INTO the New is the festival put on by students of the honours degree in Contemporary Performance Practice at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland in Glasgow.
Taking place between January 29 and February 1, the festival is a showcase of the fourth year students graduation work for the course which aims to “explore ways in which human beings make art in order to better understand the world”.
Alumni include Traverse Theatre associate artist Gary McNair whose essential Locker Room Talk returns there in April, Johnny McKnight, who makes his directorial debut at Dundee Rep next month with Ira Levin’s Broadway thriller Deathtrap, and Nic Green, maker of some of the most vital and compelling work to have come from Scotland in recent years.
Last year Green won the inaugural Adrian Howells Award for Intimate Performance and Into the New, which returns to Govan’s Pearce Institute for the third time, will similarly explore intimacy and other radical performance practices through the work of ten student performers, including Jordan Chisholm whose KIN looks at the role reversal in caring for her mother.
Organisers say to “expect provocative ideas, radical silences and beautiful chaos” from the programme, which sees shows by Eoin McKenzie, Joel McDiarmid, Elliot Cooper, Samantha Alexa, Charneh Watson, Ricky Williamson, Sharon Fisher and James Primmer being performed twice over the festival’s duration.
Sharon Fisher will draw on her experience of growing up in urban Glasgow and being a mum-of-four in exploring domesticity and challenging stereotypical views of Scottish working-class women in Mother Courage and Her Children (The Scottish Effect) while Primer’s Memoirs of an Imagined Personality is, he says, “the culmination of musings and imaginations of an understated yet glaringly obvious cross dresser who enjoys to play dress up publicly for their own entertainment”.
The course now allows students to specialise in “creative producing” in their final year and for the first time the festival is co-produced by Caitlin Fairlie and Laura Fisher, two students who have been mentored by Lucy Gaizely of performance collective 21Common.
The pair organised To Heave Your Guts Up, a symposium event on the nature of contemporary radicalism and politically-engaged practice which will feature a number of invited contributions, including that from National columnist Cat Boyd.
Fairlie and Fisher are also behind POWERHAUS, the festival’s late-night party finale at SWG3. Featuring the students as well as more established names from the world of performance such as Frankie Mulholland, Amy Rosa and the duo Adam York Gregory and Gillian Jane Lees, the night aims to promote collaboration as well as “providing a platform to exhibit visual and performance art alongside people dancing together” and will be soundtracked by Sophie Reilly aka rising DJ Sofay.
Fairlie and Fisher say: “The artists this year dig deep into the details of their most intimate domestic relationships, navigate today’s political landscapes and grapple with the vast realms of fantasy, spirituality and personal mythology.
“We invite you to experience each performance as its own act of radicalism.”
From Monday [Jan 29] to February 1, The Pearce Institute, Glasgow, various times and prices. Tickets from intothenew.org.uk
POWERHAUS: February 1, SWG3, Glasgow, 11pm to 3am, free but ticketed. Tickets from bit.ly/PowerHausSWG3
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