Performance Art – Live Art Alive

SURROUND SOUNDS

SOUTH WAREHOUSE, AVIVA STUDIOS

The South Warehouse at Aviva Studios transformed into an immersive, in-the-round venue for this late night takeover by Surround Sounds. Moody industrial ceilings, balconies for pop up performances and a circular stage for live music ensured a layout that invited movement and spontaneity.

The lineup was an eclectic curation with sets from cult Manchester band WU LYF (making a rare live return), North London’s Lex Amor, and a b2b DJ session by AFRODEUTSCHE with Jamz Supernova anchored the night. Rising talents like Reisner, Adisa Allen, Sophia Dignam (bringing jazz‑soul‑electronic fusion vibes), Che3kz, Jali Nyonkoling Kuyateh, plus collective walkabouts by Ghetto Fabulous, Club Clam, The Fvck Pigs, Banksie, and Coco Cannell ensured genre-blurring, high-energy variety.

The shift to an in-the-round stage helped cultivate a sense of communal celebration with the audience more a part of the perfomance than traditional music staging often allows for. There was no break in the momentum with live sets and DJ sets ensuring the programming unfolded like a continuous rave‑meets‑festival carousel, pulling you through waves of alt‑rock, rap, jazz‑infused textures, hard‑hitting bass, and art‑club mashups.

Surround Sounds was an electrifying fusion of Manchester’s independent spirit within a slick, warehouse‑scale space. It stayed true to Sounds From the Other City’s rebellious roots while embracing bold musical and spatial experimentation. A night built on energy, inclusivity, and audacious creativity—a fitting celebration of 20 years of underground culture.

SURROUND SOUNDS at AVIVA STUDIOS 19th July 2025

All Right. Good Night.

Large Theatres, Performance Art

Written and Directed by Helgard Haug

Score by Barbara Morgenstern

Arranged by Davor Vincze

HOME

For Manchester International Festival/Factory International

MIF23 is once again working with German theatre company Rimini Protokoll. This time it is to present the UK premiere of the award winning All Right. Good Night. This is a deeply meditative piece which uses sound and text to immerse its audience in a reflection on disappearance, loss and how we as humans deal with uncertainty. Running at approximately 140 minutes without interval, this could be a daunting prospect but it is actually one of the highpoints of this Festival. Beautifully conceived and exquisitely rendered this piece interweaves two real stories of loss to highlight the fragility of life and the tenacity of hope even in the most desperate of situations.

Helgard Haug explores the uncertainty, grief and bewilderment faced by those who lost loved ones on Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370 from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing which disappeared from the skies in 2014. She draws parallels with her own experience of watching her Father descend into dementia around a similar time. The Father as he is referred to in this piece was a man who meticulously planned for his future and poignantly had already built flats for dementia patients. Plans and actual outcomes sadly often differ…people may queue up to board a plane that never arrives…parents may plan for the possible onset of dementia never knowing that the illness may rob them of the capacity to adhere to those plans.

On Stage are 5 musicians from ZAFRAAN ENSEMBLE MUSICIANS and the rest appear on screen and in recordings. The music by Barbara Morgenstern is beautiful and perfectly reflects each event and year that passes for the families in these two stories of loss. The use of projection screens at the front and back of stage help narrate the story as text floats across the gauze hinting at the fragility of life. When the music expands to include the full ensemble they are projected moving across the screen playing their instruments and loop around to surround those actually on stage. The overall effect by Marc Jungreithmeier is wonderfully playful yet hints at the ephemeral ghosts of those lost souls no longer tangible in this world.

The performers on stage ebb and flow…queuing up as a crackling tannoy makes flight announcements, they reappear to literally build a sandy beaches as others dressed in swimwear merges instruments with deckchairs and other beach paraphernalia and fragments of plabe wreckage. Waves lap on the projector screen and light becomes warm and sun drenched as the performers gaze out at the endless horizon. Years roll by as The Father moves from gaffes with birthday cards, confusion, terrors and rages to the inevitable loss of self. Meanwhile each day family members gather at the Malaysian Embassy in Beijing still hopeful of news of loved ones. Each reported possible cure for dementia reignites hope for families just as endless conspiracy theories continue to let individuals hold a glimmer of hope that one day they will be reunited with loved ones.

All Right. Good Night. was reportedly the last recorded words of the pilot on that fated flight. They sound eerily similar to the reassurances of a parent as they leave a child to sleep in the knowledge that the dawn of a new day reunites them. This production gently reminds us all of the fragility of life and the uncertainty that it evokes. Like this lush production it is to be cherished and fully appreciated in the moment…for that may be all any of us have, and perhaps that is ultimately enough.

Manchester International Festival. HOME 6 -8 July 2023

Vice Versa

Contemporary Dance, Gig Theatre, Immersive Theatre, Performance Art, Small Theatres, Spoken Word

Written, Co-produced and Performed by Dorcas Seb

Directed by Emmy Lahouel

HOME

Wide eyed and smiling earnestly Dorcas Seb dances in a repetitive, slightly robotic style. The audience slowly start to fill 3 sides of the stage and sit while Seb continues to dance. The music shifts subtly as a more electronic hum starts to merge in and create a more ominous tension. The 3D effect set by Dylan Howells is strikingly beautiful with its neon blue and pink lights that flicker and flow across the floor and backdrop like neural pathways in an artificial brain or a strange simulation of the tree of life. By the time Seb actually starts to speak she has already created an absorbing, dystopian vibe that feels trance like and strangely calming.

Vice Versa was originally conceived as an E.P in 2018 but has been crafted into a visually arresting, evocative piece of performance art/gig theatre. Commissioned by Eclipse Theatre and HOME as part of the Slate: Black. Arts. World project in 2018/19, with development support from Unity Theatre and funded by Arts Council England. It is clearly a deeply personal project for Seb which explores the modern digital world and our increasing fixation and reliance on our phones and computer screens as a means of communication. The original ideas behind this piece in 2018 were to become even more sharply prevalent during the pandemic when our spoken words mainly flowed from our fingers and direct eye contact was via a Zoom screen.

Dorcas Seb is a confident and accomplished artist who creates an engrossing audience experience. The production feels genuinely immersive and the seating layout brings the audience so close to Seb it’s as if they too are awaiting induction into this new dystopian world. As a performer she seems to effortlessly move between dance, spoken word, song and some wickedly good characterisations. As she morphs into her Boss and gives a sassy, evangelical spiel to the new recruits, she really brings the character alive. There is a wonderful physicality to her performance and likewise when she sings her voice is rich and pure moving from spoken word to disco to RnB without flaw.

Dorcas Seb in Vice Versa. Image by Robin Clewley

Vice Versa takes us to a world where the Welfare State no longer exists and the Welt-exe state governs our thoughts and actions. Working hard and being a good citizen is rewarded with a repetitive bliss created by the experiences purchased when codes are currency and real dreams are a thing of the past. The world as perceived by Seb’s alter ego Xella is not exactly unpleasant in its familiarity and routine but her character is increasingly aware of her isolation and lack of human connectivity. 17 hour work days are interspersed with subway journeys, state infomercials and moments of joy when plugged into code REM where Xella momentarily can play Grandma’s Footsteps among the pixilated trees. It is during one of her journeys into artificial REM that the code glitches and her unwavering acceptance of this dystopian reality is challenged. Suddenly there are questions to be answered but no one to answer them…simply a quietly ruthless invitation to reboot or risk being ostracised as a crossed out.

Xella charts her own course and removes her digital collar to suddenly look up at the blue sky and the birds. Her redemptive journey is about connection and being in the moment. For the Crossed outers this may be an evangelical connection with Christ…for others it may be simply about living in the moment and being fully present with ourselves and others. However you choose to express your connectivity in the world Vice Versa is certainly a cautionary tale and we would all be wise to still connect to the digital world but start thinking about how we use it and not how it uses us.

HOME Theatre 1st and 2nd July 2022

Unity Theatre Friday 8th July 2022

Little Wimmin

Contemporary Dance, Performance Art, Small Theatres

Adapted from Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women by Figs in Wigs

HOME

Is this a feminist deconstruction of a revered classic novel? Is it poking fun at the many movie versions? Perhaps it is a clever take on climate change? Or simply a bizarre series of infomercials for juicing machines and vibrating exercise platforms? I’m not entirely certain that the five strong ensemble that is Figs in Wigs are any clearer than the audience.

A whirlwind first act that is a similar length to the interval break seems to be a trailer full of spoilers to Little Wimmin spliced with an idiots guide to Little Women. Dressed in floaty gowns while suspended midair with fluffy cloud wigs the Figs manage to both enchant and irritate. They appear to be both artful and artless in their delivery, creating a challenge for the audience…do we want to come back after the interval and wait almost 2 hours to see the little Wimmin make a margarita or shall we bugger off at the interval and just order one at the bar?

Act 2 opens like an am-dram performance that appears to be a faithful rendition of the classic…just very orange. If the past was all white lace gloves then the present for Figs in Wigs, and undoubtedly the future, is orange…very orange indeed. Meg manages, Jo lollops, Meg simpers (and dies) and Amy flounces. Oh and the Christmas tree breaks the fourth wall to give a sneering critique of the show so far before lip syncing to the Chris Rea classic Driving Home for Christmas with a delivery that would not look out of place on Rupaul’s Drag Race.

There are radical hair restyles, arson, births and deaths all interspersed with prolonged crying. It feels like this pain will never end…When will it be over? These phrases repeatedly occur as time fractures, ice sculptures melt on tea trays, jelly wobbles on vibrating plates and rugs are beaten in an orgasmic frenzy. There is a pervading sense of what mind blowing creative carnage might occur if you locked these five in a rehearsal space with Forced Entertainment and Rashdash.

There are some clever and beautifully choreographed dance sequences, especially the piece depicting time against a backdrop of faded replications of the performance that is very effective. Genius moments include an unforgettable delivery of Edith Piaf’s Je ne regrette rien and Lynchian sequences where a giant lace glove dances alongside a horse in a pin stripe suit. Limes fall from the sky and are rhythmically squeezed by an industrial juicer before being decanted into a giant cocktail glass and drank by the famous five now clad in you guessed it – orange hazmat suits.

This is not a show for the faint hearted or the easy confused. However it is a delight if you like your absurdist theatre orange…very orange indeed. With a pinch of subversion, a dash of too clever for its own good, a drip of climate change politics and a squirt of feminism Little Wimmin is a theatrical cocktail.

HOME 5th -14th March 2020

All images by Jemima Yong

ACEPHALOUS MONSTER

Large Theatres, Performance Art

Concept and Performer Ron Athey

Manchester Word of Warning at NIAMOS

This is a marriage made in heaven/hell as the iconic and maverick performance artist Ron Athey performs his blistering Acephalous Monster in the chilly, faded splendour of the old Hulme Hippodrome now reinvented as NIAMOS. Known for his bloody and visceral explorations of life, death, sexuality, trauma and fortitude this recent work focuses on the mutating, insidious spread of neo-fascism. Comprising video projections, readings, word virus and blood letting, Acephalous Monster is both troubling and mesmerising.

The performance is inspired by the work of George Bataille and his creation of a secret society, Acéphale which sought to combat 1930s fascism and rescue Nietzsche from the Nazi propaganda machine. It is provocative and definitely playing with the limits of artistic practice, but Athey is experienced and assured in his practice so the work never feels gratuitous.

Divided into five distinct sections this is not for the faint hearted. Pistol Poem sees a dapper, suited Athey chanting out numbers as he moves across a grid with deliberate and increasingly exaggerated movements like Hitler doing a step class. Later joined by Hermes Pittakos, they continue what seems a pointless repetition of moves that is quite hypnotic, while text by George Bataille appears on the screen behind. In Dionysus vs The Crucified One we see Athey at a glowing red pulpit reading lecture text from Bataille on the madness of Nietzsche while video shows the violent, imagined conception of the Minotaur.

The core focuses on celebrating the beheading of Louis XVI as an elaborately wigged Athey powders and preens before facing his execution like a macabre Punch and Judy show. There are inevitably allusions to our current political buffoons and their elaborately coiffed heads. The background footage features beheadings in the labyrinth of Forest Lawn Memorial Patk in Greendale. There is a delicious irony in Athey exploring the concept of Acéphale, the headless mascot and monster in the very cemetery where Walt Disney lies buried while his severed head is in a cryogenic facility.

Apotheosis sees Athey naked as he merges into a pool of gleaming viscose goo and then rises clutching visceral guts or umbilical cord with pigs skull mask. Dark and beautiful this is visually stunning and moving. In the final part he is joined again on stage by Hermes Pittakos for a delicate and painstaking blood letting that depicts an old masters painting. On the screen behind a BDSM scene unfolds with fakir shoes and the insertion of an elaborate peacock feather buttplug. This closing scene has real tenderness and joy. Perhaps a celebration of life and fortitude it marries the work of Athey who tested positive for HIV over 30 years ago and has survived to see PrEP while also celebrating the work of fellow performance artist Jon John who recently died from cancer in his early thirties.

There is humour, tenderness and supreme elegance in every aspect of this work. It feels impossible not to be moved by this multi layered, lushly designed performance.

NIAMOS 23rd October 2019

Cambridge Junction 30th October 2019

Ron Athey

Word of Warning

Images by Rachel Papo