Live and Now: Recent Episodes
Steve Greer
An interview series from the Live Art in Scotland project at the University of Glasgow exploring histories – and possible futures – of live art and experimental performance.
In this episode of Live and Now, Steve talks with director and designer Stewart Laing. As the artistic director of Untitled Projects, Stewart has led the creation of some of Scotland’s most adventurous, large-scale experiments in theatre and live art though – as Stewart himself notes – most often by making work that might fall somewhere between those two fields of practice.
In this excerpt, we follow the thread of influences on Stewart’s early practice – making work in and around the National Review of Live Art, and the emerging profile of Tramway as a leading venue for touring and international artists in Scotland – through the creation of a trilogy of works based on the novels of J.G. Ballard.
Episode transcriptFull interviewContexts and documents* the website of Untitled Projects * Stewart Laing and long-time collaborator Pamela Carter in conversation with Mark Fisher for Theatre Voice about formal experimentation and their continuing creative relationship * Harry Wilson on Untitled’s history of experiments with theatrical form and blurring of the real and imaginary during the development of THEM! for National Theatre Scotland
In this episode of Live and Now, Steve talks with Sheila Ghelani – an interdisciplinary artist whose work spans live art, performance, installation, social art and moving image – and whose most recent work includes Common Salt, a ‘performance around a table’ made with Sue Palmer that explores the colonial, geographical history of England and India.
Starting with Grafting & Budding – a lecture style performance examining ideas surrounding race, heritage, and mixing – we explore the development of Sheila’s practice as a solo artist in relationship to her work with Pacitti Company and Blast Theory, and the significance of a sequence of works presented as part of the National Review of Live Art.
Episode transcriptFull interviewContexts and documents
- the project page for Common Salt and the accompanying book, available to order from Sheila’s website or Unbound.
- an interview with Sue Palmer and Sheila Ghelani about Common Salt for Scare the Horses, curated by Paula Crutchlow
- documentation of Grafting and Budding on Sheila’s website
- documentation of Sugar Sugar White on NRLA30, a website celebrating the 30th anniversary of the National Review of Live Art
In this episode of Live and Now, Steve talks with multi-disciplinary artist, researcher and facilitator, Ashanti Harris. Working with dance, performance, sculpture and installation, Ashanti’s practice often focuses on recontextualising historical narratives – offering an exploration of the social, cultural and historical implications of the movement of people, ideas and things. Based in Scotland, Ashanti is […]
In this episode of Live and Now, Steve talks with collaborative performance maker, performer and teacher, Karen Christopher. For the last decade or so, Karen’s practice has focused on creating a series of duet performances devoted to re-examining the collaborative performance-making process. This work follows – and perhaps emerges from – some twenty years as a […]
In this episode of Live and Now, Steve talks with Robert Softley Gale about his solo show If These Spasms Could Speak, making My Left / Right Foot – The Musical for National Theatre of Scotland – and the pragmatics of taking ‘experimental’ work to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Robert’s prolific career calls attention to […]