Emergency 24
Evening Programme, 4pm-10pm
Updated 25 September 2024
Second half of Emergency 24 — an Evening full of short shows — presented by Word of Warning + Contact
Evening Artists
Saturday 28 September 2024, 4pm-10pm.
Adèle Le Gallez · Ali Wilson · Annie Finn & Poppy Waxman · Drunken Chorus · Isabella Victorie A. · Jana Aizupe & Company · Kelvin Atmadibrata · Lewys Holt · Ludo & Jake · Luke McDonnell · Maria Garcia · Martha Pailing · Mi Otra Hermana · Shannon Mulvey · WilL Dickie · Yafei Zheng
Participating artists subject to change.
NB last show starts ~9.30pm; some works have a short duration, some have limited capacity on a first-come first-served basis, and some occur at the same time — so you will not be able to see everything. The Evening is preceded by an Afternoon of installations, interventions, limited capacity works, from Noon.
Evening Access
Age Advisory: 16+ (aimed at adults, parent/guardian/carer discretion).
Content Warnings: some works involve interaction and/or participation; specific warnings listed here.
Features: 16 Live Art & contemporary performance works with varied content.
NB works will occur in multiple spaces throughout the building and will vary in format — some roaming, some seated, some standing, some spoken word, some visual, some participatory.
Queries: please contact Contact via boxoffice@contactmcr.com
Evening Programme Notes
Adèle Le Gallez · Mortar
Live soundscape & storytelling on the 9th floor. A playful dissection about the grief & pain of going to work in concrete buildings.
Special thanks to Manchester School of Theatre at MMU.
Adèle Le Gallez is a Salford-based writer & performer. Their work explores themes & ideas such as capitalism, religion, loss. Having previously performed Mortar this year at Camden People’s Theatre, Adèle also spent four years as part of Bristol-based dance-duo Skin. They most recently published their work in local Manchester zine Write To The City, where poets were free to scribe hopes / list demands for the future.
adelegallez.wixsite.com/portfolio · Insta @adele.legallez
Ali Wilson · Special Delivery
Your post is in good hands. Trust Royal Mail to deliver your letters of awe & admiration. A special delivery just in the nick of time.
In an ever-competitive & hostile world, Special Delivery invites you to take a minute and admire those around you. Who’s caught your eye? Impressed you with their kindness? Left you feeling all warm & fuzzy? Write them a letter, pop it in our postbox, and Postie will ensure it’s delivered with love & care.
Ali Wilson is a Glasgow-based theatre maker & comedian. Much of her work engages with non-professional performers, exploring their lived expertise & the performativity within it. A previously Supported Artist at Royal Exchange Theatre, her two last works premiered there in 2018 & 2019. She has collaborated with Quarantine, Amy Lawrence, idontloveyouanymore & more — and as a comic, appeared regularly around the NW open-mic circuit.
Insta @haha.aliwilson · X @aliwil267
Annie Finn & Poppy Waxman · SLABS
Twenty minutes of pushing pulling twisting slamming squeezing breathing packing tapping lifting sweating — SLABS is made by women who will be doing these things and telling you to watch them.
Created & performed by Annie Finn & Poppy Waxman.
SLABS made its international debut in BIFALD festival (Denmark) in 2023.
Annie Finn is a queer interdisciplinary artist whose work focuses on the power of the human body & how it exists in the world. She is a co-founder & producer at drag company Dribs & Drags.
Insta @annnnieef & @waxmanharrietpoppy
Drunken Chorus · GREATEST HITS
A collection of mis-remembered, botched, and wildly confused moments from an ‘illustrious’ performance career.
As the hits are introduced, excitement builds. The two performers begin rifling through real & imagined memories. There is a dance — a big musical number. (Or at least there’s meant to be). They put on animal masks, switch on the smoke machine, and do a few high kicks. The hits are coming thick & fast…
But this glitzy compilation of ‘best bits’ soon loses its way. Cracks begin to open up, and the performers struggle to conceal what’s lurking in the wings. As the smoke clears, the familiar shadows of anxiety, burnout, failure, and grief set their sights on centre stage.
Devised & performed by Chris Williams & Sheena Holliday.
Drunken Chorus was formed in the NW in the late 2000s, to make & tour live performance. Their work has evolved & developed since then, to include running artist support programmes, live events like DRUNKEN NIGHTS, and major arts festivals including the Mayor of London’s Liberty Festival. Because of this, they haven’t made work of their own in a very long time. GREATEST HITS will be their first new performance in over seven years.
drunkenchorus.co.uk · Insta @drunken.chorus
Isabella Victorie A. · fragments.foyc
A performance art piece about emotional abuse that has been created in order to raise awareness. It depicts fragments of the vortex survivors find themselves stuck in, in all its painful reality.
The performer is on a mission to raise awareness of emotional abuse, so that prevention can eventually be achieved. Emotional abuse is as harmful as physical abuse. It leads to isolation, a variety of illnesses, and can even lead to death… It’s time we talk about it!
Isabella Victorie A. (she/her) is a first-generation migrant performance artist, actor, and theatre maker from Austria, who uses a European, bold performance approach. She has devised ensemble work with artists such as Anemone Poland & Burkhard Schmiester (Berlin), and has performed on stages such as the Vienna State Opera, Komische Oper (Berlin), Underbelly Boulevard (London).
Insta @is.vi.a_
Jana Aizupe & Company · if I stay here any longer I will stay here forever
That feeling when you keep making coffee thinking “okay, I will make coffee & then I will start”, “okay, I will go for a walk & then I will start”. The “start” turns into staring at a blank page. Getting up. Making another coffee…
An experimental performance piece with live music about the inability to begin.
Director: Jana Aizupe · Musicians: Dara Hughes & Amelia Dunne
Jana Aizupe is a West Midlands-based working-class theatre artist, primarily working through devising, movement, film. She is a trained street dancer, therefore values non-verbal connections through shared movements in space. She is also very passionate about applied theatre, putting emphasis on the process of co-creation.
Insta @1001create
Kelvin Atmadibrata · but nothing happened!
Like a carp climbing up a waterfall to become a dragon…
This ode to growing old, to ageing, to maturity, and perhaps to adulting, starts life clean, new, and pristine — but slowly turns muddy-gold through touring repetition, documenting the journey of the work, and placing importance on the body as a vessel & breathing mannequin.
An homage to Nintendo’s 1996-ongoing series of video game, Pokemon’s infamous Magikarp, the work borrows its signature caricature move ‘Splash’ as its main point of reference.
Kelvin Atmadibrata recruits superpowers awakened by puberty & adolescent fantasy, personifying power & strength into fanfiction antiheroes to contest the masculine meta & erotica. He works primarily with performance, often accompanied by & translated into drawings, mixed media collages, and objects compiled as installations. Approached as bricolages, Kelvin translates narratives and recreates personifications based on role-playing video game theories & pop mythologies.
kelvinatmadibrata.com · Insta @kelvinatmadibrata
Lewys Holt · Twenty Minute Set
Fusing dance, stand-up, theatre, and song into twenty minutes of discussions, demonstrations, and dances about such subjects as: the passing of time, guilt, Duracell bunnies, bus timetables, existential philosophy.
Often humorous & profound, these heavily practised, yet unplanned & unscripted, performances are thrilling experiences of shared risk between the performer & the audience which are not to be missed.
Lewys Holt is a Leeds-based interdisciplinary dance artist. They work as a dancer, choreographer, and curates Roadhouse (Leeds) with Eleanor Sikorski. Their practice, while focusing on dance, spans comedy & devised theatre. They have worked as a dancer with New Art Club, Simone Mousset, Tino Sehgal, Rosemary Lee, Christopher Owen, among others.
lewysholt.com · Insta @lewysholt
Ludo & Jake · I.D.S.T.
A detail that is not poetic. It isn’t about pretending. Every word I say is a promise. Why did you come here?
A symbiotic relationship revealed in an extra-ordinary liminal space that behaves as a playground for adults. Two performers co-exist here through games, rules, strategies, and numbers that unlock action & storytelling — coming from the true lives & memories of its inhabitants.
We don’t speak about a memory as if it were something that could be changed. If Destroyed Still True.
Created & performed by Jake Walton & Ludovica Tagariello.
Ludovica Tagariello is an Italian multifaceted artist, physical theatre performer & maker, who is involved in performative activities both in Italy with her company Alot Teatro and in the UK as an individual.
Jake Walton is a northern working-class theatre maker, producer, and actor. He has performed internationally across various locations ranging from an alleyway of a street festival to the Olivier stage at The National Theatre.
Both are recent graduates from an MA in Theatre Lab at RADA and this is their first work together.
Insta @occhio_loco & @jakewalton91
Luke McDonnell · Is There Anybody Out There?
With so many millions of ‘earth-like’ planets, where are all the aliens? Could it be we are truly alone in the universe? If not, what is killing everyone else, and is it heading our way?
Join Luke to give your answers to these questions and hopefully ask some of your own as well.
Do we need to find a way out? And at what cost?
First commissioned by University of Salford.
Luke McDonnell is a theatre maker & facilitator, living & working in Manchester for the last seven years. His work explores complex ideas in fun & accessible ways. Expect audience participation, conversations, and game playing.
lukemcdonnell.co.uk · Insta @luke__mcdonnell
Maria Garcia · Bees and Beasts and the Horrish FishTales Draft 1
A Live Art psychological tragicomedy, exploring themes of pain, pollination, and captivity.
Set to Verdi’s Rigoletto, this one-woman show follows an endometriosis surgeon who, after surviving a nightmarish shipwreck, finds herself trapped on an island with menacing beekeepers who want to use her womb to bring back an extinct species of bees. The absurd story, which is somewhat biographical, invites audience members to experience & imagine Gilda’s dreams & nightmares as she stage manages her own death(s).
Designer, director, performer, writer: Maria Garcia · Performer: Ruby Antonowicz-Behnan · Cinematographer: Wesley Cardino
Thank you to SPILL Think Tank.
Maria Garcia is a Live Artist, director, and costume designer working in film, theatre, dance, performance art. Her interdisciplinary investigations are cinematic, haunting, and often centre around death, ‘liveness’, pain, migration.
garcialivecostumeart.com/performance-art · Insta @mgarciajo
Martha Pailing · Sheep Nit
Can a sheep laugh? What happens when it’s tickled? Is it still a tickle if they can’t fully feel it? Basically: can you tickle a sheep & how much are they really enjoying it?
Every morning Ted gets up and tickles himself relentlessly & unsuccessfully. He can’t make himself laugh,
so he’s started doing it to sheep on the daily…
Sheep Nit is a work-in-progress performance exploring the sensations & reactions of ‘a light touch’, involuntary movements, consent & control, a hunger for human contact, and how far we will go to reach ‘feeling happy’.
Martha Pailing is a northern-born spoken word & performance artist. Her performances blend personal material with fictional characters to create absurd & tender narratives. Her work considers what it is to remain empathetic & soft in a brutal, emotionally temperamental world. Currently writer-in-residence at Blackpool’s The Old Electric, she is a former artist-in-residence at the Roundhouse (London).
marthapailing.com · Insta @marthapailing
Mi Otra Hermana · My Other Sister
One woman from the North & one woman from the South. One table at the centre.
This piece is an exploration of cultural identities caught in the crosshairs. Different childhoods, music, and climates are the sparks that fuse them together as they shake the inherited conflict of their countries. This piece is a result of what happens when they meet and navigate their differences in a new city.
Lauren Greer is a Northern Irish, working-class artist currently residing in Manchester.
She is a theatre maker, writer, collaborator, creative learning practitioner; with a deep belief in the transformative power of the arts as an educational tool, her practice is heavily influenced by Live Art frameworks & autobiographical experience.
Silvana Zuluaga is a Colombian theatre maker whose artistic practice is focused on the actor’s training and its potential for creation & research, currently exploring how the female body can serve as a vehicle to shine a light on Latin American culture.
Insta @miotrahermana_ , @_i_am_lauren_g_ , @silvana_a_a_a
Shannon Mulvey · Matrimonial Anarchy
A feminist performance art piece that challenges traditional notions of femininity & marriage utilising literal tools to demonstrate an alternative mode of constructing femininity.
Through a series of confrontational performance actions, it invites the audience to reconsider the roles & identities imposed upon women within the institution of marriage, advocating for autonomy & self-definition.
Created & performed at the Royal Central School of Speech & Drama, with thanks to Hannah Ballou, RCSSD, Lance Johnson.
Shannon Mulvey is a performance artist & lecturer. The Artistic Director of Sisters of Eden, an intersectional feminist performance collective, she has created performances that boldly challenge patriarchy, earning critical acclaim. Her work delves into autobiographical themes & the politics of identity within contemporary culture.
shannonmulvey.com · Insta @smperformanceart
WilL Dickie · Feeling words
How much weight is given in today’s society to words we choose — statements, testimonies, posts, bills, slogans, signs etc…? And how much do those words count for?
Could we de-throne verbal calculations for a moment, and dance with feelings that lie beneath, in all their rawness & absurdity? Might it be in the feelings that we can (re)discover a sense of togetherness & humanity which feels so needed right now?
A tapestry of movements, sounds, and words. The beginning of a collection of dance word poems.
Created & performed by WilL Dickie, with outside eye support from Fabíola Santana.
WilL Dickie is a Liverpool-based self-produced interdisciplinary artist & Feldenkrais practitioner. Recent lead artist works include White Sun, The Rave Space. Recent collaborations include A Home for Grief with Fabíola Santana, Hanna Tuulikki’s Echo in the Dark.
willdickie.co.uk · Insta @will_dickie_
Yafei Zheng · Is There Work on Mars?
Can an Asian with ADHD & a math disability pass Elon Musk’s ‘Mars Immigration Test’?
Immerse yourself into a dystopian testing lab in which a neurodiverse Chinese woman finds herself in endless bleep tests while answering absurd questions on immigration & intelligence. Through a punchy performance she satirises the everyday microaggressions & ridiculous immigration requirements faced by the global majority.
Writer & performer: Yafei Zheng · Sound design: Pannavich Weswibul & Charlie Nelson · Audio description consultant: Lily An
Yafei Zheng is a London-based interdisciplinary performance & video artist from Beijing. Her work engages with societal issues and explores themes such as diaspora, mental health, feminism, neurodiversity. Yafei’s solo shows have been performed at Edinburgh Fringe, Camden Fringe, Peckham Fringe.
yafeizheng.com · Insta @fei_yafeiz & @isthereworkonmars