Hello everyone!
How are you doing today?
A weird week of rejection, lockdown blues mixed in with a stimulating weekend of chats as part of Devoted and Disgruntled. Hoping this week is better.
I’ve veered away from writing lengthy blog posts at the moment becuase I feel a bit stunted creativly at the moment. I may do the biggest hack fraud thing and write about this next week. I don’t know. My only plans next week in an attempt TO FEEL SOMETHING is to go on a big walk. That’ll help.
As the same of last week, I don’t think there’s anything in particular I need to give a heads up for content warnings wise but if there are any do give me a heads up.
I hope you enjoy the shows!
Swimming Home by Silvia Mercuriali
Until 20th Febuary
£5
Swimming Home, Silvia Mercuriali’s latest Autoteatro show, brings a fully immersive theatre experience into people’s homes, transforming their bathroom into a filmic water-world.
Standing in their bathroom, wearing a swimming costume, goggles and some headphones, the audience is led through a journey of rediscovery of their relationship with water as they prepare to enter their bath (or shower).
The show mixes together instructions, binaural and underwater recordings, film extracts and interviews with swimmers to transport the audience, in and out of the pool, superimposing imagined realities onto that which they watch.
LUCKY STAR: superstar by Pioneers Go East Collective
Streaming now
free
LUCKY STAR is a hybrid performance and video-art installation inspired by icons of the performance art scene in the 1970s coming out of Club 57 and The Pyramid Club. Borrowing vaudeville fabulousness to celebrate queer bodies, the objectification, creative endurance, and pursuit of artistic stardom, LUCKY STAR is queer, trippy irreverent, with performers cast as alternate-universe superstar versions of themselves. A meta creative and experiential performance, the stars on stage tell heartfelt stories and recount their struggles to becoming stars.They are self-reflective, and are looking in a mirror at their image, while in the corner of the room, they see the poster of their favorite teenage icon, looking back at them.
Streaming now
Free
SKART group (Belgrade) started their "SURVIVAL COUPONS" project in 1998 in Belgrade, as a part of their "critical communication" strategy. This project represents a critical commentary on an increasing lack of personal freedom during the war in Serbia.
Gash Theatre Make A Thirst Trap
8th -11th Febuary
Pay what you can
We’re punks. We’re femme fatales. We're locked down. We’re plastic bags, drifting through the wind, wanting to start again.
Welcome to the house of GASH.
We’ve been waiting for you.
This is a thirst trap.
A thirst trap.
We’re pop princesses. We’re schoolgirls. We’re punks. We’re toxic, baby. We’re femme fatales who’ll seduce you for your cash. We’re soaring, flying.
A thirst trap.
A trap.
We’ve got that super bass. We’re party girls who like to get messy. We’re plastic bags, drifting through the wind, wanting to start again.
A trap.
It’s a trap!
We’re bored and needy and angry. And we want a boogie.
Our thirst trap is hungry.
Let us eat you up.
Gash Theatre Makes a ThirstTrap is an immersive digital theatre piece that explores female sexuality. As such, you'll be thrilled to know it contains strong sexual references and depictions of sexual acts, references to sexual violence, flashing images, and one death with a gunshot sfx.
Worst.Date.Ever by Varjack & Simpson
Sunday 14th Febuary
From £3
What even is Valentine's day during a global pandemic?
By the creators of The Anti-Slam Worst. Date. Ever is back!
Featuring :
True stories of dates gone wrong submitted by our brilliant line up of performers, and from you the audience!
Silly dating related audience polls!
Very serious (not really) dating advice from our in-house agony aunt/s!
and last but not least, performers so brave and bold, they will be reading the stories we send to them, live on webcamera, for the very first time.
A poptastic warm up playlist in our virtual foyer.
Come on, we're all in lockdown. Can you think of a better way to spend Valentines Day? (ps. what is time?)
side note : I’m performing in this. hype.
Just wanted to highlight this again.
The past few weeks I’ve been volunteering with 0161 Community who run a foodbank in north Manchester. They do great work and are a great bunch. They’re currently fundraising so they can get shipping containers so they can store any food or sanitry donations they recieve. If you ever wanted to give me a thank you for curating this list of shows each week then one way you can do that is chucking a few quid over to 0161. To support them click here. Here’s a photo of the 0161 posing after creating over 100 food parcels for families in Manchester
Thanks again for subscribing and taking the time to read through.
I’m (trying and failing to) not on twitter at the moment so if you want to say hello just respond to this email! A few of you have over the past few weeks and it really cheers me up.
With that in mind, do us a favour and share it with your mates plz.
Hope you have a lovely week and talk soon!
Josh x