Ask LJ Findlay-Walsh what are some of the most
important elements of Take Me Somewhere, the Glasgow-wide performance festival
that opens its third edition this weekend, and a suitably expansive array of
answers will tumble forth from the festival’s artistic director. These answers
are about gender, race, sexuality, queerness, and all the other issues of
identity politics currently at the fore of ongoing debates the world over.
Such deeply personal matters have always been at
the heart of live art. While all are present and correct in Take Me Somewhere, the
driving force at the centre of this year’s month-long extravaganza is Pop. This
is the case be it through music, art and culture in its broadest
rainbow-coloured forms.
“There’s a lot of interesting strands this
year,” says Findlay-Walsh. “I’ve never wanted to have a theme, but themes
emerge from the work that comes up which always seem to have something in
common.”
This is the case with some of the festival’s
twenty-four shows this year, which run at various venues alongside workshops,
lunches and a symposium. Findlay-Walsh finds it hard to single out favourites,
excitedly moving on to describe the next show while still singing the praises
of another. Such urgent bite-size appraisals seem to fit with works such as Notorious,
performed by The Famous Lauren Barri Holstein, Beige B*tch by Nima Sene and
Cock Cock…Who’s There? by Samira Elagoz.
Aa for pop, it’s everywhere.
“The Famous Lauren Barri Holstein is exploring
stereotypes of the idea of the female monster,” says Findlay-Walsh, “and she
does this through the figures of Medusa and Nicki Minaj, and uses lots of
beguiling images to put the audience in this position of becoming voyeurs.”
The use of stereotypes is there too in Beige
B*itch, in which Sene casts the audience as viewers of Beige Nation TV.
“The show is looking at issues of black cultural
identity and white appropriation of that,” says Findlay-Walsh, who calls Sene
“one of the most exciting artists working in Scotland just now.”
Elsewhere, 100% Pop finds American/Zimbabwean
artist Nora Chipaumire mining the spirit of Grace Jones to create an
‘Afro-futuristic soundclash of dance and music’ to explore some of the
contradictions at the heart of pop as arguably the most accessible of artforms
in capitalist society.
Then there is Brownton Abbey, which pulls
together a collective of queer artists of colour for a night of what
Findlay-Walsh calls “a kaleidoscopic off-world temple,” that mixes club culture
and live art for “a performance party that speaks of our moment.” As Findlay-Walsh
observes, such a mash-up of forms with subversive intent taking place over one
night at The Art School, “also harks back to the Arches.”
Ah, yes, the Arches, the now lost artistic
playground next to Glasgow Central Station which, over its twenty-five-year
existence, changed Glasgow’s cultural landscape. The thriving arts lab only closed
its doors after Police Scotland recommended to Glasgow Licensing Board it
should lose its late license, effectively strangling the venue’s main income
stream.
Findlay-Walsh cut her producing and curating teeth
there, as did the National Theatre of Scotland’s artistic director Jackie Wylie
and artists such as Kieran Hurley. Hurley’s play about club culture, Beats, has
just been adapted into a major feature film.
With the Arches, you never quite knew what you
were going to get. So it is with Take Me Somewhere, which began as a nomadic
reaction to the closure, and, with shows like Brownton Abbey, is keeping its
artistic spirit alive.
“When we announced we were doing it we got
tweets from clubbers saying how much it reminded them of the Arches,” says Findlay-Walsh
with a hint of pride in her voice.
Beyond the performances themselves,
Findlay-Walsh is conscious of Take Me Somewhere’s place in an often marginalised
live art scene, and the need within that to bring artists together.
“There’s quite a big delegate strand this
year," she says, “which is about facilitating conversations between
Scottish and European artists. There’s a real conversation to be had as well about
making the festival artist-focused, and to have conversations between artists
which are normally done between curators and arts managers. We want to try and
make sure artists are in the room for that.”
To this end, Take Me Somewhere has instigated
Artist Constellation, a long-term inquiry of what future festivals might look
like, s artists from Scotland act as delegates alongside producers, managers
and curators from home and abroad with a view to developing international
collaborations.
While infinitely more holistic, such ambitions
aren’t that far away from the early days of Tramway, when major international
artists brought their work to Scotland in a way that a younger generation of
artists in Scotland could see it first-hand. With Findlay-Walsh now combining
her artistic directorship of Take Me Somewhere with a new role as senior
performance curator at Tramway, internationalism is at the core of both.
“We may well be sailing off in a wee raft soon,”
she says in reference to the UK’s still forthcoming departure from Europe, “but
making these international connections is really important. Take Me Somewhere
isn’t just a festival. It’s about sustainability, and creating situations for
work where artists can take risks and have a home.”
After three years, Take Me Somewhere looks set
to evolve even more.
“It’s grown year on year,” says Findlay-Walsh,
“and it will be really interesting to see where that goes. Right now, I’m
really interested in outdoor work just now. I think doing a large scale
spectacle that can attract a large audience might be something we try and
develop for next year.”
Despite the apparent seriousness of some of the
work in Take Me Somewhere, as with the pop world that sired it, there has
always been fun to be had within it.
“It’s not all deeply political,” says
Findlay-Walsh. “It’s joyous as well.”
Take Me Somewhere runs from May 11 to June 2 in
various venues in and around Glasgow.
www.takemesomewhere.co.uk
The Herald, May 8th 2019
ends
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