Works Ahead: Performances

Three artists, three performances, three takes on singledom, absence and the onset of the thirties. An emerging programme full of surprises and an insight into performance that defies definition. 

October 2011 saw an extraordinary coming together of over 30 artists in a day-‘maze of performance’: emergency accommodation. Two whole buildings resonated with small exchanges, moving installations and intriguing conversations, punctuated by naked encounters and full-blown performances. Recapturing that spirit of adventure, Works Ahead invites a group of the most intriguing emergency accommodation artists to develop and present their work in a takeover of Contact Space 1.

Credits:

Thanks to Blank Media Collective.

Gareth Cutter

Even The Lone Ranger Had Tonto

In Brief

The self-imposed isolation of a solo performer meets a love of cabaret in a show about obsession, loneliness, envy and the many ups and downs of ‘going it alone’.

Who Is He

Involved in Manchester’s performance scene for over 3 years, running The Cabaret Of Ida Bucket, showcasing local acts at Mother’s Ruin and creating work with the likes of hÅb, Manchester Library Theatre and Larkin’ About. He combines clowning and physical comedy, music, writing and visual arts to explore serious topics playfully, creating homemade costumes and props that straddle the line between the ingenious and crude, work in parody and satire, exaggerate the best and worst aspects of my personality to absurd lengths and keep a straight face when doing stupid things.

What People Have Said About Him

Gareth Cutter is no good, chop him up for firewood

a lullaby his dad used to sing to him as a child.

More

Fleetwood Mac once sang, ‘You can go your own way,’ but when the Lone Ranger parts from Tonto, he begins to realise that it isn’t always such a good idea.

The myths of the romantic artist and the trailblazing hero are picked apart by one solo performer who wonders whether such loneliness on stage and in life will get him to success quicker. He’ll dance, he’ll sing, he’ll perform – but what’s the point if there’s no-one there to support him?

Website

cutteruption.wordpress.com

Krissi Musiol

Blue

In Brief

Blue is burying your head in the sand, it’s drowning in whiskey and it’s compiling a list of all the things you haven’t yet done.    

Who Is She?

Krissi Musiol is the last person to leave the party (but not necessarily the last one standing).

Krissi Musiol cannot dance - she can’t waltz, can’t salsa, she can’t do a pirouette.  She can’t do the twist, the tango, a tap dance, the tarantella.  She’s can’t two-step, hand-jive, boogie woogie, break dance, dirty dance, maypole dance.  She can’t moonwalk.  No ballet, polka, flamenco, fandango, vogue or rumba.  Nor Irish dancing, Latin dancing, Polish dancing, no pole dancing.  There is no way her legs can do a Can-Can.

What People Have Said About Her

The way its language, movement, visuals and content were integrated created something simultaneously richly-layered and spare, intensely plausible yet built on a single family’s histories and myths.  From the moment when Musiol first appears on the white stage in a bridal gown, “a girl in a rotten grey dress searching for a rotten grey man”, the blend of truth and fiction, folklore and history, is seamlessly achieved.

Audience member, Hatch, NEAT 11

More

The girl has thoughts about ending her own life on more than one occasion.  She has thought about what it would be like to no longer exist.
She’s going to shed her rotten wedding dress, count the days down backwards to try and go back in time to when she saw you last, back to the party, back to the bar. 
There’s so many things she learned but never used.   Things she didn’t understand and things which only happened in her imagination. 
Things that moved when no words were spoken. 
Things written on huge walls in tiny letters. 
Things that were written down in lists that no one ever read.
Things she’s most afraid of and things she’s not supposed to do.
She has created a strategy for survival because she thinks she might be dying…
She’s thinking about dying and also turning 30.  And somewhere in between there, there’s a broken love story.     

Lowri Evans

Live Letter

In Brief

How does love exist when you’re not there? Live Letter is about absence, love, and your best handwriting.

Who Is She?

Ten years ago Lowri didn’t get into drama school so she studied art. She moved to Manchester, learnt to think sideways, formed a punk band and found her own way to make theatre.

What People Have Said About Her

Compelling

David Hoyle

Lowri is one of the most interesting emerging artists and performance makers in the North West

Richard Gregory, Quarantine, 2011

More

Lowri has a long history of putting her heart on the line. In the increasing blurring of her life and her work she has lamented about moments of goodbyes over train station tannoy systems, traced eighty year old school photographs and taken you for cups of tea on wasteland. She slid on the floor alongside you during rush hour in a slug suit; she told you everything in a book about the end of a relationship.

This performance is no exception. By working as close as she can between her own life and her art she knows they reveal something about the other, and hopes to delve into the grey ocean of what it is to be human, in all its cruelty and splendour.

Website

lowrievans.wordpress.com