Hello!
First of all huge apologies for the absence. Work has started picking up so I’ve not had much time or mental capacity as I’m having to priotise things that pay my rent. But! I have some exciting news. I’ve recieved some funding from Dance Consortia North West to spend some time researching digital platforms and how etude can provide a platform for artists in the North West and how we can build a network of international platforms. It’s very exciting and the full research report should be coming agt the end of the year. There will also be some more information coming which I’m not going to hint at yet becuase it’s really exciting. To find out more click here.
Below are this weeks selections
Transpose JOY Pit Party by Transpose
free
available now
Following its sold out run in spring 2022, you can now enjoy this filmed performance of the latest edition of Transpose. Curated by filmmaker and writer Campbell X, this electric film features live music, theatre, rap and unbelievable twerking from some of the UK’s most exciting trans artists.
Featuring incredible performances by Mzz Kimberley, Felix Mufti and Ebony Rose Dark, this Pit Party celebrates the creativity of trans artists using dance, rap and theatre. Highlights amongst other goodies include, the healing effects of gender affirmation and the beauty of Trans4Trans relationships all wrapped in a beautiful package of gender euphoria.
Transpose was founded by artistic director CN Lester in 2011 and has spent ten years celebrating, promoting, and platforming the wide-ranging talents of the UK trans community. This edition was curated by award-winning filmmaker and writer Campbell X and directed by acclaimed playwright Tabby Lamb, two of the UK LGBT's community’s leading theatre and film. In the words of CN, it’s a space in which ‘we can show you our vulnerabilities, our strengths, and – most of all – our authenticity.’
Peep Show - Battle Royale by Teatro Pomodoro
from £5
available until Sunday 29th May
Peep Show - Battle Royale is a darkly comedic, interactive theatrical experience, where the live audience enter a set inspired by the Amsterdam Peep Shows and look through their windows into a new world. A world where the lines between news and entertainment no longer exist and a faceless elite hide behind gruesome, voyeuristic game shows as they manipulate all media, society, and politics.
Battle Royale, a reality T.V show where regular people -turned-gladiators destroy each other on an international stage, their fates lie with the live audience, whose votes can influence the outcome of the game. Think The Muppets meets Gladiator.
The Sea Between My Sould by Raed Yassin
free
available now
A rock musical performed by taxidermy animals, “The Sea Between My Soul” promises to cross boundaries between installation and theater, music and light, and even life and death. A morbid reflection on the long-standing history of fatalities in the Mediterranean sea, the work will punctuated by the high-strung notes of Alan Bishop’s singing voice, adding a whiff of absurdity to the otherwise apocalyptic scenario that surrounds us in the world today. Programmed for the 2019-20 season, the production was cancelled due to the precautionary national HEALTH measures put in place by the Greek government to combat the Covid-19 pandemic. In
September of 2020, the show was restaged at the ONASSIS STEGIʼs Main Stage and filmed for its digital screening. Anamorphic lenses were used to breathe life to the protagonists and make them better heard. Slow-motion camera was employed to emphasize the staged ʽstillnessʼ, but also to suggest a CinemaScope illusion.
Bill Bissett performing at the Sound & Syntax International Festival of Sound Poetry
free
available now
Documentation of Bill Bissett performing his sound poetry. Same setting as Tape 118. After some small fragments of film, the performance starts with Bissett on stage, chanting and shaking two maracas, wearing a cowboy-esque shirt. It is an energetic, shamanic performance somewhere between song and poetry, with the words often difficult to make out. After about 5 minutes he switches to more conventional poetry, with environmental and spiritual themes, somewhat indebted to American Beat poetry, with lines such as ‘the cosmic eye startles your rubbery gaze.’ Hereafter he alternates between this and the chanting, animalistic style, sometimes with one or both maracas. One poem is concerned with a comedic fictionalised relationship between Canada and the British Royal Family’s sewage disposal. The camera stays mainly focused on Bissett with occasional shots of the audience and pans/zooms. The performance ends with Bissett jumping around the stage, after which the tape cuts briefly to a recording of the Marx Brothers (presumably from television) then cuts out.
A Canadian, Bissett is well known as a concrete and sound poet. His chants and barefoot dancing during performance as well as his range of reference from the absurd to the transcendent have helped others link him to the shamanistic tradition. He was also an avid publisher founding Blew Ointment magazine in 1963 and later Blew Ointment press.
The Black Rider by Robert Wilson, Tom Waits and William S. Burroughs
free
available now
This is a TVRip of the Austrian broadcast of the original Black Rider musical, performed in 1990 as part of the Wiener Festwochen. There is a 7-minute introduction in German, and the dialogue and music is in both German and English.
The Black Rider: The Casting of the Magic Bullets is a self-billed "musical fable" in the avant-garde tradition created through the collaboration of theatre director Robert Wilson, musician Tom Waits, and writer William S. Burroughs. Wilson was largely responsible for the design and direction. Burroughs wrote the book, while Waits wrote the music and lyrics. The project began in about 1988 when Wilson approached Waits. The story is based on a German folktale called Der Freischütz, which had previously been made into an opera by Carl Maria von Weber. It premiered at Hamburg's Thalia Theatre on March 31, 1990. November Theatre produced its world English-language premiere in 1998 at the Edmonton International Fringe Festival in Canada, and the American English-language premiere at the New York International Fringe Festival in 1999. Waits recorded much of the music from the play in different arrangements under the eponymous title, The Black Rider.
Wilhelm, a file clerk, falls in love with a huntsman's daughter. In order to marry, Wilhelm must prove his worth as a hunter and gain her father's approval, but, as "a man of pen and ink", his shot is lousy and his hopes of marriage worsen. That is until he is offered magic bullets by the devil, Pegleg - who assures him that his bullets will always have a sure shot. However, Pegleg stipulates that, while most of the bullets will hit anything Wilhelm pleases, one of the bullets is under Pegleg's control. Foolish, naive, and overrun with desperate hope, Wilhelm accepts the Faustian pact. On the day of Wilhelm's wedding, the final bullet strikes his beloved dead. He then goes mad, and joins the previous victims of Satan's cunning in the Devil's carnival.
Although based on folklore, the story contains strong autobiographical elements from Burroughs' own life: he accidentally shot his own wife in a drunken attempt at recreating the William Tell legend, and the story as a whole may be construed as a warning tale about the destructive powers of addiction.
That’s all for this week. May be a delay on the next edition as I have a very busy week but it won’t be a full month like this time
Have a lovely week
Josh