Performance Parties Politics Pop Free Festival Guide
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Performance Parties Politics Pop wearefierce.org #Fierce2019 Free Festival Guide UK Birmingham, 2019, October 15–20 1 1. A Very Fierce 5. Immersive history 8. The joy of repetition Bab, you Grand Opening Pay a visit to the Archive of Power Cuts in really is in you Lebanese theatre maker Tania El Khoury’s The Come join us for a toast to launch the festival at Search For Power (p.16). Exhilarating, exhausting, esoteric, existential Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery with a night dance: Marco Berrettini’s iFeel2 (p.39) and Ellen are invited of performances, drinks and DJs, plus it's free Furey and Malik Nashad Sharpe’s SOFTLAMP. entry! (pp.12–13) autonomies (p.18). to Fierce 2. Compelling contemporary theatre 9. Concept Festival Nicola Gunn questions the ethics of Working albums with Children (p.29) with many a diversion en Stadium pop on a route and a striking murder mystery from the budget with Lucy 2019! Netherland’s Davy Pieters in How Did I Die (p.9). McCormick’s Life: Live! (p.31), a reappraisal of Bob Dylan in Mariana Valencia’s ALBUM (p.22), or a spinning rock Join us for six concert (literally) with Miet Warlop’s Ghost Writer and joyous days the Broken Hand Break (p.25). Miet Warlop of disruptive Davy Pieters international Justin Shoulder 10. Party of performance. Expect 3. Our ecological crisis the year In Justin Shoulder’s Carrion (p.8) and Julia Bardsley’s AN APIAN PaRADOX (p.36) 6. Strange cabarets Club Fierce (pp.32–33) heart-popping Nicola Gunn boundaries between the human and Try the 3-octave range of NYC’s Joseph Keckler happenings where animal worlds are blurred. Does the (In Concert p.26) or the outrageous Oozing natural world hold the secrets for our Gloop (The Gloop Show p.19), the UK’s ‘premier everyone and survival? Expect fantastic costume! green-faced autistic drag queen’. everything is allowed. 4. Participation 7. Identity parades Deconstructions of gender Delve into the for those who hate and race in high-fashion catwalk show Make programme on participating Banana Cry by Andrew There is no audience, only participants, Tay & Stephen Thompson the following in these three pieces that never feel (p.28) and startling solo exposing with everybody creating the Private: Wear a mask when pages or start work together: Kate McIntosh In Many you talk to me (Alexandra Bachzetsis, p.38). Hands (pp.10–11), Begüm Erciyas Voicing Oozing with our tips here. Pieces (p.21) & Brian Lobel BINGE (p20). Andrew Tay & Stephen Thompson Gloop 3 Suppose you had the revolution you are exhausting daily fetishisation of being Asian in get an anti-austerity government into Downing talking and dreaming about. Suppose your the Western world in Make Banana Cry. Search Street? Seems unlikely. Will the performances side had won, and you had the kind of for the meaning of life in iFeel2 and be put in contained within these pages bring about On Fierce society that you wanted. How would you a trance by The Ghost Writer and the Broken the demise of neo liberalism and the white live, you personally, in that society? Start Hand Break, wonder about ethics in Working supremacist patriarchy as we know it? Not any living that way now! with Children and travel the “universal A E I O U” time soon. Paul Goodman (anarchist philosopher) in The Gloop Show. So what’s the use then? Festival As is Fierce tradition, we are excited to present I am reminded of a quote from writer Rebecca With a world in crisis what use is an arts the UK debut performances from a number of Solnit’s book ‘Hope in the Dark’: festival, really? highly acclaimed international artists, surprisingly This is the question I have asked myself on overlooked in the UK until now. This year we boast Ideas at first considered outrageous or 2019 a daily basis whilst putting together the Fierce a particularly illustrious list including New York’s ridiculous or extreme gradually become Festival 2019 programme. alternative opera and cabaret star Joseph Keckler, what people think they've always believed. What can art really achieve in the context of witty Italo-Swiss choreographer Marco Berrettini, How the transformation happened is What use is Fierce, in creeping fascism, mass anxiety and the ever looming acclaimed Australian theatre-maker Nicola Gunn, rarely remembered, in part because it's this political moment? threat of the extinction of the human race? (who will join us as part of a host of debut UK compromising: it recalls the mainstream Should Fierce be making huge political dates around the country), bold physical theatre when the mainstream was, say, rabidly statements? Secretly channelling all our money maker Davy Pieters, installation maker Begüm homophobic or racist in a way it no longer to Extinction Rebellion? Only funding artists to Erciyas and the long overdue main stage debut of is; and it recalls that power comes from make work about Trump, the Environment or Miet Warlop. the shadows and the margins, that our Brexit? Or perhaps ignoring it all completely to We are also excited to welcome a wave of hope is in the dark around the edges, not help people escape from things for a little while? younger talent, bursting onto the international the limelight of center stage. Our hope and To be honest, none of the above sounds like the performance scene with UK debut performances often our power. makings of a particularly interesting festival. from bold new voices including Mariana Whilst I might not have come up with Valencia, Justin Shoulder, Ariah Lester, James Countless times over the years Fierce has been any miracle solutions, I do think the Fierce Batchelor & Zander Porter and Ellen Furey (in a called “outrageous”, “ridiculous” and “extreme”, Festival 2019 programme can be boiled down collaboration with Fierce alumni Malik Nashad and you’ll find some of that again this year to four elements that feel more vital than ever: Sharpe), alongside new Fierce commissions (they’re badges we’ve always worn proudly). For communion, empathy, resistance and joy. These from the UK’s own Lucy McCormick and Gillie me, Fierce is the dark around the edges that four things can guide us through the dark times – Kleiman & Greg Wohead. Solnit talks about, in the margins of both artform offering a little hope. We also welcome a host of internationally and society. For six days this October I invite you to revered names to Fierce including Austrian In 2019 more than ever we need propositions come and converge with us in Birmingham and techno lover Doris Uhlich, gender confuser not opposition. The Fierce Festival 2019 experience the performances of some brilliant Alexandra Bachzetsis, the peerless Julia Bardsley programme is full of artists living as if the artists from all over the world – and they come and return of Fierce favourites Tania El Khoury, revolution has happened, all of them making bearing propositions. Kate McIntosh, Brian Lobel and Andrew Tay & propositions… naughty, joyous, sexy propositions. Come and congregate: spend time with Stephen Thompson. I really hope you’ll step into the darkness with strangers. Relate. Consider different perspectives. It wouldn’t be Fierce if we didn’t celebrate us this October. Think differently, imagine alternatives (and bring significant figures from the world of performance a friend along too). Feel connected to the world, art. This year there are new works from key Irish Aaron enjoy the sensations and emotions it provokes. Be performance artists Nigel Rolfe and Sandra x confused, be unsure, be curious... just be there. Johnston, the always intriguing Yann Marussich At Fierce Festival 2019 you can take part in in a particularly taxing situation as well as a participatory event In Many Hands, a moving and younger generation of performance artists meditative experience for a group of strangers. including Keijaun Thomas, Selina Bonelli and You can get into bed with an artist for BINGE and Whiskey Chow. We are excited to welcome them recharge with a boxset. In Voicing Pieces you’re all to our brilliant city. invited to encounter yourself as a stranger in an But the question still remains, what can any Aaron Wright intimate installation for one. You can see how of this do? Will the performances contained Artistic Director the movement of gender is constructed in pop within these pages convince British Petroleum to culture, porn, fashion and yoga in Private: Wear move their focus to renewable energy? No. Will Fierce Festival a mask when you talk to me or understand the the performances contained within these pages 4 5 won’t merely be sitting in a seat, as an audience member you Various locations Free and that in some shape or from are freer to move around you’ll be more involved in the and see the work from your What performance. This may include preferred spot (no seats, participation, don’t worry, unless for access reasons). The London usannah ewlett residence S H there will be no embarrassing works often last a few hours, IN audience interaction here. You meaning you can choose to to see might have to do things, like drop in and out as you please. My Minor Spectrorective We know it can be a little handle objects, move around, or Performance Art often uses follow some simple instructions. materials and objects that rtist daunting attending some A art and performance events, These events are ‘experiential’. we might be accustomed to especially when you’re not seeing in an art gallery and 100% sure exactly what the FIERCE LaTES lack the theatricality and event is.