Fierce Festival Limited
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Fierce Festival Limited
Fierce Festival Limited
18th May - 2nd June 2007
Venue: Various venues
http://www.fiercetv.co.uk
Birthdays are a time for looking forward as well as back, and as Fierce! reaches ten years old our celebrations are no exception. For this year Fierce are proud to welcome back many of the artists who have helped to establish Fierce’s place at the forefront of the international art scene – with Ron Athey, Franko B, Gob Squad and Marisa Carnesky just a few of those returning this year with newly commissioned projects. Yet amongst these familiar guests are an equal number of new faces whose names may not be as well known yet but whom we firmly believe are producing work which will soon rank in stature alongside that of their forebears. And almost as inspiring as discovering such talent in the early stages of what look like long and promising careers is the fact that many of them come from the West Midlands. For although Fierce! can justifiably claim to be one of the most prominent festivals on the international circuit our commitment to developing local talent is equally important. Nor are we alone in this for – alongside our long-standing partnerships with the likes of Birmingham Rep, Birmigham Hippodrome and Warwick Arts Centre – this year we also announce new collaborations with the CBSO and Birmingham Royal Ballet. That Fierce! now counts itself amongst such world-leading organisations means we are an enfant terrible no more, but the biggest programme they’ve ever assembled for their tenth anniversary still has plenty of mischief and surprises in store.
And log on to www.fiercetv.co.uk for regular updates, details of competitions and offers and
daily video highlights.
Opening Party
Friday 18 May / 6pm onwards
The Cotton Club, Hurst Street
Free event. All welcome, but make sure you get there early and let us know you’re coming by calling 0121 244 8084
Featuring Gob Squad’s Who Are You Wearing?
Fierce’s opening parties are now legendary events so for our tenth birthday we realise we’ve got a bar to raise as well as one to drink dry. So this year Gob Squad have invited some of the biggest stars in Hollywood to kick off the festivities with ‘Who Are You Wearing?’ At least they claim they have – but the supposed celebrities who’ll be fawned over by showbiz reporters and paparazzi on the red carpet might look a little different than normal. Because for this show Gob Squad will be interviewing arriving party-goers as if they were Hollywood stars and later projecting the footage onto a screen inside. So if you’ve ever dreamed of swanning into a film premiere this is your chance to live out those fantasies although be warned that Gob Squad can stare right through the superficial glamour of fashion fascism as if it were the Emperor’s New Clothes.
Plus of course all the usual mayhem of a Fierce! launch party: free booze, great cabaret and
the fiercest hostess in town, Mrs Barbara Nice.
www.gobsquad.com
The Sky Orchestra
Luke Jerram and Dan Jones with musicians from the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra
Summerfield Park, Edgbaston
*This event will take place at 6am on either Tuesday 8 /Wednesday 9 / Thursday 10 May 2007 (depending on weather conditions)
Free event*
What better way to raise the curtain on ten years of Fierce! than with a soundtrack to the moments when curtains begin to open across the city? Reprising their performance at Fierce! 2004 – which has become one of the most talked-about events in the festival’s history – the hot air balloons of the Sky Orchestra will once again take to the skies to play a subliminal symphony as dawn breaks across Birmingham. However, this year will be their most spectacular performance yet because – instead of having a pre-recorded score broadcast through loudspeakers – this time it will be played by live musicians from the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. Devised by the artist Luke Jerram and developed in collaboration with composer Dan Jones and members of the CBSO, this will be the Sky Orchestra’s third flight of fancy at Fierce! following their 2004 premiere and their performance for ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ in Stratford-upon-Avon in collaboration with the Royal Shakespeare Company last year.
Noise Forecast
Summerfield Park, Edgbaston
This event will take place at 6am on either Tuesday 8 / Wednesday 9 / Thursday 10 May 2007 (depending on weather conditions) – Free event
Peace and quiet can be difficult to come by in the city, so wouldn’t it be useful if we had a version of Siân Lloyd who could say when the cars are going to start beeping outside your window or the neighbours are going to turn their radio up as if it was predictable as weather fronts? Well this is
the role artists Birgit Binder and Duncan Speakman have put themselves in for ‘Noise Forecast’.
Based on research involving interviews with local residents, ambient sound recordings and the
measurement of environmental sound levels the pair have created a site-specific performance
which aims to help you find the ideal time and location to either experience a few moments of
tranquility or to immerse yourself in the aural rush of urban activity.
Revealing The Loop, a one-day festival launching newly commissioned artist’s work made in
partnership with members of the community towards the newly proposed waterside housing
development at Icknield Port Loop. Projects include Fierce’s sound walks by Brigit Binder and
Duncan Speakman, and balloon performances by Luke Jerram. The festival will reveal the master
plan developed by ISIS to the community. There will also be stalls, music and art activities to while away the day.
This event has been made possible with financial assistance from MADE
www.duncanspeakman.net
Name in lights
Thursday 17 May – Friday 15 June
Birmingham Central Library, Chamberlain Square
In the era in which reality TV can seemingly make anyone prepared to dispense with their shame and privacy famous, artist Joshua Sofaer raises questions about who we really want our role models to be in a celebrity obsessed culture with ‘Name In Lights’. In March this year visitors to the www.notcelebrity.co.uk website set up by Sofaer were asked to give reasons – in 150 words or less – why they or someone they know should have their name in huge illuminated letters
above Birmingham Central Library for the duration of Fierce!. A panel of judges including Radio 4’s Mark Lawson, advertising guru Trevor Beattie, ‘Big Brother’s Alison Hammond and fashion ‘it girl’ Jemima French will then decide on who best deserves to have their name in lights and on everybody’s lips with the winner being announced at the Hippodrome. The installation itself, harking back to a lost era of Hollywood glamour, will be unveiled on May 17th at dusk in Chamberlain Square.
Commissioned by Fierce! Festival and The Hippodrome. Sponsored by Cybertec. Funded by Urban Fusion and Arts Council England. Supported by Birmingham Central Library.
With special thanks to Brian Gambles and Sue Round at Birmingham Central Library.
www.notcelebrity.co.uk www.joshuasofaer.com
www.cybertecltd.com
Fish Tank & 3 Bowls, 12 Fish
Saturday 19 May – Sunday 3 June
Monday – Friday 9:30 – 6pm
Saturday 9:30 – 5:30pm
Sunday 11 – 5pm
BBC Birmingham Public Space, The Mailbox
Two films produced and directed by pupils from Allens Croft Primary School and
Colmore Infant & Nursery School working in collaboration with artist Abigail Davey will
be exhibited for the duration of the festival at BBC Birmingham Public Space, Mailbox.
The films explore the personalities of fish, purchased from a local pet shop, that have
been closely observed in order to generate a series of proposals for the Name in Lights
project. Visitors to the exhibition will be encouraged to participate in creative activity
and contribute to a celebrity fish environment.
Further information about these films can be found in the Fierce! Kids section of this
Programme.
That Night Follows Day
Friday 18 and Saturday 19 May / 7.45pm
The Patrick Centre at Birmingham Hippodrome
0870 730 1234 / £10 / £8 concessions
For the first of their two performances at this year’s Fierce!, the Artistic Director of longstanding festival favourites Forced Entertainment has teamed up with their Belgian counterparts Victoria and a group of schoolchildren to create a play that represents the world through the eyes of youngsters. The title of ‘That Night Follows Day’ alludes to the fact that most of what we initially learn about the world in our childhood – from mundane things like how to dress, right through to more abstract concerns like the meaning of love – is told to us by adults whose own attitudes frame our understanding of life. Written by Tim Etchells in response to his conversations with
the children and performed by the young collaborators themselves, ‘That Night Follows Day’ not only gives a fresh slant on the old ‘nature vs. nurture’ debate but also allows an adult audience to rediscover the sense of wonder as well as some of the darker fears we all experienced growing up.
Produced by Victoria, Ghent. Co-produced by Festival D’automne, Paris (F) / Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris (F) / steirischer herbst, Graz (A) / Productiehuis Rotterdam (NL) With the support of KunstenFESTIVALdesArts, Brussels (B) / Fierce!, Birmingham (UK) / Theaterfestival Spielart, München (G)
www.birminghamhippodrome.com
www.forcedentertainment.com
www.victoria.be
Haircuts by Children
City Gents, 69 Digbeth High Street, B5 6DH
Saturday 19 May / 12pm – 4pm
Hushhair.com, 36-37 Stevenson Street, Birmingham, B2 4BH
Sunday 20 May / 12pm – 4pm
Free event but please call 0121 244 8084 to make your appointment
Most of us have had haircuts we’ve regretted, but only the truly brave would entrust a ten year-old to do their barbering for them. Yet this is exactly what Canadian artists Darren O’Donnell and Naomi Campbell are asking people to do during ‘Haircuts by Children’. Under the careful supervision of trained hair-stylists, children from local schools and The REP Youth Theatre will be let loose on the hair of willing victims with a pair of scissors. O’Donnell calls this ‘social acupuncture’, or getting different social groups to interact in unusual ways. Previous pieces from Mammalian Diving Reflex have included ‘The Talking Creature’ where volunteers struck up conversations with strangers to break down social inhibitions and an all-ages dance party in a gymnasium full of rubber balls. ‘Haircuts by Children’ seeks to upset the usual power balance between adults and children and questions how much responsibility we are prepared to give young people. And who knows, you might even end up setting a new trend…
Mammalian Diving Reflex is generously supported by the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council and the Toronto Arts Council
www.mammalian.ca
www.hushhair.com
Curious (be)longing
Monday 21 May / 8pm
Custard Factory Theatre – 0121 236 4455 / £8 / £6 concessions
In their new production ‘(be)longing’ the Anglo-American Curious duo of Leslie Hill and Helen Paris are travelling as much through the tangled tracks of the human heart as they are down the vast highways of the American West. Inspired by a trip the pair took back to Hill’s birthplace in New Mexico, ‘(be)longing’ sees Hill and Paris playing the parts of two women separated by time and distance but ultimately searching for some sort of fulfilment in their lives – be it Hill’s romantic cowgirl or Paris’ British woman seeking solace in coffee and cigarettes. Told through a montage of monologue, music and film ‘(be)longing’ is another look into the margins of society from these multimedia artists who previously brought their ‘Lost and Found’ performance piece to Fierce! 2005 and by giving a voice to those forgotten by the wider world Curious have created another truly memorable piece of work.
An artsadmin project. (be)longing is financially assisted by Arts Council England, Awards For All and The Women’s Library.
www.placelessness.com
www.artsadmin.co.uk
www.custardfactory.com
Nicole Blackman – Beloved
Compton Verney, Warwickshire, CV35 9HZ
Saturday 26, Sunday 27 and Monday 28 May / 12pm – 5pm
Gallery admission prices: £7.00 Adults £5.00 Concessions £4 Students 01926 645500 / £2.00 Child (age 5-16)
*£16 Family (2 adults and up to 4 children)*
Fierce! just wouldn’t be complete without an appearance from Nicole Blackman, the New York poet and performance artist who has become a regular fixture at the festival. Following on from ‘Stay Away From Lonely Places’ – the audio tour around Digbeth’s industrial wastelands that she devised in 2006 – for this year’s piece she will be exploring the more pastoral spaces of Compton Verney instead. Yet, as ever in Blackman’s work, the artist’s imagination has created something magical beneath the seemingly idyllic surface of this rural Warwickshire mansion. Blackman will lead three days of live performance, her words evoking the feelings and emotions connected to acts of human kindness and love. In this performance for one expect an experience pregnant with suspense and a wistfulness similar to that of her acclaimed ‘The Courtesan’s Tales’ as her words
and your actions take you across this beautiful house and Capability Brown landscaped gardens .
Commissioned by Fierce! Festival and Compton Verney.
www.comptonverney.org.uk
www.nicoleblackman.com
Blast Theory – The Day of the Figurines
Saturday 19 May – Monday 11 June (except Sundays) / 12pm – 5pm
Wolverhampton Art Gallery – Free entry
A role-playing game with a difference, ‘Day Of The Figurines’ is set not in some fantastical land but in a post-industrial city not a million miles away from our own. Devised as part of the European research project IperG (Integrated Project On Pervasive Gaming) by Brighton-based artist’s group Blast Theory – who previously transformed the streets of cities like Tokyo into a vast computer game for their internationally toured ‘Can You See Me Now?’ project – ‘Day Of The Figurines’ invites up to 1,000 players to create a model character which is then sent through a series of unsettling encounters on a board representing a town. The game takes place over several days as players text in instructions for their character and receive updates on their progress via their mobile phone and a live website, raising questions about how technology controls our lives and how much autonomy we really have as atomised individuals in an urban
environment.
Day Of The Figurines has been developed in collaboration with the Mixed Reality Lab at University of Nottingham, Sony Net Services and the Fraunhofer Institute as part of the European research project IPerG (Integrated Project on Pervasive Gaming).
www.wolverhamptonart.org.uk
www.blasttheory.co.uk
www.pervasive-gaming.org
The Fierce Festival and The Czech Centre, London present: Milan Cais – Nightwatch
Coventry Transport Museum
Thursday 24 May – Sunday 3 June / Nightly from 10pm onwards
Interactive booth daily 1pm – 3pm inside Coventry Transport Museum
Free event
Poking fun at the concept of CCTV and State surveillance in a manner George Orwell never imagined, Czech artist Milan Cais’ ‘Nightwatch’ will let you pretend to be an omniscient observer over the citizens of Coventry. Consisting of two eye-shaped balloons each 4 metres wide, participants are invited to step into a video booth from which an image of their own eyeballs will be projected onto the balloons which will hover at dusk over the city. A graduate of the Academy Of Fine Arts in Prague, Cais is a multi-disciplinary artist, stage-designer and musician who often brings together elements of all these fields into his interactive installations and optical illusions which deal playfully with the relationship between the observer and observed – such as in his ‘Voyeur’ installation through which audience members viewed blurred images of other people’s windows through two telescopes.
www.transport-museum.com
www.czechcentre.org.uk
Cesare Pietroiusti
Wednesday 23 May – Saturday 2 June (Wednesdays – Saturdays only) / 1pm – 5pm
Ikon Eastside, 68 –70 Heath Mill Lane, B9 4AR
Free exhibition
The work of conceptual artist Cesare Pietroiusti questions the very worth of art in society. Best known for his 1997 pamphlet ‘Non-Functional Thoughts’ in which he published 100 ideas for useless artworks, Ikon and Fierce! have invited the Romebased artist to present four unique performances examining the artistic processes of production and consumption.
Enriching Food
Sunday 20 – Monday 21 May / 5pm – 5pm (24 hrs)
Ikon Café
Free event – queuing possible, please be patient!
For this performance in the Ikon Café audience members are asked to select an Italian meal from a menu which will then be cooked by Pietroiusti himself. But at the end it’s the diners who take the tip as the artist will give them money equal to the price of their chosen meal after it’s been eaten. Drinks are not included but diners can bring their own.
Money-watching
Thursday 24 May / 11am – 5pm
#Venue to Be Confirmed. Please contact Ikon Gallery for information on 0121 248 0708*
Free drop-in event
You’ll really have to keep your eye on the prize when you visit an empty shop for the third of Pietroiusti’s performances. Visitors to the shop will be able to win a £10 or £20 note which they can take away only if they scrutinise it for 30 minutes with a level of attention that satisfies Pietroiusti himself.
Eating Money
Tuesday 22 May / 7pm – 8pm
Ikon Gallery
Free event with limited capacity
Created with Paul Griffiths, ‘Eating Money’ takes the form of an auction with the audience asked to bid a sum which can be divided into 2 bank notes i.e £10 can be split into 2 fivers. The currency can be in either euros, sterling, US dollars or Swiss francs and the person who bids the highest will have that amount divided into 2 notes which the artists will then eat. The auction will be filmed for an installation at the Ikon alongside the 2 notes which will be returned once nature has taken its natural course through Cesare’s body.
Three Thousand Artworks Distributed For Free
Saturday 26, Sunday 27 and Monday 28 May / 11am – 6pm
Ikon Foyer
Free event
Finally – in a bout of generosity to mark his final appearance at this year’s Fierce! – Pietroiusti will be making 3,000 drawings with a pigment derived from gold and silver filings and giving them away at the Ikon Gallery.
Gary Stevens – Wake Up and Hide
Wednesday 23 May – Saturday 2 June
*(Wednesdays – Saturdays only) / 1pm – 5pm*
Ikon Eastside, 68 – 70 Heath Mill Lane, B9 4AR
Free exhibition
‘Wake Up and Hide’ is the latest work by Paul Hamlyn award-winning artist Gary Stevens. A development of his 2003 video installation ‘Slow Life’, this new piece reflects his ongoing fascination with the intersection between performance, visual art and video. In ‘Wake Up and Hide’, two wide projections on opposing walls show a static shot of almost identical interiors. In ‘Hide’ a group of people emerge from hiding places and begin to occupy the room. In ‘Wake Up’ they are tense and self-conscious but begin to relax, sag and collapse unless a sound disrupts this process and then they run for cover.
However the audience are not merely passive observers, as the action on screen is disturbed by the sound of their presence in the gallery space.
With sound by Graeme Miller, lighting & camera by David Gopsill, art direction by Georgina Carless and interactive design & technology by Nic Sandiland. Performers include: Heather Ackroyd, Ian Bourn, Helena Bryant, Frog Morris, Fiona Templeton; Gareth Brierley, Antonia Doggett, Michelle Griffiths, Kate Meynell, Gary Stevens ‘Wake Up and Hide’ was commissioned by and first shown at Matt’s Gallery, in association with Artsadmin. Funded by the Arts Council England and the Henry Moore Foundation.
Gary Stevens is an Artsadmin artist.
www.ikon-gallery.co.uk
www.artsadmin.co.uk
The Festival of Xtreme Building
PERFORMANCE NATION… THE BEGINNING
www.festival-xtremebuilding.org.uk
Events on the Saturday 19, Saturday 26, Monday 28 May and Friday 1 June
Franko B – Don’t Leave Me This Way
Saturday 19 May / 7pm
CBSO Centre, Berkley Street, Birmingham
0121 767 4050 / £8 / £6 concessions
One of Fierce’s most popular and provocative performers, Franko B makes a welcome return to the festival with his new piece ‘Don’t Leave Me This Way’. Franko has earned himself both notoriety and great artistic acclaim with performances such as ‘I Miss You’ where he used his flesh as literal raw material, tearing into his own skin to create his visceral blood-based works. In ‘Don’t Leave Me This Way’ – which has been developed with lighting designer Kamal Ackarie – Franko’s body one again provides both the subject and form of the piece, yet here it remains unruptured as the artist asks us to consider his prone frame as a living sculpture. However the piece is no less visceral than Franko’s previous works for as the audience’s eyes wander over his heavily tattooed frame the room is slowly engulfed with blinding light which literally scorches the image onto the retinas as much as it does the memory.
The research and development of this piece was made possible with the kind support of the Arts Council of England.
www.cbso.co.uk
www.franko-b.com
Mem Morrison – Leftovers
Monday 21 and Tuesday 22 May / 7pm
Annie’s Café, Kingsfield Road, Kings Heath
0121 236 4455 / LIMITED CAPACITY
STRICTLY TICKETS ONLY £10 includes Full English Breakfast / vegetarian option (please state when booking)
As Mem Morrison sees it, the very essence of Englishness is contained in the congealed beans,
crispy bacon and sweating sausages of the traditional fried breakfast. Following on from his ‘Fuel’
piece in 2004 where Morrison invited his mother on-stage to help him cook a traditional Turkish-
Cypriot meal, ‘Leftovers’ offers another affectionate yet probing view of how different cultures
define themselves through the food they eat. Taking place in the archetypal greasy spoon café
(full English breakfast included for all), ‘Leftovers’ includes a sound installation of a Turkish-
Cypriot immigrant’s experiences and anecdotes, followed by a performance with a strongly
autobiographical slant. Autobiography has been the basis of much of Morrison’s performance art
like his confrontation with his childhood bullies as seen in his video piece ‘Undo’ – which featured in Fierce! 2006 – and future project ‘Ringside’ exploring his fascination with family and weddings.
An artsadmin project. Commissioned and produced by Chelsea Theatre, London. Commissioned by NOW as part of the NOW Programme 2006, financially supported by Nottingham City Council and Arts Council England.
www.birmingham-rep.co.uk
www.artsadmin.co.uk
Tribal Soul – The Accused
Wednesday 30 and Thursday 31 May / 7.45pm
The REP- 0121 236 4455 / £8 / £6 concession
The first in an 18 month series of works co-produced by Tribal Soul and Birmingham Rep, ‘The Accused’ examines how cultural identities morph and change in the global diaspora. Inspired by the African griot tradition of oral storytelling, ‘The Accused’ ponders the role of collective memory
and ancestry in forming one’s own conception of self and belonging. And fittingly for a piece about the diverse experiences of exiles ‘The Accused’ draws upon a number of contributors from different corners of the art world.
Conceptualised by Sierra Leonean Patrice Naiambana – author of ‘The Man Who Committed Thought’, ‘The Accused’ features choreography from Harold George and visual effects from Derek Nisbet of Talking Birds, all of whose artistic identities blur together in this mesmerising multimedia tourde-force.
www.the-door.co.uk
Stan’s Cafe – The Cleansing of Constance Brown
Tuesday 22 – Saturday 26 May, Tuesday 22 – Friday 25 May / 6.30pm and 9pm, Saturday 26 May / 5.30pm and 8pm
*Warwick Arts Centre – 024 7652 4524 / £14.50 / £12 or Fierce! 10 Package
3 events at Warwick Arts Centre for £21 or 4 events for £26
A sequel of sorts to their hugely popular ‘It’s Your Film’ installation which they have toured around the world, Fierce! is proud to present the world premiere of ‘The Cleansing Of Constance Brown’ by Birmingham’s critically-acclaimed experimental theatre group Stan’s Café. Like ‘It’s Your Film’, ‘The Cleansing Of Constance Brown’ takes place inside a specially-constructed space in which live performance and film intermingle.
However whereas ‘It’s Your Film’ was played out for one individual at a time – here the audience
can number up to 25 people. And you may well feel you want people around you for comfort when you are plunged into the disorientating world that Stan’s Café has created, which seems to shift beneath your feet in search of the enigmatic Constance Brown – a ghostly and possibly Godlike woman who seems to have existed throughout the whole of
human history.
Commissioned by Warwick Arts Centre/Fierce! and Wiener Festwochen (Vienna)
www.warwickartscentre.co.uk
www.stanscafe.co.uk
The Dresser
Various times – contact Box Office / Duration 15 minutes
Tuesday 22 – Thursday 24 May / 12pm – 8pm
Birmingham Hippodrome – 0870 730 1234 / £5
Thursday 31 May, Saturday 2 and Sunday 3 June 2.30pm – 9.30pm / Wolverhampton Grand Theatre
01902 429212 / £5.50
In The Dresser, Christopher Green is an actor about to go on stage who is in need of a dresser. You, shown in to a dressing room by an attendant, have been brought in to help him out.
“Hi,” says Green from where he sits in front of the mirror, draped in a horrible silky dressing-gown,
“thanks so much for coming, I’m really sorry you got roped into doing this. It’s such a nightmare,”
Immediately, you’ll realise that something is required of you! You also have to perform because,
behind this closed door, the story that you and Green concoct together is real with a sense of
complicity that is impossible to achieve in conventional theatre. It’s up to you to soothe his
primadonna nerves in a piece of comic theatre where for a few minutes you are as much a star
of your own unique show as the artist himself.
Christopher Green is well known to Fierce! audiences as Tina C – his fictional Nashville singer
who comes across like the lovechild of Tammy Wynette and Julian Clary and who has performed her hits like ‘If These Walls Could Speak (They’d Be In Therapy)’ and ‘No dick is as hard as my life’ across the world.
Originally commissioned by Fierce! and the Royal Shakespeare Company for the Complete Works Festival.
www.birminghamhippodrome.com
www.grandtheatre.info
www.christophergreen.net
Adrian Howells – Held
Wednesday 30 May – Saturday 2 June
Appointments daily – To book call on 0121 244 8084
A house in Bearwood
Following his ‘Salon Adrienne’ piece at Fierce! last year where his transvestite alter-ego Adrienne styled peoples hair and offered hairdresser chit-chat, performance artist, Leigh Bowery associate and recent recipient of Glasgow University’s AHRC Creative Fellowship Adrian Howells now asks us to get more intimate with him than ever before in ‘Held’. A one-on-one performance that takes place across 3 domestic spaces – first in a kitchen where he offers his hand as well as tea, then the lounge where he puts his arm around you as you watch TV and finally the bedroom where you lie together for 30 minutes. Both the participant and Adrian remain fully clothed throughout and a pillow is placed between both bodies on the bed. Evoking both the fleeting comfort of one-night stands and the sometimes stifling atmosphere of long-term relationships, ‘Held’ encourages us to think about how much the simple act of touching can say.
Special Thanks: Dee Heddon, Jordan McCurrach, Lisa Mayall and Murray Wason. Adrian is
currently a recipient of an AHRC Creative Fellowship at Glasgow University, a.howells@tfts.arts.gla.ac.uk
Ballet on the Buses
Including Performances on: Thursday 24 May 4.00pm: Victoria Square
Friday 25 May 4.30pm: outside Hippodrome (before 5.30pm Fame performance)
*For more information on how to catch up with the big red bus call 0121 244 8084
or visit www.fiercetv.co.uk for further performances
Free Event
All aboard! More usually accustomed to stages across the world the dancers of Birmingham Royal Ballet will have to perform their pirouettes in far more cramped surroundings for ‘Ballet On The Buses’. In the first collaboration between Fierce! and one of Britain’s premier ballet companies, an old Routemaster bus has been transformed into a portable stage which will be driven to schools, community centres and other public spaces across Birmingham.
Commissioned by BRB, the choreographer Rosie Kay and BRB’s dancers will be exploring both the dimensions of the bus and the possibilities of experimental dance in a series of
performances which promise a far more interesting ride than your usual commute to work.
Special thanks to Transport Museum, Wythall.
www.brb.org.uk
www.bammot.org.uk
Bobby Baker’s How to Live
Thursday 24 and Friday 25 May / 7.30pm
Warwick Arts Centre
024 7652 4524 / £14.50 / £12 or Fierce! 10 Package – 3 events events at Warwick Arts Centre for £21 or 4 for £26
Post-Show Discussion with special guest speaker
Sometimes it’s the smallest things that provide the answers to the big questions in life. That at least seems to be the belief of Bobby Baker in ‘How To Live’, where the performance artist turns psychoanalyst by putting a frozen pea into therapy. Separated from its family in the pod and slowly thawing out under the heat of Baker’s probing questions – as well as the fact that she’s brought a giant peashooter with her – the pea’s experience should provide valuable life lessons about our own neuroses and desires and how to lead a fulfilling existence. ‘How To Live’ is the multi-award winning London-based Baker’s first large-scale project after her ‘Daily Life’ series in which she offered advice on how to navigate supermarkets and make your own clothing out of food amongst other essential advice, and once again sees her constructing a charmingly funny but also savagely sly satire on hokey life coaches and self-help culture. Be prepared for the unexpected though as Bobby previously arrived at Warwick with a forklift truck carrying a
mountain of meringues…
“Charming, eccentric, thoughtful, Baker offers you plenty to chew on – including of course a pea.” Financial Times
An artsadmin project funded by the Wellcome Trust and Arts Council England
www.warwickartscentre.co.uk
www.bobbybakersdailylife.com
Duckie’s We Are Ten
Sunday 27 May / 9pm – 2am
Performance at 10pm – please arrive early – Club Hidden, Kotwell House, Wrottesley Street, Arcadian B5 1XX
Advance tickets 0121 236 4455, limited availability on the door / £10
Having enraptured, entertained and appalled us with spectacular shows like ‘C’est Birmingham!’ in recent years, Duckie and David Hoyle return to their childhood with a pop and performance playpen to celebrate Fierce’s tenth birthday.
Remember what it was like when you were a queer 10 year old? The horror, the horror… so join us for some Pride clubbing-as-therapy with a new performance from the infamous adult terrible David Hoyle and a künst-discotheque from Duckie.
Most gay people are united by the common experience of an unsettled childhood – fear, shame and being different. Witness the artist formally known as The Divine David explore the darker side of the kindergarten and join playgroup supervisor Amy Lamé for the fun, creative side of being a nipper trapped forever in Camp America. Rock DJs Readers Wifes are like two little girls in the playground who wanna beat you up; a Freudian-art-therapist unpicks your past; weird man-child Jay Cloth will serve you jelly and ice cream; local brum mum Mrs. Barbara Nice plays pass the parcel and musical chairs; and everyone gets their face painted.
For unstable gays with arrested development, str8’s who like wet playtime and their friends and fans.
www.birmingham-rep.co.uk
www.duckie.co.uk
Capsule – Heavy, Slow and Brutal
Feat. ISIS, KTL (Stephen O’Malley + Pita), OXBOW DUO
Monday 28 May / 8pm – The Bar Fly, Birmingham
www.ticketweb.co.uk / £12.50 available in advance
An unholy trinity of bands are being brought together under the banner of Heavy, Slow and Brutal for this concert curated by Birmingham’s leading promoters of avant-garde music and Supersonic festival organisers Capsule.
Making GYBE! sound about as hardcore as James Blunt, LA band Isis whip up fearsome crescendos of sound interspersed with unsettling moments of calm and dislocated vocals on albums such as In The Absence Of Truth and are even more excoriating live. Meanwhile KTL a collaboration between Stephen O’Malley of pioneering drone-metal band Sun 0))) and experimental electronica artist Peter Rehberg similarly oscillate between aural extremities.
And just because the Oxbow duo of Eugene Robinson and Nick Wenner will be unplugged for their acoustic performance hardly makes their music any less intense as anyone who caught them at Fierce! and Capsule’s Sounds Of Excess all-nighter in 2005 will certainly testify.
www.capsule.org.uk
Gary Carter – The Pandora Effect/Frozen Sea
Friday 25 and Saturday 26 May / 7.45pm
The REP - 0121 236 4455 / £10 / £8 concessions
As Pandora learnt when she opened her fateful box, you can never be quite sure what you’ll unearth when you go rummaging around. Which was also the case for Time Out award-winning artist and Fierce! favourite Gary Carter when he went searching through his family history to find the stories which would form the basis of his two monologues ‘The Pandora Effect’ and ‘The Frozen Sea’. Loosely inspired by both the ancient Greek legend and his mother’s recollections of life in Rhodesia, these two monologues intertwine myth and memory into a meditation on family secrets and whether hope can transcend them. Performed by Kevin Walton and Jennifer Steyn, the atmosphere of memory clouded by time is further evoked by Jonathan Cooper’s dreamlike score whilst appearances from a supporting cast of surreal characters put flesh on the skeletons Carter found in the closet.
Over the past ten years the work of artist, performer and television executive Gary Carter has regularly been presented to Fierce! audiences at The REP to both critical and public acclaim, including Anger is Not a Place I like To Be, The Wildebeest Lounge and The Masque of Water and we’re delighted to once again showcase his work.
Commissioned by Fierce! Festival and Chelsea Theatre.
www.birmingham-rep.co.uk
Forced Entertainment – Exquisite Pain
Friday 1 and Saturday 2 June / 8pm
The REP - 0121 236 4455 / £10 / £8
For 100 days after her lover left her in 1985, French conceptual artist Sophie Calle noted down her every thought, desire and regret in minute detail – mentally replaying events with the self-destructive obsession of the heartbroken. She also asked friends to tell her their own tragic stories which she interspersed with her own to create an impressionistic collage of sorrow. It is this that inspired ‘Exquisite Pain’ by Forced Entertainment. This piece marks the first time Tim Etchells’ experimental theatre company has based their work on a text, yet the themes of unrequited longing and the unreliability of memories are similar to those they have previously explored in performances like ‘Instructions For Forgetting’ at Fierce! 2005. During ‘Exquisite Pain’ two actors sit on a bare stage reading out excerpts from Calle’s diary in an uncomfortably bleak performance which cuts open the human heart and asks us to ponder the pain of the healing process.
Co-produced by Theater de Welt 2005 (Stuttgart), BIT Teatergarasjen (Bergen), The National
Museum of Art, Design and Architecture (Oslo), Kaaitheater (Brussels), La Filature, scene nationale de Mulhouse, and Tanzquartier Wien.
www.birmingham-rep.co.uk
www.forcedentertainment.com
Marisa Carnesky – Magic War
Tuesday 29 and Wednesday 30 May / 7.45pm
Warwick Arts Centre – 024 7652 4524 / £10 and £8 concessions or Fierce! 10 Package
3 events at Warwick Arts Centre for £21 or 4 events for £26
After setting up her awe-inspiring ‘Carnesky’s Ghost Train’ installation in Coventry city-centre for Fierce! 2005, Olivier award-winning artist Marisa Carnesky once again brings her mastery of stagecraft and the vaudeville back to the festival with ‘Magic War’. Whereas ‘Carnesky’s Ghost Train’ was based on the stories of Eastern European immigrants for ‘Magic War’ Carnesky has collaborated with Robert Green, author of ‘The 33 Strategies Of War’ and Paul Kieve, Magic Consultant for “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban”, for a piece of burlesque theatre partly inspired by the tale of Robert Houdin, a 19th century French magician who was asked to quell a Muslim uprising in Algiers. With Carnesky herself playing the role of Athena – the Greek warrior goddess of strategy – ‘Magic War’ is a web of illusions in which monologue, magic tricks, film and dance combine to reveal how psychological warfare techniques have developed throughout the ages.
Co-commissioned by Fierce! Festival, Warwick Arts Centre and Soho Theatre.
www.warwickartscentre.co.uk
Gob Squad’s Kitchen
Friday 1 and Saturday 2 June / 7.45pm
Warwick Arts Centre – 024 7652 4524 / £10 (£8) or Fierce! 10 package
3 events at Warwick Arts Centre for £21 or 4 events for £26
With George Hickenlooper’s ‘Factory Girl’ recently bringing all the sex, drugs and rock’n’roll of Andy Warhol’s Factory back to our cinemas, Anglo-German collective Gob Squad return to Fierce – following their past performances at Fierce! of Super Night Show and Room Service – to offer their own alternative portrayal of the pop art legend. Although ‘Kitchen (You’ve Never Had It So Good)’ purports to be a remake of Warhol’s own 1965 film ‘Kitchen’ Gob Squad freely admit to never having actually seen the original themselves, so what we get is an impression of the 1960s underground New York art scene filtered through the minds of a group reared on the mythology that has built up around that era. Much as the art produced in the Factory created a secular iconography of celebrities and everyday objects, so Gob Squad’s live film draws on Warhol’s own experimental and improvisational techniques to create a document of the era which, in its own way, confirms the adage that ‘if you can remember the 60s then you weren’t really there.’
Gob Squad Kitchen (You’ve Never Had It So Good) is a Gob Squad production, co-produced by Volksbuehne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz Berlin, donaufestival Niederosterreich. A Nottingham Playhouse and Fierce! commission supported by Future Factory and Dance 4. Funded by the Senatsverwaltung fuer Wissenschaft, Forschung und Kultur Berlin, Fonds Darstellende Kuenste e.V. Bonn and the Arts Council England.
www.warwickartscentre.co.uk
www.gobsquad.com
Pam Ann – One World Alliance
Friday 1 June / 8pm
Alexandra Theatre, Birmingham – 0870 607 7533 / £15
Trolley dollies. Always ready to make your journey pass more pleasantly with a smile and selection of refreshments. Well unless they’re Pam Ann that is – an air hostess whose contempt for the cattle in economy class is so burning that it could probably fuel a jet engine. The hugely popular creation of Australian comedian Caroline Reid, Pam Ann is a sarcastic throwback to the days when air travel was the preserve of the rich and glamorous. She isn’t happy that times have changed and certainly isn’t afraid to let you know it and the rest of the cabin crew are equally and hilariously frightening. There’s Mona the BA bitch and Easyjet’s Donna alongside new characters Sarah the Virgin slut and Valerie from American Airlines. And should you be unfortunate enough to attract the attention of any of them during the show then you’ll really wish you’d paid attention when they told you where the exits are.
www.livenation.co.uk
www.pamann.com
Michael Clark Company – Mmm…Stravinsky Project Part II
Friday 1 and Saturday 2 June / 7.30pm
The REP - 0121 236 4455 / £11 – £18.50
Michael Clark is one of the most significant dancers and choreographers to have emerged
in the last 20 years. Originally staged in 1992, this new version of Michael Clark’s
interpretation of Stravinsky’s ‘Rite of Spring’ is the second in a trilogy of works inspired by
the Russian composer and created by the choreographer in association with the Barbican.
One of the most infamous and challenging pieces in contemporary dance, ‘Mmm…’
conveys the themes of birth, life, death and renewal through sexually charged movements
which have both raw aggressive energy and an undeniably erotic grace. And with
costumes originally designed by Clark’s associate Leigh Bowery which include toilet seats
worn as collars, ‘Mmm… Stravinsky Project Part 2’ stands tall as a truly unique modern
masterpiece. This show contains some nudity.
“With its intent, archaic quality of possession, and its dark imploding energy, this is not so
much a dance to the death, but a process of transcendence.” The Guardian
“Time and again the choreography delivers a controlling hypnotic spell, until, like
a whiplash, it awakens us to a vibrant reality. While the music screams nihilism, the
choreography screams life.” The Times
Commissioned by barbicanbite06
Co-produced by Michael Clark Company, barbicanbite06 as part of Dance Umbrella with Festival de
Marseille and Danceworks UK. Michael Clark Company gratefully acknowledges the support of Arts
Council England.
www.birmingham-rep.co.uk
www.michaelclarkcompany.com
Tim Miller Canal Zone
Sunday 3 June / 7pm
Promenade Performance along Birmingham’s canal network
0121 236 4455 / £5
For full performance details go to www.fiercetv.co.uk or call 0121 244 8084
The road sign for Canal Street at the centre of Manchester’s gay village has
regularly had the C and S removed by the more mischievously-minded. And whilst
the links between Birmingham’s own canal network and the city’s own gay scene
aren’t quite so explicit, the waters around Brindleyplace do serve as the map for
Tim Miller’s exploration of Birmingham’s psychosexual geography in ‘Canal Zone’.
For the waters of the canal won’t be the only fluids that concern Miller in his sitespecific
ensemble piece that follows a route as far off the straight and narrow as
the artist himself as he points out the queer history around every bend. And if the
acclaimed performer, political activist and irritant to conservative America two
previous Fierce! productions – ‘Suck, Spit, Chew, Swallow’ and ‘Lie Back and Think
of Birmingham’ – are any indication, you’ll never look at those canals in quite the
same way again.
For Tim Miller’s perfor mance we’re looking to recruit a team of performers to take part.
You’ll need to be available to rehearse each weekday evening from 21st May and
of course perform on 3rd June. No performance experience is necessary, just lots of
enthusiasm.
To take part please call 0121 244 8084 or email anna@fierceearth.com
Ron Athey – Revisions of Excess
Sunday 3 June / 8pm – 2am / CLOSING PARTY
Jonny Diamonds / The Pink Flamingo
89 Holloway Head, Birmingham, B1 1U4 - 0121 236 4455 / £10
Fierce’s tenth anniversary celebrations reach a suitably spectacular climax with ‘Revisions Of
Success’. A reappraisal of Fierce’s acclaimed ‘Visions Of Excess’ event in 2003 which featured
artists such as Udo Kier, Marissa Carnesky and Bruce LaBruce, ‘Revisions Of Excess’ is once again
curated by Ron Athey – one of the most influential and notorious performers on the international
live art scene. Taking place at the Pink Flamingos lap dancing club ‘Revisions Of Excess’ takes
the form of a series of works from international artists inspired by the nihilistic writings of Jean
Genet and George Bataille alongside more contemporary scribes such as Henry Rollins and
Kathryn Dunne and includes a line up worthy of our tenth anniversary closing event including
Marisa Carnesky, Nicole Blackman and The Velvet Hammer and Athey himself. And with music
provided by the Kaos DJs.
Commissioned by Fierce! Festival.
www.ronathey.com
Platinum
22 and 23 May / 11am – 6pm
Curzon Street Station, New Canal Street, Birmingham, B4 7XJ - Free event
Fierce! once again brings together four up-and-coming artists under the ‘Platinum’ banner. Situated in the Curzon Street Station building, all four of these works examine notions of travel and transience in the urban environment in unique and unpredictable ways.
Billy Dosanjh – Salvage
Tuesday 22 and Wednesday 23 May / 11am – 6pm – Free event
Inspired by his experiences working in a car salvage yard for a year, artist Billy Dosanjh will be presenting a series of vignettes which illustrate the relationship between humans and cars and how both memories and machines have a lifespan even after they have been apparently discarded. Having recently completed ‘Beauty Queen’ – a documentary based on the recent Lozells riots – here the Birmingham-based Dosanjh adopts a more impressionistic aesthetic
influenced by Joseph Morder.
whatsthebigmistry – DoorWonderLand phase 2 # experiments
Tuesday 22 and Wednesday 23 May / 11am / 1pm / 3pm / 5pm
Places are limited, please book in advance on 0121 244 8084
Free event
‘whatsthebigmistry’ is the name under which Priya Mistry creates her experimental interactive works across live performance and different media. ‘DoorWonderLand’ was originally developed whilst she was artist in residence at Leicester Haymarket Theatre, yet for Fierce! things take a darker turn when the audience are enticed into a specially-constructed space. There they confront strange characters and become increasingly entangled in surreal events which seem to operate according to their own dreamlike logic. ‘DoorWonderLand phase 2 # experiments’ is for ten participants at a time and some of this work will be unsuitable for children.
Supported by Birmingham REP
www.whatsthebigmistry.com
Shane Shambhu – Bound
Tuesday 22 May / 11.45am / 1.45pm / 3.45pm / 5.45pm – Free event
A performance which will be all too uncomfortably familiar for anyone who regularly travels by rail, Shane Shambhu’s ‘Bound’ recreates the frustrations encountered by a man who has an urgency to arrive at his destination.
However the acclaimed dancer – who has worked with Sampad recently and is currently artist-in-residence at Derby Dance – will be expressing his frustration through his individual and inventive choreography.
Trevor Woolery – Do You Know Yellow Bird?
Tuesday 22 and Wednesday 23 May / 12pm / 2pm / 4pm
Places are limited, please book in advance on 0121 244 8084 – Free event
Describing himself as an ‘Urban Nomad’, Trevor Woolery’s recent journeys with a camera have taken him to local and distant terrains across the Midlands, Europe and South Africa. His work is equally difficult to pin down as he crosses the borders between film, photography, performance and installation. His recent piece ‘Do You Know Yellow Bird?’, Woolery recaps the journey to find a busker he once knew. There is however a slight problem. Names were never exchanged, leaving only the title of a song as his sole hope of reunion. This work is unsuitable for children.
www.doyouknowyellowbird.blogspot.com
*Incorruptible Flesh *
Ron Athey and Dominic Johnson
Tuesday 30 May / 8pm
The Custard Factory Theatre
0121 236 4455 / £8 / £6 concessions
In a collaborative performance, Ron Athey and Dominic Johnson explore violation, self obliteration and mysticism in a performance involving ritual, transubstantiation and excess. “Death Valley, population 9. Endurance and delirium at 56.7 degrees
Celsius, making salt flats into variations on creeping hope. Parched
skins threaten to match the shattered surface: destituted, then blowing
away. The body’s drip system would melt a hole through the salt floor,
worn out bodies peering into the grave, to listen. Once, less mindful of
the harsher realities of things, there was only sex, and love, and bright
lights. Now not to be consoled, two bodies at other ends of the earth
are moving together, in times for which there is no sun”.
Ron Athey and Lawrence Steger began researching the collaborative
performance, Incorruptible Flesh in 1996. The morbidity of the piece
was driven by the shared, long-term HIV+ status of Athey and Steger,
healthy and sick, respectively. In 2006, Steger now dead, Athey and
the young British artist Dominic Johnson continue the collaborative
process, based around the myth of the permanent wound.
Co-commissioned by Chelsea Theatre and Fierce! Festival.
www.ronathey.com
www.custardfactory.com
Fierce Futures
Here at Fier ce! we’ve been searching for the new talent that will illuminate the art world over the next decade. And
we’ve not had very far to look: for on our own doorstep a new generation of experimental artists are making work for a
variety of spaces that addresses contemporary issues of politics and identity in thought provoking and innovative ways.
Welcome to the futur e!
Bernadette Louise / Only a Phone Call Away / 19 May – 2 June
How many times have you answered your telephone only to realise you’ve
been accidentally phoned by a friend while their mobile phone was in their
pocket? Did you listen or hang up? What did you hear that you weren’t mean
to know? And did you ever tell them? Every time you receive a ‘pocket call,’
you become a secret audience to someone’s life. Multimedia artist Bernadette
Louise explores audio voyeurism by giving the audience a sense of cinematic
presence within the piece. ‘Only a Phone Call Away’ is exactly that: a telephone
recording of a different daily life story that you can access by calling either 0121
314 3330 or 0845 867 3853 (calls charged at local rate) at any point throughout
the festival. Participants can eavesdrop on pieces created by artists including
Lydia Lunch, Nicole Blackman, Louis Campbell, Big Bren and Geordie Blake and
Louise herself – each of which will be on rotation during Fierce!
May 2007
19th Sat Lydia Lunch
20th Sun Bernadette Louise & Geordie Blake
21st Mon Nicole Blackman
22nd Tues Big Bren
23rd Weds Louis Campbell
24th Thurs Lydia Lunch
25th Fri Bernadette Louise & Geordie Blake
26th Sat Nicole Blackman
27th Sun Big Bren
28th Mon Louis Campbell
29th Tues Lydia Lunch
30th Weds Bernadette Louise & Geordie Blake
31st Thurs Nicole Blackman
June 1st Fri Big Bren
2nd Sat Louis Campbell
www.myspace.com/onlyaphonecallaway
Performances can only be accessed by dialling a number below:
Telephone numbers:
UK (local rate): 0845 867 3853 Charged at local rate.
Birmingham: 0121 314 3330 Charged at local rate and should be included in
mobile network minutes.
Calls charged at local rate. Please note that the content of these calls may not be suitable
for young people. Parental consent and the consent of whoever pays the telephone bill is
required before making the call. Call duration no longer than 3 ½ mins.
Harminder Singh Judge / Archive of Idolatry
Saturday 19 May – Saturday 2 June (excluding Sundays) 10am – 5pm
Wolverhampton Art Gallery
Archive of Idolatry is the presentation of the physical objects and visual tools that
artist Harminder Singh Judge has crafted for some of his recent performances.
Removed from their intended theatrical space they take on a new sculptural
form that is both thought-provoking and perversely amusing. In order to question
what certain symbols mean to different religions and non-believers, Judge made
himself a variety of costumes which include a neon halo, prosthetic latex arms
which can be bent into a series of poses, a fake beard of ‘multi-religious facial hair’
based on a composite of traditional Muslim, Sikh and Hindu styles and a ‘sermon
speaker’ – a small box which the artist can place in his mouth and which delivers
various sermons. As well as being used in various performances, these will also be
displayed in glass cabinets for the duration of Fierce! where they will sit as objects
with their own unique connotations divested from the individual that wears them.
www.wolverhamptonartgallery.co.uk
www.harminderjudge.com
Breathe / Crossed-Wires
Monday 28 May / 10am – 4pm
Bus, Hurst Street. For exact location go to www.fiercetv.co.uk – Free event
They say curiosity killed the cat, so you’ll need your wits about you if you choose to follow the
tantalising trail of clues laid down by Breathe for ‘Crossed Wires’. After stepping onto their bus
each member of the audience receives a telephone call that invites them to trail one of Breathe’s
performers around to a secret rendezvous point in the city. Yet as you watch them go through an
increasingly strange series of events from afar you are also asked to turn your gaze inwards to
consider what role you are acting out – that of secret admirer, obsessive stalker or possibly even
prospective murderer – in the unravelling drama. Combining elements of Hitchcock’s cinema with
the site-specific live theatre they previously developed in works such as ‘Space Between Us’, Breathe
have created a piece of psychological suspense in which both performer and audience are equally
complicit.
Created as part of Escalator’s East to Edinburgh
www.breatheartists.co.uk
Miss High Leg Kick / Fashion Bus
Sunday 27 May / 12am – 6pm
0121 236 4455 / £5
Bus, Hurst Street. For exact location go to www.fiercetv.co.uk
Wouldn’t you know it? You wait ages for an art perfor mance on a bus and then three come along at once. For
whilst Birmingham Royal Ballet and Breathe are also performing on buses at this year’s Fierce!, Miss High Leg Kick
is also bringing her smash Edinburgh Fringe hit ‘Fashion Bus’ to the festival. The most glamorous conductor you’ve
ever seen, Duckie co-conspirator Miss High Leg Kick will be inviting us onboard for a ticket to ride through a surreal
fashion parade. Strutting down the gangway of a Routemaster bus that has been converted into a catwalk will be
a parade of all too familiar faces including the moody teenager, confused tourist, overfriendly weirdo and a mum
laden with shopping bags – all modelling a series of eyecatching costumes in a magical mystery tour which infuses
the mundanity of everyday routine with the outrageousness of high fashion.
www.blueyellow.com/misshighlegkick
Jiva Parthipan / RENT
Wednesday 30 May / 2pm – 8pm
The Custard Factory – Free event
Jiva Parthipan’s ‘Rent’ lays bare the squalor of the sex industry where the workers’ greatest
enemy isn’t necessarily the police, violent pimps or clients, but the sheer mindless boredom.
Parthipan sits, surrounded by bananas that he makes into smoothies, which are strained
through a condom and poured into cups. ‘Rent’ is no voyeuristic show. Reflecting on his time
as a sex worker, Parthipan emphasises that prostitution is an industry like any other – except
that here the products are people, created on a monotonous conveyor belt of sex with
strangers, ultimately as repetitive as any factory work.
Conceived and Performed by Jiva Parthipan with Assistance from Arts Council, Fierce Festival,
Birmingham Rep, Custard Factory and Goldsmiths College, London.
Fierce Kids
FEED ME
Monday 21 – Thursday 24 May / 9am – 6pm
BIAD, Gosta Green, Birmingham
Free event, all welcome
Culminating with a huge FEAST in October 2006, the ‘FEED ME’ project was a
collaboration between Fierce!, May Lane Allotment Association and four schools in
Kings Heath which established a creative learning space at the allotment and drew
links between the nurturing of plants and the organic aspects of the creative process.
Gardener and Fierce! artist Joanne Jones worked with the pupils, teachers and parents
from Allens Croft Primary School, Colmore Infant and Nursery School, Colmore Junior
School and Lindsworth School to plant and tend the crops, encouraging the children
to express their feelings about the experience through participating in a variety of art
projects documented in this exhibition.
There will be an opportunity for school staff interested in developing outdoor spaces
for learning to talk to teachers and pupils from the four schools about ‘FEED ME’ on
Wednesday 23 May at 4.00pm – 5.30pm.
Supported by Creative Partnerships Birmingham, Ernest Cook Trust and First Light Movies. A
project idea originally conceived by artists Clare Patey and Cathy Wren as part of Feast,
commissioned by LIFT.
www.biad.uce.ac.uk www.creative-partnerships.com
Fierce! Kids Film Programme
Thursday 24 May / 1pm – 4pm
Electric Cinema
Please call to book your place on 0121 244 8084 – Free event
An afternoon of films produced as part of Fierce!’s creative learning programme
which puts the children in the director’s chair and featuring:
Fish Tank
As part of the national competition ‘Name in Lights’, 10 Year 4 children from Allens
Croft Primary School, in collaboration with artist Abigail Davey, developed ‘Fish
Tank’ as a direct response to the celebrity/non-celebrity identities of the tropical
fish the pupils bought from a local pet shop in Kings Heath. ‘Fish Tank’ explores the
Big Brother phenomenon and that of the fish/contestants being scrutinised 24/7.
‘Fish Tank’ is a creative learning project devised to encourage children to enter the
national competition ‘Name in Lights’.
Supported by Creative Partnerships
3 Bowls, 12 Fish
A film made by children from Colmore Infant & Nursery School, in collaboration
with artist Abigail Davey, using 3 bowls and 12 fish inhabiting the classrooms as
inspiration. The children have created names and personalities for the fish in order
for them to generate a proposal for why their pet should have their name in lights. ‘3
Bowls, 12 Fish’ is a creative learning project devised to encourage children to enter
the national competition ‘Name in Lights’.
Supported by Creative Partnerships
Live (Art) Around Aston
A short film written, produced and directed by pupils from Aston Manor School that
centres on the routines that the young people encounter on a daily basis. Artist
Abigail Davey worked with the pupils during January to March 2007 to explore their
individual responses to, and journeys made within the school environment.
Supported by a Birmingham City Council Arts Education Award.
FEED ME TV: Recipes For Making Rain
Ten children from Allens Croft Primary School produced and directed ‘FEED ME
TV’ in collaboration with artists Howard Matthew and Roz Goddard based on their
experiences of working at May Lane Allotments as part of the year-long ‘FEED ME’
project.
Supported by First Light and Creative Partnerships.
The Book
A short animation made by pupils from Colmore Junior School in collaboration with
‘It’s About Time’ and artist Michelle Bint that explores some of the hopes, dreams and
concerns by primary school children who are about to move on to secondary school.
Their imagination takes the viewer on a strange journey from school settings to outer
space and more.
Supported by Creative Partnerships
www.theelectric.co.uk
Michael Pinchbeck
The Long and Winding Road (commissioned by Fierce! Festival’s Youth Panel)
Ikon Gallery / Saturday 2 June / 12pm – 5pm
0121 244 8084. Places are limited, please book in advance – Free event
A large part of Fierce’s ethos is to hand power over to the audience and open up access to challenging contemporary
art. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the formation of the Fierce! Youth Panel. A group of twenty young
people from four Birmingham secondary schools (Handsworth Grammar, Harborne Hill Secondary, Queensbridge
and St Albans Schools), the Fierce! Youth Panel have spent the last two years visiting contemporary arts events and
organisations in order to seek out a work to commission for the festival. After a process of shortlisting and interviewing
entirely undertaken by the Youth Panel themselves, they have decided to commission and produce ‘The Long and
Winding Road’ by Nottingham-based artist Michael Pinchbeck. A five minute one-on-one performance, ‘The Long and
Winding Road’ takes place inside a graffiti-covered car which Pinchbeck drove from Nottingham to Liverpool. It has
been a highly personal and emotional journey for Pinchbeck as it was in Liverpool that his brother died in an accident
in 1998. In memorial of his brother Pinchbeck packed the car with 350 objects wrapped in string and brown paper
and each given its own unique car registration number – the significance of which the artist will be explaining to each
individual who steps inside the car for this intimate and affecting performance.
Supported by Creative Partnerships and Ikon Gallery
www.ikon-gallery.co.uk
Fierce Debates
The need to challenge conventions and raise questions about wider society has always
been a central aspect of the art at Fierce!, and this year we present a series of talks and
debates designed to investigate art’s relationship with the wider world.
Name in Lights
Saturday 2 June / 2pm
Ikon, Events Room
Free event with limited capacity. Please call to confirm your place on 0121 244 8084
An informal talk between Dr. Jonathan Vickery of the Centre For Cultural Policy
at Warwick University and artist Joshua Sofaer discussing the ‘Name For Lights’
installation which forms one of the centrepieces of Fierce! 2007. Looking at the
changing nature of fame from the Hollywood superstars whose names would be
illuminated on cinema screenings right through to the reality TV contestants whose
desire for fame can be realised or thwarted by an audience through their mobile
‘phones, Sofaer and Vickery will be analysing the moral and artistic repercussions
of the pursuit of fame for its own sake. Places are free and can be booked on 0121
244 8084.
www.notcelebrity.co.uk
www.ikon-gallery.co.uk
Book Launch
Programme Notes Plus a talk by Tim Etchells
Saturday 19 May / 5pm
CBSO Centre, Berkley Street, Birmingham
Free event. To reserve your place call 0121 244 8084
Fierce! will be hosting the launch party for ‘Programme Notes’ published by Unbound – the online
book and DVD resource store which can be found at www.thisisunbound.co.uk. An anthology of
writing looking at the relevance of experimental theatre from a variety of perspectives, ‘Programme
Notes’ features contributions and essays from Tim Etchells, Lyn Gardner, John McGrath and Stella Hall
amongst others.
For the launch of programme notes we are delighted to host a public lecture at CBSO Centre by
Forced Entertainment’s Artistic Director Tim Etchells. This event will be followed by a performance of
Franko B’s ‘Don’t Leave Me This Way’. To book tickets for Don’t Leave Me This Way call 0121 767 4050.
Everything You Wanted to Know About Live Art But Were Afraid To Ask
Thursday 31 May / 10am – 6pm / The REP
*£5 (including lunch), £2.50 to New Work Network members. Special offer of £7.50/£5.00 includes a ticket for the Everything* event and a ticket for Tribal Soul at REP on Thursday 31 May
Please book in advance by calling 0121 236 4455 and quote ‘Everything event’
The art world can often seem to be something of an ivory tower, which is why this day of information and
advice will prove invaluable for any budding artists looking to get their foot in the door. Looking at the
nuts and bolts of getting your performance work out there Everything You Wanted To Know covers issues
from research and promotion to the simple practicalities of everyday survival as an artist – all enlivened
by presentations from experienced artists including Lois Weaver, Hancock & Kelly, Sam Rose, Talking Birds,
Jiva Parthipan, Stan’s Cafe and Breathe.
Supported by New Work Network, there’s also a cocktail evening immediately after which is free to all
New Work Network members and Everything participants and where you’ll get a chance to taste some
artistically-inspired cocktails to help lubricate your new-found skills. Places cost £5 or £2.50 for New Work
Network members and can be booked on 0121 244 8084. New Work Network is supported by Arts Council
England.
Everything You Wanted to Know About Live Art 2007 is a partnership between the Live Art Development
Agency, Queen Mary University of London and East End Collaborations, and is part of Joining the Dots,
a Live Art Development Agency professional development initiative supported by the Esmee Fairbairn
Foundation and the Gulbenkian Foundation.
New Work Network
Cocktail O’Clock
Thursday 31 May 7pm – 9pm
Revolution Bar, Five Ways, Broad Street, Birmingham
New Work Network and Fierce! invite you to an evening of alchohol filled fun. Please join us for something
sparkling, something fruity a
