LAURA FISHER
(Scotland)
FORGED (IN THE TENDER HEAT OF YOUR EMBRACE)
PERFORMANCE:
SAT 21 OCT: 14:00 - 17:00
(No ticket required)
Guest Audio Describer - Ellen Renton
Part 1 - 14:00 - 14:25
Part 2 - 14:30 - 14:55
Guest Audio Describer - Simone Seales
Part 3 - 16:00 - 16:25
Part 4 - 16:30 - 17:00
After the performances on Saturday 21 October, the installation space will remain open until Sat 28 Oct, temporarily turning the gallery into a public space for rest. The installation hosts an audio archive of the performances, accessed via MP3 players in the space or a smartphone (please bring your own headphones to use with your smartphone).
INSTALLATION:
WED 25 OCT: 12:00 - 17:00
THU 26 OCT: 12:00 - 21:00
FRI 27 OCT: 12:00 - 21:00
SAT 28 OCT: 12:00 - 21:00
Please note, that the installation will not have a dedicated invigilator during daytime hours. Between these hours the Copper sculptures as part FORGED will be displayed in the installation:
- THURS 26 OCT 17:00- 19:00
- FRI 27 OCT 17:00- 19:00
- SAT 28 OCT 17:00- 19:00
Tramway (Directions)
Content note: The work quietly alludes to themes of illness, disability and intimacy, however, there is nothing explicit or directly referenced. There is a gentle invitation to audiences to interact with the soft sculptures and seating by resting in the installation during performance of installation. There are heat reactive textiles incorporated into the design, which will react to audience touch and body heat.
Age limit: 8+ (the sculptures may have sharp edges that could be a danger to young children playing in the space)
ACCESS: AD (Festival Access Page)
Access notes – Performance: The performance creatively integrates audio description, which is delivered live and amplified in the space. Audience are free to come and go, or move around as they need.
There is a range of different seating options for audience, including mats, cushions, bean bags, chairs, benches and stools. There are 30 seats/resting options available and standing space.
This performance will be documented through audio, film and photography.
Access notes- Installation: The Audio Archive & Audio Descriptions of the Installation space areavailable on MP3 players in the Installation space, including high contrast tactile button MP3 players.
Visitors can also bring their own smartphone and headphones to access the audio.
~ let me take your weight ~ can I lean on you today? ~ is that okay?
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.
close your eyes ~ rest your head ~ lay your tired body down
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.
Laura Fisher (she/they), is a disabled dance artist and performance maker working at the intersections of dance, sculpture, participatory practice and live art. Often working site specifically or responsively, Laura’s performance work makes gentle observations and interventions to site through artistic encounter that seek to shift the social choreography of a space. Drawing on definitions of ecology that decentre the human, they regularly collaborate with materials as a practice of questioning human relations to materials and our perceptions of their value, away from that of commodities and towards their own artistic agency.
https://www.laurafisherperformance.com
Originally from Florida, Simone Seales is a Glasgow-based cellist who completed their postgraduate studies at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland in 2021. They focus on free improvisation, both tonal and atonal, poetry, and devising music for theatre.
Simone is passionate about exploring sound, how sound can reflect emotional states of being and how emotions are embodied. Their creative influences come from Black feminist leaders such as Audre Lorde, Assata Shakur and bell hooks. Within Simone's creative work, they centre Blackness, sexuality, intersectional feminism and anti-racism. They believe Western Classical musicians are capable of making meaningful social change.
Ellen Renton is a poet, performer, and theatre maker from Edinburgh. She published her pamphlet ‘An Eye For An Eye For An Eye’ with Stewed Rhubarb Press in 2021, and released collaborative album ‘My Noise is Nothing’ with Lord of the Isles in 2023. She is the writer of the one woman show ‘Within Sight’, and the 2023 Stellar Quines production ‘Disciples’.
Zephyr Liddell is an artist & designer who works with costume, textiles and fashion in live performance. Zephyr has worked with numerous companies and independent directors including Scottish Dance Theatre, Mele Broomes, Al Seed, Farah Saleh. Recently Zephyr has been working with Citizens Theatre, Laura Fisher & Bassline Circus.
Show 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
Audio Description (installation) // Romany Dear
Dramaturg // Thulani Rachia
Choreographic Mentor // Farah Saleh
Production Manager // Siȃn Baxter
Producers // Siȃn Baxter & Laura Fisher
Support Workers/ Assistant Choreographers // Aniela Piasecka, Anne Kjær & Hannah Draper
Project Support Worker // Hannah Deus Draper
Audio Description Consultation // Quiplash
Install Technicians // Ben Ashton & Martha Williams
Sound Technician // Jamie MacPherson
Audio Description (R&D) // Sky Su & Emma-Jane McHenry
Movement Research Collaborators (R&D) // Penny Chivas & Sarah Hopfinger
Project Coaching (R&D) // Kim Simpson
Development credits: Commissioned and supported by Unlimited, celebrating the work of disabled artists, with funding from Dave Toole OBE Bursary Fund and Creative Scotland. Supported by the National Lottery through Creative Scotland, and Studio Somewhere, Dance Base and The Work Room’s residency programme. Research developed via Present Futures Associateship (2020) supported by Feral Arts, Collette Sadler/ Stammer Productions, Centre for Contemporary Art, Glasgow, The Work Room, The Royal Conservatoire of Scotland & The Goethe Institute.
Photos: © Emily Nicholl