David Hughes Dance is powered by the restless vitality of its artistic director, a former Rambert dancer and a man not given to resting on past glories. "After 26 years I've been around the block and am easily bored," Hughes admits. "So I am always trying to get something that excites me. If I have the right recipe this will come through to the audience."

In the past three years, Hughes has worked with Al Seed, the Big Man of Live Art and leader of Conflux, Glasgow's home for physical theatre, Christopher Bruce and Siobhan Davies (Bruce and Davies recreating work that they originally made on Hughes in his earlier career): and while the publicity and press around the company carefully avoids mentioning the C-word, Hughes' vision is contemporary in the sense of being modern, immediate and constantly evolving.

"The DHD vision is the performers," he continues. "We don’t provide choreographers with the kinds of performers they are used to working with." When Al Seed directed The Red Room, Hughes had him working with an Indian dancer: associate director Matt Foster comes from a b-boy background. For their latest project, The Chinaski Sessions, choreographer Kylie Walters was given five of Scotland's most dynamic male dancers. "These guys are a mixed bag of highly skilled performers from different disciplines." 

Yet Hughes' works are interested in more than just technique: from The Red Room through to Chinaski, dance has been put at the service of narrative - or, at the least, grand ideas. He explains that "Together with the right choreographer, the work transcends beyond technicality and performance: the movement becomes a vehicle for each person to come through. We all have our own different ways and we just get on with it."

The company's restlessness is reflected not just in the variety of ideas explored in their works - cannibalism, decadence, plague, sexual desire, masculinity - but the refusal to be contained by a simple definition. Hughes insists "I'm

random and spontaneous. We don’t set ourselves in any category but we exist in the periphery of dance and physical theatre." For Chinaski, "we are now returning to pure dance, but who can say what will happen next?"

"P.S." Hughes concludes. "Get ready for our next couple of years!"

Photography for Chinaski by Sally Cuthbert