[box]Louisa Hilda[/box]
This March sees the inaugural outing of a brand new Glasgow based performance festival. Buzzcut Festival was born out of a cross-institution graduate collaboration between Royal Conservatoire of Scotland alumni Nick Anderson and Rosana Cade with help from graduates and students from Glasgow University and The Glasgow School of Art. The festival was initiated as a positive response to the loss of New Territories, and the absence of an Into the New festival from Glasgow’s performance calendar this Spring. Buzzcut will showcase contemporary performance work from across Scotland and the Europe.
The festival has been programmed to showcase contemporary performance, ‘live art,’ video art, dance and installation. This cross-disciplinary spectacle will take place from the 14th to the 17th of March in The Old Hairdressers and on the 18th in the cavernous Glue Factory (who will also be hosting the closing party on the 18th). There is also talk of an artist run cafe at the Glue Factory, giving audience members no reason to leave.
Initiated and led by local artists, this is a celebration of all that’s inspiring about Glasgow’s cultural potential and will be an excellent opportunity to see cutting edge work from a wide variety of emerging performance makers.True to Glaswegian DIY-form the festival is ticketed, but with a pay what you can policy. Over 51 artists will be taking part; many travelling from across Europe. These international performers will be supported by a key local contingent of RCS graduates, GSA graduates and Glasgow-based performance professionals. The breadth of the programming is impressive, and we’ve pulled out some highlights below.
Glasgow School of Art graduate Andrew Houston’s tongue-in-cheek exploration of expanded cinema will examine the frustration recent graduates have trying to ‘climb the ladder.’ The piece is set within the narrative of an abstract job interview, and will be performed both on film and live.
Sedated by a Brick whose self-proclaimed performance style is ‘quirk’ will be presenting a non-verbal piece If Destroyed Still True. The piece is thematically dark posing “a series of images acting as reflected and refracted narratives, which simultaneously hint at a murder, a suicide, and the manifestation of a split psyche/personality.”
Rachael Clerke is an artist who best finds her voice through performance. Having spent the last year in Istanbul working with theatre company Chasing the Green Man she is now turning her attention to working on her own. After a recent performance outside Ranger’s Ibrox stadium a fan (that’s a Ranger fan, not a Clerke fan) told her to ‘either learn to paint or sculpt or fuck off.’ She decided to ignore this advice, and is presenting a piece entitled ‘How to achieve redemption as a Scot through the medium of Braveheart’ in which she argues that becoming William Wallace is the answer to everything.
Another highlight will be Katy Baird’s one-on-one performance CAM4. Exact details of the show’s content will only be available to audience members, but it promises to be an unmissable experience.
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