Curatorial Statement

Take Me Somewhere is an international, biennial festival and year-round sector support organisation that exists to position Scotland as the place to create and see radical performance.

Where We Came From

Take Me Somewhere was born from the demise of The Arches venue in Glasgow (1991 - 2015).  The Arches supported artists from very early in their career to some of the most established names in Scotland. When it closed, and after a period of consultancy with the sector led by Jackie Wylie (Beyond The Arches - 2016), it was found that no single organisation could take on all aspects of the Arches' activity. Therefore, Take Me Somewhere’s focus was to bring exceptional international work to the city, and support Scotland based artists working in performance who are relatively ‘established’ in their careers to present ambitious works alongside them. In the spirit of managing capacity in the organisation's early years, a conscious decision was made to not focus on artists at the beginning of their careers. 

Programming Ethos

Take Me Somewhere was created to act as a connector and portal for the international gaze on the innovative work being created within Scotland. In our Festival, we programme world-leading international artists to continue Glasgow’s legacy as a home for radical practise, and situate Take Me Somewhere within a global touring circuit. We then support established Scotland-based artists to create ambitious performance works which are strategically programmed alongside them, introducing their practise to the global audiences watching. International works are essential to contributing to Scotland’s cultural landscape. We select international works that “speak to” conversations & practises of local artists, either because they are similar in form or content and add to a conversation, or because they challenge dominant understandings and provide a new perspective.

Take Me Somewhere presents and supports work that we broadly define as radical      performance, work that defies neat categories of Theatre, Dance, Circus or Visual Art and has a radical approach to what art & performance can look and feel like.      

We prioritise work that centres change-making; work that affects how we think about our relationship to ourselves, to each other and to the world around us. Work presented can be from the delicate and meditative to the loud and rambunctious.     

We do not tend to programme new writing or adaptations of plays, however we have programmed interdisciplinary theatrical spectacles which challenge deep rooted theatrical traditions of form. We also present contemporary performance which uses theatrical elements to share embodied perspectives about the world around us, or to construct a unique audience experience. Some Theatre-inspired artists we have programmed include: Cade & MacAskill, Dead Centre, Nima Séne, Jaha Koo, Tania El Khoury, 600 Highwaymen, Split Britches & Lucy McCormick.

Whilst we do not present formal dance works, we often work with artists from a dance background presenting ‘Expanded Choreography’; work that centres the body, movement & choreographic practices which  is not necessarily rooted in questions of craft & training (but can be). Examples include: Louise Ahl, Jamila Johnson Small, Jaamil Kosoko & Florentina Holzinger. We are also interested in the intersection between visual art & participatory and performative practise, and have presented participatory & performative exhibitions. Much of what we present can be defined as ‘Live Art’ (our favourite definition can be viewed here: https://www.thisisliveart.co.uk/about-lada/what-is-live-art/     

We are deeply invested in supporting artists who have historically been marginalised & underrepresented on the basis of class, gender, race, sexuality & disability due to structural and institutional bias, racism, ableism and misogyny. We are engaged in ongoing learning and conversations surrounding embedding care practise, accessibility & anti-racism, to ensure that Take Me Somewhere is an equitable working environment and a considered context to show work.

Curatorial decision making is first & foremost based on the individual work in question, and whether it meets our organisational values, particularly in relation to equity and representation. Alongside this we try to get a more general overview of practice through conversations with the artist. If there are wider elements of an artist’s current practice that contravene our values, this may also affect our decision making

Most of the work we present is shown live, in person across Glasgow. We are interested in all the different possible ways we can assemble to experience live performance; from intimate experiences for one person at a time, to public outdoor interventions, to large scale club spectacles. We are interested in sited work that encourages us to explore our city and is in dialogue with the every day. We have presented work in churches, disused post offices and public gardens. Most of the work we have been involved in is for public audiences but some has been closed works for specific communities. 

In response to pandemic conditions, the growing reality of the climate crisis & ongoing thinking around who is able to attend live events, we have been exploring the potential of combining live performance and digital technology to show performance works online.  In 2021 we presented 35 performance works, conversations and experiences streamed & screened live, online. This is a burgeoning field of interest for us and we will continue to explore how we can maintain this in our future programming. 

Curation Process

Existing / Touring Work

Take Me Somewhere is a curated festival for artists with a performance track record which means, for the most part, there isn’t a general ‘open call’ application process to present. We research work, visit festivals and events, build relationships over time & keep in touch around what projects artists have in development that might be a good fit. Artistic Director LJ Findlay-Walsh leads the curation process.

The festival is not curated with a theme in mind, it is led by current practice and dialogue taking place locally & internationally; themes unfold during a long-form process over 1 to 2 years. This means that some projects come in at the start of the process and other projects are brought in much later, depending on how they speak to the festival as a whole.

Newly Commissioned work

We offer roughly 4 seed commissions to Scotland based artists each festival cycle.  As a small organisation, we don’t yet have the resources to fully fund artists’ projects unless they are at a very small scale and so we offer additional advice, advocacy, producing and fundraising support to ensure the projects are funded to the level they need. Making a substantial shift in the scale of practise can take longer than a single festival cycle, and so we will often strategically programme artists across several festivals to support them to create the work they want, at the pace they need. In terms of our relationship with work and artists, we are interested in both working with a breadth of artists and where possible exploring a depth of relationship to enable individual step-change. 

We are committed to working with Scotland-based artists new to TMS every year (64% in 2018, 70% in 2019, 61% 2021) however, a single Festival can never showcase all the innovative & essential work being made in Scotland, and there are many artists we would like to work with that we haven’t had capacity to yet. Each festival should be seen as a snapshot of work, a moment in time that relies on many things from artists' creation schedules, partners capacity and resources as well as space and fundraising.

We aim to offer one co-commission for an international project each Festival cycle. These are often done in partnership with our international peer venues & festivals. We look for artists making era-defining performances which speak to current conversations in Scotland, whose practise has the potential to inspire new thinking and aesthetics. In the past we have co-commissioned Florentina Holzinger’s Apollon (presentation postponed due to COVID19). 

As a predominantly white, non-disabled team, we are conscious of curatorial bias in which artists work we are more regularly exposed to. Therefore, wherever possible, we share curatorial decision making with respected organisations, artists & community leaders outside of our experience. We also speak about the programme as it takes shape with a variety of artists and organisers, and between our team. Our development framework The Artist Constellation involves a cohort of artists closely associated with the Festival visiting international festivals and events and feeding back perspectives on relevant projects. At least one (and often more than one) Scottish seed commission is selected via an open call, with an outside decision-making panel (Previous examples include: Adrian Howells Award 2017 - 2021, Presence In The Absence 2021, Performance Now 2021). Our performance party Take Me Somewhere Sticky also has a curation panel made up of LGBTQIA+ artists in the city. New plans for 2023 include working with international artists as curatorial partners to create country specific focuses.      

We also work in alignment with the aims and ambitions of a variety of venue and arts partners, co-presenting & commissioning with organisations such as Kampnagel (Hamburg) Fierce Festival (Birmingham), Marlborough Productions (Brighton), Something To Aim For (London), Platform, Tramway & The Tron (Glasgow) and Scottish Sculpture Studios. 

Whilst Take Me Somewhere’s focus is about showcasing established Scotland artists on an international platform, we keep aware of less experienced artists who are currently developing work, with an eye to work with them in future. We try to nurture these relationships through our artist development programmes and emerging artist attendance bursaries to the festival. In 2021 we supported BUZZCUT festival to take place alongside the TMS programme. BUZZCUT is programmed by open call and TMS are not involved in that process. BUZZCUT specialises in creating space for true artistic experimentation & risk, so this burgeoning partnership represents exciting potential for us to expand our support to earlier career performance makers, & build transparent routes for further support through Take Me Somewhere’s other activities.