Goldendean invites you to a tender moment with a ‘soft radical’ – to catch breath, bubbles and feelings. To be tender, to take space, be vulnerable and risk visibility – in performance, and as large scale inflatable sculptures. As a ‘Fat Queer White Trans body’ in the context of South Africa, artist Dean Hutton questions who or what is entitled to take up space. In doing so, they address the personal and political of hypervisibility: being visible (as a fat, queer, white, trans body) and invisible, unimportant at the same time (as a fat, queer, white, trans body).

Soft Vxnxs is a large-scale, inflatable sculpture installation, presented in Princes Square shopping centre. Visitors are invited to touch or embrace the work. They are round, soft, flexible, and inviting. Society expects fat and messy bodies to turn up traumatized and out of breath and never cheerful, horny, or beaming with political speech. In response, Soft Vxnxs creates comfort and space for vulnerability.

Access, as published in 2023

AD. Pre-recorded audio description by the artist available on MP3 players at the sculptures, which are also able to be touched. Audio description also embedded on the page or downloadable to your own device.

Credits

Presentation: Dean Hutton / Goldendean. Originally commissioned by HETHEM for Chapter 4OUR: Abundance, curated by Simon(e) van Saarloos, 2021. Photos: Zeitz MOCAA, Anthea Pokroy, Cassander Eeftink. Presented as part of the Centre of Somewhere South Africa focus, funded by the British Council International Collaboration programme.

Desire Marea’s voice is a culmination of many South African voices; a mouthpiece for a choir of spirits and entities. The South African artist’s second album On the Romance of Being – an album of the week at The Quietus and a New Music Fix album at BBC 6Music – was released on Mute earlier this year, and is immersed in the communal, ceremonial and healing qualities of music, sonically taking in post-gospel, spiritual jazz and the ancient music of the Nguni and Ndau peoples.

Desire’s 2020 debut album was one of Rough Trade’s Albums of the Year and BBC 6Music’s Album of the Day. The album traversed electronic genres in an introspective exploration of modern love and loss, drawing in fans from across the globe, including Grace Jones, who went on to invite Desire to perform at her Meltdown Festival at London’s Southbank Centre.

Before their solo career, Desire formed beloved Joburg collective FAKA with creative partner Fela Gucci. FAKA toured the world extensively; made their American debut scoring for Telfar at NYFW; achieved icon status by partnering with Versace to soundtrack their S/S 2019 menswear show and were featured in the Vogue World 100 and Dazed 100 lists.

Desire will be joined on stage by guest performer Eyve, a singer and rapper based in Glasgow, whose musical style draws influence from hip hop, pop, R&B, reggae, her African roots, and jazz.

Access, as published in 2023

S. This is a sound-based gig with a limited number of seats available.

Credits

Band: Desire Marea (vocals), Sanele Ngubane (synth), Gordon Hulbert (piano/keys/bass), Dodo Ndlazi (drums). Management: SemaphoreMGMT. Label: Mute. Agent: DISK Agency. Presented by Take Me Somewhere as part of Centre of Somewhere: South Africa Focus, in partnership with 432 Presents. Supported by the British Council International Collaboration programme.

After their acclaimed performances Mining Stories and Pleasant Island, Silke Huysmans and Hannes Dereere present the final part of their trilogy on mining. This time they focus on a completely new industry: deep sea mining. With resources on land becoming increasingly scarce and overexploited, mining companies turn towards the ocean.

In the Spring of 2021, three ships gather on a remote patch of the Pacific Ocean. One of them belongs to the Belgian dredging company DEME-GSR. Four kilometres below the sea surface, their mining robot is scraping the seabed in search of metals. On another ship, an international team of marine biologists and geologists keep a close watch on the operation. A third ship completes the fleet: on board of the renowned Rainbow Warrior, Greenpeace activists protest against this potential future industry.

From their small apartment in Brussels, Silke and Hannes connect with the three ships through satellite. Each of the ships represents one pillar of the public debate: industry, science and activism. Through a series of interviews and conversations, an intimate portrait of this new industry emerges. How much deeper can mining companies dig, and what are we as humankind actually digging towards?

Access, as published in 2023

CC. Closed captioned. Access companion tickets available on request.

Credits

By and with Silke Huysmans & Hannes Dereere. Dramaturgy: Dries Douibi. Sound mix: Lieven Dousselaere. Outside eye: Pol Heyvaert. Technique: Korneel Coessens, Piet Depoortere, Koen Goossens & Babette Poncelet. Production: CAMPO. Co-production: Bunker (Ljubljana), De Brakke Grond (Amsterdam), Noorderzon (Groningen), Zürcher Theater Spektakel (Zürich), Beursschouwburg & Kunstenfestivaldesarts (Brussels), PACT Zollverein (Essen), Théâtre de la Ville & Festival d’Automne à Paris. Photos: Loes Geuens.

WHAT A FEELING! | ACT II is an intimate experimental dance performance where the audience becomes part of a judging panel. She will conduct a very present performance that will introduce conversations on topics of identity, intimacy and closure. These are words of vulnerability that she personally finds difficult to claim, as they redefine hurdles in realizing the position of one’s place in society.

This act would be framed as a 20 minute live audition at Tramway, where Christian will create an atmosphere for the audience at Take Me Somewhere, to engage with the performance. This performance is in continuation to her exhibition at Edinburgh Printmakers entitled WHAT A FEELING | ACT I, where as part of the creative process, she had engaged in conversations with Female Creatives of Black Heritage in Scotland – such as artists, dancers and performers – who shared their reflections of working within cultural institutions, and experiences of the hustle in the progression of their careers. These conversations were composed into a collection of videos and audio recordings, and a series of screen-printed portraits, exhibited at the Edinburgh Printmakers.

Access, as published in 2023

BSL interpreted.

Credits

Artist / Director: Christian Noelle Charles. Curator / Producer: Shalmali Shetty. Venue support: Studio Somewhere, The Work Room, Surge Studios. Photography: Christian Noelle Charles. Supported by the British Council.

FK Alexander and two Scottish Hardcore bands (Coffin Mulch and Endless Swarm) meet in Glasgow’s Queen Margaret Union to duke it out in a heavy metal technology demolition sound clash death match over 3 hours, where pointless resentment, pink smoke and the faces of your favourite rock stars ’n’ rapists fill the air!!!

destruction as a way of holding resentment
waste as a way of celebrating regret
volume as a means of cherishing violence

Decay is the light in the tunnel
Drilling down and out

Beginning its thinking with the 30 year old essay ‘The Problem With Music’ by record producer Steve Albini, this work is upset by the industrial disintegration of a disintegrating industry, The History Of Rock (tm) and the systems and stories it has sold. Crossing this reference with Mathew Barney’s ‘The Order’ and situating it all in the artistic market place in 2023, FK is tasked with an existential end-game, destined to lose but compelled to play.

CDs, TVS, computers, trophies, pristine music encyclopaedias and more will meet the guillotine, the hammer or the wall, while old school death metal serenades.

NOTE: A previous version of this performance was created for the cancelled Take Me Somewhere Festival in 2020. This version takes that one into account, and is powered by, the wider global and personal traumas that have been endured in that time. Be they visible, neurological or otherwise.

“A vitally important artist” – Dorothy Max Prior, Total Theatre Magazine

Access, as published in 2023

V | S | SP. The work is highly visual with no text. Two live bands play simultaneously. Three Woojer Straps available – wearable belts converting sound to vibrations, ask at box office.

Credits

Concept and lead artist: FK Alexander. Bands: Coffin Mulch and Endless Swarm. Producers: Feral (Jill Smith & Kathryn Boyle). Production manager: Sarah Wilson. Soundtrack: FK Alexander & Andy Brown. Costume and headpiece: Sarah Green. Produced by Feral. Funded by Creative Scotland. Commissioned by Take Me Somewhere. Supported by Summerhall. Photos: © Joana Stawnicka.

We are in a space where the present collapses with the past. Resurrecting a performance in an attempt to find clues to an enigma so difficult to name, of a memory so incomplete to touch. What is the void between slip and die? What does this sleeping body dream of? What happens when someone survives?

The first chapter of the trilogy CADELA FORÇA, by the Brazilian director and author Carolina Bianchi, transits through layers of temporalities. Disturbed by the news of the rape and death of an Italian artist Pippa Bacca in 2008 giving a performance related to the belief in human kindness, Bianchi began to weave a tapestry of stories that have in common narratives of rape followed by femicide.

In a process of mirroring and confrontation Carolina puts her own body in a performative process of extreme vulnerability falling unconscious in the work at a point undefined. Launching confabulations about sexual violence and art history, her staging is a combination of different references from literature and painting, filled with musical mashups, with modes of delivery part Ted Talk, part choreography, part documentary and dreamscape. Together with her collective, Cara de Cavalo, she creates a journey into an abyss, a hole in the middle of the desert, a dive into a glass of a date rape drink – a descent into hell.

Access, as published in 2023

CC, SP. The performance contains a lot of text, which is spoken in Portuguese, translated into English and captioned. Subpacs are available. A welfare support person will be available for audiences onsite.

Credits

Conception, text, dramaturgy and direction: Carolina Bianchi. Dramaturgist: Carolina Mendonça. Cast: Blackyva, Carolina Bianchi, Chico Lima, Fernanda Libman, Joana Ferraz, José Artur Campos, Larissa Ballarotti, Marina Matheus, Rafael Limongelli. Technical direction, sound design and original music: Miguel Caldas. Set design and art: Luisa Callegari. Light design: Jo Rios. Videos and screenings: Montserrat Fonseca Llach. Presented by Tramway and Take Me Somewhere. Production: Metro Gestão Cultural (BR), Carolina Bianchi y Cara de Cavalo. Co-production: Festival d’Avignon, KVS Brussels, Maillon Théâtre de Strasbourg, Frascati Producties. Photos: Christophe Raynaud de Lage.

ANAHIT – the relationship between sediment and residues, geographies inscribed in the body, with vibration as a method. Linking the research begun with Գիշեր | gisher to the work of re-narration of somatic geographies that has been conducted for years in the context of Pleasure Body, Giorgia designs with ANAHIT a solo for their own body, a constellation, a format that oscillates between language, movement and soundscape. ANAHIT is the Armenian divinity that protects water and all fluid beings.

Access, as published in 2023

CC. The performance will be captioned.

Credits

Produced by Associazione Culturale VAN, with Ministero della cultura, Regione Emilia-Romagna and VIERNULVIER. Supported by Breaking the Spell. Feminist Performance and Practices of Being-With, Lavanderia a Vapore, Take Me Somewhere Festival, Milano Mediterranea, Residenze NAOcrea 2022 – Ariella Vidach Aiep, BASE Milano. Photos: Iman Salem.

Skunk without k is Sun is an experimental three act solo opera, working with audio description as operatic sung material. Bespoke environmental scents will transform during the piece and exist as another layer of narration. The piece explores the human tendency to describe and name its presence in order to exist. It is a world where language shapes a reality of constant transformation whilst embracing a non-human expression. It zooms out on the macro-perspective of an earth that transforms beyond human presence and into the micro-perspective of the traces we’re leaving behind.

Act 1 presents the atmosphere, design and the performer of the work. The colours are intoxicating. Green without blue is yellow. A thunder cloud hovers.

Act 2 presents human behaviour in all its forms. It is a tragicomical act.

Act 3. The Earth collapses. Fires rage. Roses burn. A new romance is born.

Access, as published in 2023

TT | AD | BSL (Sat 21). Integrated audio description included. British Sign Language interpretation on 21 October. Touch tour at 17:30 each day, reserve in advance. Sighted guides available on Saturday 21st for navigation and access support.

Credits

Concept, choreography & performance: Louise Ahl. Written by Louise Ahl and Jo Hellier. Composer: Yas Clarke. Producer: Michael Kitchin. Set & costume designer: Anette Gellein. Scent designer: Clara Weale. Lighting designer: Joshie Harriette. Production manager: Nia Wood. Lead audio description consultants: Quiplash. Presented by Tramway and The Place. Supported by Take Me Somewhere, ICA, Battersea Arts Centre, The Work Room, South East Dance, Dance Base, O. Festival. Funded by Jerwood Live Work Fund, Foundation Scotland and Creative Scotland. Photos: Julia Bauer.

BLACK PRIVILEGE is a layered piece that reflects complexities of current issues in our art world. Nyamza’s work is not overtly about an achieved privilege by Black people. It is an interrogation of the concept “privilege”, in a society in which people are judged and rejected on the basis that include, and not limited to race, gender, sexual orientation, and class. Hypocrisy and justice are themes that are explored in this work. The work has been inspired by all the unsung heroines/women who have been and still are isolated and refrained from contributing to the development of their immediate societies. These heroines are still “crawling” on the floor, seeking reprieve from recluse.

Access, as published in 2023

V. This work is predominantly visual with minimal text that is captioned.

Credits

Conceived, created, choreographed and directed by Mamela Nyamza. Performed by Mamela Nyamza. Dramaturge: Sello Pesa. Featured artist: Given Ngobeni. Body painting and costume design: Linda Mandela. Lighting and stage designer: Wilhelm Disbergen. Assistant: Mr Buntu Tyali. Production credits: Makhanda Standard Bank National Arts Festival; National Arts Council. Photos: Chris de Beer, Ursula Kauffmann. Presented as part of the Centre of Somewhere South Africa focus, funded by the British Council International Collaboration programme.

Goldendean invites you to a tender moment with a “soft radical” – to catch breath, bubbles and feelings. To be tender, to take space, be vulnerable and risk visibility. As a “Fat Queer White Trans body” in the context of South Africa, artist Dean Hutton questions who or what is entitled to take up space. In doing so, they address the personal and political of hypervisibility: being visible (as a fat, queer, white, trans body) and invisible, unimportant at the same time (as a fat, queer, white, trans body).

Access, as published in 2023

AD. Informal audio description is available – request a describer to accompany you into the performance from the Tramway welcome desk. An audio description introduction is embedded on the page and downloadable. Sighted guides stationed throughout the building on Saturday 21st.

Credits

Dean Hutton / Goldendean. Breathe was originally commissioned by the Institute for Creative Arts, University of Cape Town. Presented as part of the Centre of Somewhere South Africa focus, funded by the British Council International Collaboration programme.

FORGED (in the tender heat of your embrace) is a durational performance installation for gallery spaces and a temporary site for collective rest which holds the live archive of an ongoing choreographic collaboration between artist Laura Fisher and seven sheets of copper metal. Drawing parallels between the material properties of the sheet metal and the artist’s body which experiences chronic pain, the collaboration utilises body heat to create an intimate relationship of interdependency.

Through cycles of moving and resting together, body and metal shift in supportive relation to one another from which sculptural forms gradually emerge and change. The search for a shared movement language between material and human is echoed in the integration of live audio description by guest artists – whose words, observations and narration become a third dancer in the performance.

Within a soft sculptural environment designed by Zephyr Liddell, audiences are given permission to rest and drift between the senses. Disrupting sight as the dominant sensory engagement within gallery spaces, FORGED invites tactile interactions between material and bodies to consider the complicated relationship around care, power, illness and intimacy that often exists for disabled people.

Access, as published in 2023

AD. Audio description creatively integrated and amplified live. Thirty seats and resting options. Audio archive on MP3 players with high contrast tactile buttons, also accessible on a smartphone with headphones. Audience free to move around as needed.

Credits

Lead artist: Laura Fisher. Guest audio describers: Ellen Renton & Simone Seales. Costume & textile design: Zephyr Liddell. Installation: Laura Fisher (concept) & Zephyr Liddell (design & concept). Audio description (performance): Raquel Meseguer Zafe & Romany Dear. Dramaturg: Thulani Rachia. Choreographic mentor: Farah Saleh. Production manager: Siân Baxter. Producers: Siân Baxter & Laura Fisher. Commissioned and supported by Unlimited, celebrating the work of disabled artists, with funding from the Dave Toole OBE Bursary Fund and Creative Scotland. Supported by Studio Somewhere, Dance Base and The Work Room’s residency programme.

‘Sonar ( ; ; ) Sauna’ is a multitude of humyn as habitat. It is an evolving, beyond-the-skin environment, an embodied experiment of chemical-molecular compositions, translating deep time through a durational performance. The hybrid being is an emotional algae womb and limestone cave, a grower, facilitator, sleeper, squirming in the belly of openings and closings. Misted with a light shower, viscous liquids are mineralised, crawling along surfaces resembling mollusc farms and rock pools.

The performance will be accompanied by live sonic composition by Eye Suriyanon, using field recordings and electronic sequencing to respond to the textural tension of material. This will be a relaxed performance where audiences can come and go as they please. There will also be an audio description accessible via a provided headset or your own device if preferred. A touch tour to engage with the materials of the performance will be available outside the space throughout the duration of the performance.

Access, as published in 2023

V | AD | TT. Live audio description via headsets throughout. Pre-recorded audio description available for download or on MP3 players on the day. Touch tour of performance materials available outside the performance space. Sighted guides stationed throughout the building on the 21st.

Credits

Conception, costume and performance: Clarinda Tse. Producer and dramaturg: Amelia Tan. Sonic composition: Eye Suriyanon. Set design and production: Clarinda Tse and Aga Paulina Młyńczak. Video: April Lin. Accessibility consultant and live audio describer: Jonathan Penny. Presented with Tramway. Supported by Creative Scotland. Photos: Tiu Makkonen.

A nameless excitement charging the atmosphere, / a yearning, / sinking into the darkness of the tumultuous night, an intimacy between strangers, / and rotten teeth, Wojnarowicz who wants to commit suicide, the heroin hole / and once again we’re all under the shivering sun, / then the unexpected, something sudden / the glimmer of water, of the river, which makes us catch a glimpse, just for a moment / and there’s also the possibility of fear, / closing our eyes, becoming alone / and then finding ourselves in the wholeness of a crowd of bodies / that exhausting joy.

Memory disorders, memory can only be disturbed – interferences, holes. The urban space becomes wild again, it is an aesthetics of collapse, as in abandoned warehouses, the lawless outdoors, and battuages on highways. Cruising as a relational practice, as a choreography of affects in the space. We write about a utopia of bodies that we do not experience – that we (as lesbian women*) do not have access to. A yearning to be many, a glimmering of possible futures that are not here yet and that we can only glimpse through a crack.

Access, as published in 2023

Performance is highly visual with soundscore and minimal spoken text. Previously advertised as captioned, but this was no longer possible due to technical difficulties. The soundscore includes purring cats, urban sounds, electronic music, and David Wojnarowicz’s journal recordings read live.

Credits

Performance: Giacomo AG, Tony Allotta, Silvia Calderoni, Ilenia Caleo, Gabriele Lepera, Fede Morini, Ondina Quadri. Care and production management: Elisa Bartolucci. Sound: Gabor + SC. Dramaturgical advice: Anna Antonia Ferrante, and many friends. Co-production: Azienda Speciale Palaexpo – Mattatoio | Progetto Prender-si Cura, Kampnagel (Hamburg), Kunstencentrum Vooruit vzw (Ghent), Motus Vague. Supported by progetto residenze coreografiche Lavanderia a Vapore (Torino). CCA technical manager: Aria Broxterman. Photos: Roberta Segata and Simona Diacci, courtesy Centrale Fies.

After enjoying shows across the city join us at Mono for a drink and a chance to digest all you’ve seen, and enjoy the musical talents of WALLYN and a DJ set from MRSBAXTER2U.

WALLYN is the concert debut of performance artist Jan Wallyn. What would the world look like if we could create a queer utopia, if the boundaries between gender, queerness and bodies fade or even disappear? With a solid beat as an undertone, WALLYN tries to formulate an answer. Jan Wallyn and their futuristic movement band WALLYN made their debut during Radiant Nights #5 in De Singel, Antwerp in 2022. Dancers Betty Mansion, Fien Lanckriet and Isaro Mutabazi bring the movement on and off stage. Somewhere between concert hall and nightclub, you will be freed from all norms via progressive house and electro pop. It’s a gender release party.

Jan Wallyn was 8 years old when they met their first love: sound. As a teenager, they translated their classical music training into digital music production. After a decade of combining both musical and choreographic practice, Jan started focussing on sound design. At age 24, they started at the open art-house Zinnema as artistic director, later as general director. Eight years later, Jan quit their position at the Brussels based arts house, and decided to devote their time on where it all began: sound.

Access, as published in 2023

S. This is a sound-based gig.

Credits

Music by Jan Wallyn. Mixed by Sam Renascent. Choreography by Betty Mansion and Malik Zaryaty. Dance performance by Betty Mansion. DJ set: MRSBAXTER2U. Developed with DE SINGEL International Arts Centre, Trix and Arenberg.

MANUAL is a one-on-one performance that turns a public library into a space of sensory encounter and heightened awareness. Staged covertly during public hours, participants arrive on site with instructions to meet a guide who leads them silently through a series of subtle events, following written notes and immersive audio in headphones.

They walk through the space and listen together. They look at books and read to each other. Sounds and images found in the library combine and blur. And as the piece progresses the materials they encounter come to form a manual for slowing down.

Intermingling with the daily life of the library, MANUAL proposes a performance that develops through the act of listening and reading with another person. Through a slow and careful process, this piece stages a quiet meditation on the library as a meaningful space of connection and awareness.

Access, as published in 2023

The Mitchell Library is a wheelchair accessible venue.

Credits

Co-created by Christopher Willes and Adam Kinner. Dramaturgy: Hanna Sybille Müller. Glasgow performers: Adam Kinner, Hanna Sybille Müller, Christopher Willes and Chao-Ying Rao. Performance contributions: Alexa Mardon, Denise Kenney. Audio contributions: Michael Davidson, Colin Fisher, Thomas Gill, Terri Hron, Philippe Lauzier, Germaine Liu, Philippe Melanson, Karen Ng and Felicity Williams. Production assistance: Seán Talbot. Presented by the Québec Government Office London. Created with the support of Conseil des arts du Canada, Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec, the Ontario Arts Council, Festival TransAmériques, and through creation residencies at Take Me Somewhere (Glasgow) and LA SERRE – arts vivants (Montreal). Photos: © David Wong.

Goldendean invites you to a tender moment with a ‘soft radical’ – to catch breath, bubbles and feelings. To be tender, to take space, be vulnerable and risk visibility. As a ‘Fat Queer White Trans body’ in the context of South Africa, artist Dean Hutton questions who or what is entitled to take up space. In doing so, they address the personal and political of hypervisibility.

Big Fat Light MerQueer is “a hybrid between human and sea monster that seems to have crawled out of the water – with tentacles”, drawing on the folklore of the Mermaid of Edam and on Mamlambo, a river goddess of South African and Xhosa mythology.

Goldendean shares “moments of soft courage to affirm the right of all bodies to exist, to be celebrated and protected”, using playfulness and vulnerability to create a radical softness within an uncompromising world.

Access, as published in 2023

AD. A pre-recorded audio description by the artist is available at the sculptures, which are also able to be touched. The audio description is embedded on the page and downloadable to your own device.

Credits

Dean Hutton / Goldendean. Commissioned by NDSM for Come to Light, curated by Petra Heck. Glasgow presentation in collaboration with Stichting NDSM-werf. Presented as part of the Centre of Somewhere South Africa focus, funded by the British Council International Collaboration programme. Photo: Gert Jan van Rooij.

TransMission: Sissy TV is a project investigating trans archives. It seeks to address the gap in representation of trans and non-binary voices in institutional archives and starts with the personal and artistic archive of Nando Messias, accumulated over two decades of creating work.

Messias uses their archive as a framework to discuss larger issues such as transphobia, the pathologisation of trans bodies and identities, trans exclusion, social violence and visibility. They travel the country with their archive in tow, performing inside their closet which they set up on stage. The audience is invited to enter and sit with Messias, to touch their costumes, to smell their perfume, to try on their shoes and to queer exclusionary notions of who has the right to speak up.

Nando Messias’ work straddles performance art, dance and theatre, combining beautiful images with a fierce critique of gender, visibility and violence. As well as a practitioner, Nando is movement director and a researcher of queer theory and performance with a number of publications in the field. Nando is a Lecturer of Theatre and Performance at The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama.

Access, as published in 2023

BSL interpreted by Ali Gordon.

Credits

Concept and performance: Nando Messias. Co-design: Joshua Gadsby and Naomi Kuyck-Cohen. Directing support: Hester Stefan Chillingworth. Dramaturgical support: Neil Bartlett. Production manager: Malachy Orozco. Design adapted for Glasgow performances and stage hand: Gabe Gilmour. Developed with support from The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, Arts Council England and Artsadmin. Photos: © Holly Revell.

Artist and performance maker Eve Stainton releases their new choreographic commission, Impact Driver. Featuring live welding, movement, and live sound, scored by Leisha Thomas and Mica Levi. Impact Driver is interested in methodologies for constructing thriller-like suspense. How suspense can be sustained as the main event, in the absence of a climax or traditional resolution.

Borrowing the logic from a welding workshop, Stainton foregrounds activities that require live negotiation and decision making; making visible how scenes and objects take their shape, and continue to move through meanings. Atmospheres, garments, feelings and materials, generative and in tension. Working with time-based notions of being ‘caught in the act’ and ‘on tenter hooks’, Stainton explores how suspense as a rumbling undercurrent has the potential to punctuate lesbian and trans-masc identities. Haunting, time stretching, absurdist.

Featuring an ensemble from different creative backgrounds who don’t usually work in the field of dance, this research continues Stainton’s work in celebrating the gender non-conforming lesbian and trans-masc experience, of which there are many, and what foregrounding these identities means to the white western Contemporary Dance canon.

“Welding is potent for me in so many ways – its strong alchemical presence, its extreme theatricality, its capacity for danger/excitement/drama/power/thrill, its sensuality, its brashness.” – Eve Stainton

Access, as published in 2023

V | AD | SP. Audio description available via SoundScribe, headsets reserved in advance. Subpacs available at box office. Touch tour at 18:00, gather at the box office.

Credits

Concept and choreography: Eve Stainton. Performance: Tink Flaherty, Romeo Roxman Gatt, Imani Mason Jordan, Mica Levi, Eve Stainton & Leisha Thomas. Sound world: Leisha Thomas & Mica Levi. Producer: Michael Kitchin. Set design and fabrication: H S Design Studios. Production manager: Helen Mugridge. Lighting designer: Charlie Hope. Costume designer: Ella Boucht. Welding manager: Hester Moriarty Thompson. Dramaturgical support: Liz Rosenfeld & Jamila Johnson-Small. Audio description: Shivaangee Agrawal and Elaine Lillian Joseph, SoundScribe. 3D typography: Bora aka Pauline Canavesio. Co-commissioned by Sadler’s Wells, Institute of Contemporary Arts, Take Me Somewhere, Wysing Arts Centre and Dansehallerne. Supported by Bergen Kunsthall and Wainsgate, and using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England. Photography: Anne Tetzlaff.

proxy (2.2): a work which originally focussed on the invisibilised systems of enduring colonisation has been revised to focus on the current unignorable genocide in Gaza, and the 75-year resistance of the Palestinian people. A space for contemplation, honouring and action, held by nussatari. Involving a provocation, an invitation to a conversation or individual actions, and a sonic closing reflection. With gratitude to Nat Raha and to the TMS team.

Access, as published in 2023

BSL interpreted by Ali Gordon. The space is dimly lit, with seating options. Audience members are invited to come and to go as needed, with awareness of and respect for those in the space with us. Staff will be available to support access needs and guide in entering, moving around and exiting the space.

Credits

Concept and words: NXSA. Performance: NXSA & Roby L E. Lighting and technical coordination: Aisha Oyedepo. Producing: ID.Y. Commissioned by Take Me Somewhere.

Walking with the Ancestors is an interactive, reparative reading, guiding the audience on an imagined procession in joy and healing. Shifting between collaged narratives centred in Black histories, descriptions of real and imagined spaces, movement provocations and guided body awareness exercises, this performance ritual invites the audience to consider the many layers of narratives which intersect and overlap with their own experiences and to move with them, inviting joyful possibilities for collective healing.

Access, as published in 2023

S | AD. Visual description introduction available 15 minutes prior at the box office. Seats available; access requirements can be noted at booking.

Credits

Lead artist and performer: Ashanti Harris. Soundscape composition: Andrei Van Wyk. Performers: Hamshya Rajkumar, KJ Clarke-Davis. Contributing artist: Sabrina Henry. Creative eye and movement direction: Mele Broomes. Lighting design and operation: Michaella Fee. Creative producer: Rhea Lewis. Production stage manager and fabrication assistant: Zephyr Liddell.

ONE DROP, a new performance by Sonya Lindfors & working group, is a speculative summoning, a decolonial dream, an autopsy of the Western stage and an operetta. Defying definition and belonging to multiple categories, the work dives into the poetics and politics of relations, creating a performance that reignites connections lost or forgotten.

The title of the work refers to two separate concepts, the one drop rhythm which is a reggae style drum beat as well as to the one drop rule of the Race Separation Act, created in the United States in the early 1900s, according to which a single drop of ‘Black blood’ made a person ‘Black’ despite their appearance. Through its multiple starting points, the work interrogates the ghosts of the Western stage and its entanglements and relationships to capitalism, coloniality and modernity.

Access, as published in 2023

No specific access provision published for this listing.

Credits

Directing, choreography and concept: Sonya Lindfors. Working group: Antonia Atarah, Hamis Ahmed, Geoffrey Erista, Nori Kin, Isabella Shaw, Mariama Slåttøy, Alma Bø Gettachew, Erno Aaltonen, Jussi Matikainen, Sanna Levo, Angel Emmanuel, Aino Koski, Janina Salmela, Divine Tasinda and Sonya Lindfors. Contributors to the process: Ornilia Ubisse, Judith Arupa, Alen Nsambu, Johanna Karlberg, Jaakko Pallasvuo. Production: UTT ry and Sonya Lindfors.

Kieron Jina presents THE RISE in Glasgow. The artistic focus of this “professional troublemaker” moves between post-colonial historiography and queer storytelling – always with an activist aspect and in search of empathy and shared experiences. Jina combines costumes and practices with Afro-futurist and cultural clichés to create new perspectives.

Jina’s interdisciplinary work includes research, dance, performance, and drag. Jina deliberately involves the audience in their pieces as they energetically roam through culture and history. THE RISE explores ideas related to national borders, finding love, changing seasons, and cultivating healing rituals through various archival stories, sounds, and music. Research-based indigenous practices have shown that we can share, heal, and teach our experiences through storytelling methods and the environment we encounter.

Access, as published in 2023

CC. The show will be captioned. Audience are predominantly standing, however there will be seats available for those who need them.

Credits

Kieron Jina: concept, director, performer. Yogin Sullaphen: sound design. Roman Handt: costume design. Sean Mongie, Shalom Mushwana, Negiste Yesside Johnson & Kieron Jina: video, editing, documentation. Photography: Sanmari Marais. Presented as part of the Centre of Somewhere South Africa focus, funded by the British Council International Collaboration programme.

Tramway presents the first solo exhibition in a Scottish institution by Malawian artist Billie Zangewa. In her work Zangewa creates intricate figurative collages from hand-stitched fragments of raw silk that challenge the historical stereotypes and perceptions used to objectify and exploit Black women. Zangewa creates images of strength, independence and tenderness, often contrasted with darker moments of prejudice or distain to embody a combination of melancholy and hope which is both autobiographical and universal.

The exhibition features a new panoramic, narrative silk collage echoing classical frescos and history painting in its format, establishing a reframing of its subject. Alongside this new work commissioned for the exhibition, A Quiet Fire includes a collection of earlier works reflective of the artist’s work and practice over the last 12 years. These images, described by the artist as acts of daily feminism, are intimate and confident speaking powerfully of the artist’s sense of self and of female identity; domestic and professional personas, an inner life and public face. A Quiet Fire is a visualization of what the female gaze, through self-portraiture, could look like.

Access, as published in 2023

V. This is a visual exhibition.

Credits

A Tramway exhibition realised in partnership with Brighton CCA and John Hansard Gallery, Southampton. Curated by Ben Roberts, Artistic Director of Brighton CCA. Centrepiece Return to Paradise commissioned by Brighton CCA.

Let’s talk about fictions and friction, speculative practices and about why intersectionality is so f***ing hard! Let’s talk about the ghosts haunting our stages and the power of the stage as a miracle making machine!

In this 1.5 hour workshop-session participants will be invited to approach the topic at hand, fictions and frictions, by discussing, listening, writing and lightly moving. This session is free and open to all. Participants are invited to engage in a way that is suitable for them. The workshop will include a small break and tea and coffee is available.

Access, as published in 2023

Studio Somewhere is wheelchair accessible on the first floor, accessed via lift or stairs.

Credits

Presented by The Work Room.