Arts, Music & Events Preview, April 2011 (Part Two)

Earlier this month I wrote a few words to report on the aftermath of the Arts Council England funding allocation; specifically its effect on Manchester arts groups. A major casualty, the article stated, was greenroom, which has since announced its closure to the public from the end of May. So a fitting way to start off this second instalment of April’s should-attend events waffle is with a greenroom event. Wednesday 20th is the launch of Blank Media Collective’s final exhibition at the Whitworth Street producing house, Who’s Laughing Now?, which takes on ideas within taxidermy such as personification, lasting images, death and guilt; relevant topics given greenroom’s situation.

On a lighter note, Islington Mill hosts the debut screening of Manchester based Fritz von Runte’s project merging Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey with David Bowie’s career output as a recording artist on the same night. That one will include a discussion about the film, Bowie2001: A Space Oddity, and the finer points of intergalactic references in Bowie’s music, while Thursday 21st welcomes another screening before a fancy dress disco.

Thursday 21st also beckons through another short stint for the Warehouse Project. The opening night is the pick of them with 2manydjs and Aeroplane topping the bill. More follows nightly until Sunday 24th.

Friday 22nd is another one at Islington Mill – a line-up composed of Scotland’s finest folkies. Fence Collective bring along Lone Pigeon and The Pictish Trail, while Song, By Toad Records cohort Jonnie Common offers a tune or a few in support. Red Deer Club Recordings, who’re co-promoting it, have some other worthwhile news: another Awesome Wells record (Carry On Awesome Wells), released on Monday 25th and containing wilfully askew bandstand park-fillers, whimsically oblique in its varied instrumentation and modern Animal Collective harmonies.

Back on track, there’s more to mention for the 22nd courtesy of Naive Melody residents at Charlie’s. Here’s a taster of their cosmic grooves.

Fast forward a little to Wednesday 27th and you’re met by a Bonobo show at Band on the Wall. See this if you can. Another gig the following night, Thursday 28th, is a Little Red Rabbit promotion in the form of Nick Cave sound-alikes Last Harbour at Sacred Trinity Church.

And so to the much-discussed Bank Holiday on Friday 29th. Without going too far into the anachronistically outdated reason behind the holiday, it has served up an enticing array of artistic options. Rotters Golf Club label ringleader Andrew Weatherall will take on the role of chief tune-selecter, mixing funky tech for Content at Joshua Brooks. Or there’s Mount Kimbie, who need no introduction to anyone familiar with this blog. Now Wave have booked them the Deaf Institute stage for the night.

More conjugally conscious are Islington Mill’s Off With Their Heads assorted festivities (including a tug of war between royalists and republicans) and an early afternoon Funeral Procession, a satirical stab at mourning the public services that have passed on in favour of archaic feudalism. Vive la République.

Moving onto Saturday 30th, Denis Jones headlines a show at Fuel Café, presumably partly as a warm-up for his Sounds From The Other City appearance, where he’ll be soundtracking a film on the Bad Uncle / HearHere stage. There’s plenty more besides; the festival has grown again, flexing more musical muscle down Salford’s Chapel Street.

Words: Ian Pennington

Arts, Music & Events Preview, December 2010 (Part Two)

No doubt about it now – the year is fast dwindling away. The events keep on rolling though, and here’s our pick of the remaining bunch for a final preview of 2010.


First of all there’s a week’s worth of live art down in the Soup Kitchen’s basement. Hld Tght is the moniker, and it'll showcase a long list of artists, including one-time Now Then magazine featured artist, Mr Penfold. From Monday 13th ‘til Thursday 16th there’s a chance to see work in progress before the week culminates with music and performance art at their launch event on the evening of Friday 17th.


While on the subject of art, one69a have filled the old Babycakes clothes shop’s disused space on Edge Street (NQ) with a pop-up-artists vibe. Grotto, as it's known, will only be there in the run-up to Xmas, so Yule (sorry...) have to be quick to browse what’s on offer.

There are a few live shows worth your time this week before the inevitable slumber as the sun reaches its lowest point in the sky between 22nd and 25th. Celebrate that one how you will, but warm up with 1960s folk messiahs Pentangle’s guitarist on Thursday 16th as John Renbourn shares the Band on The Wall-promoted stage at greenroom with steel string blues strummer Johnny Dickinson.


Otherwise, in what seem to be predominantly folk-themed options for Thursday, Dan Haywood’s New Hawks embark on the third stop of an album launch mini-tour. Salford’s Sacred Trinity Church is the location and my hunch is that the band / venue combo will be a perfect match. The raconteur – signed to the ever-reliable local Timbreland Recordings – has the storytelling edge of The Decemberists along with occasional hints of homage to Neil Young in sonic structuring.


A third choice is a tongue-in-cheek belter named Swamp Planet Christmas at the Anthony Burgess Foundation. The tagline of Seasonal Stories From Outer Space gives you a clue as to what to expect; literary readings bridging Yoda with Yuletide, tinsel with tangent universes and aliens with angels, such as William Gibson’s Cyber-Claus and Arthur C. Clarke’s The Star.

Next a change of genre for Friday 17th Ruby Lounge where the pop pickers at No Future Club have organised the presence of funky swing rehashers The Correspondents, then on Saturday 18th This City Is Ours kick off their fresh residency at An Outlet with a collection of electronic music slanted tune-selectors and the 2/3rds of From The Kites of San Quentin offshoot, Ord Mantell. The latter is free of charge.


If you can make it over to Wigan without too much hassle (or if you happen to be there in the first place!) then make sure you drop by The Tudor House Hotel on Sunday 19th, where briefly Manchester-based promoters Imploding Acoustic Inevitable have lined up the enviable ensemble of Paddy Steer, Liz Green and John Stammers for the bargain entry price of zero pennies.

As mentioned, there’s a lull for s few days, but Mind On Fire rear their hip-hop heads the soonest as they infiltrate The Nook’s airspace with reggae and ska oriented Sunday Sessions on 26th. They’ve also teamed up with Herbal Sessions, Drum Music and Dub Smugglers for a mammoth NYE party at Dry Bar.


And finally, on a related note, MOF’s brand new label compilation, Great Minds Vol.1, will be available to buy from both those events, as well as Eastern Bloc and Piccadilly Records before being released further afield in the new year. Perfect if you’re after an amalgamation of Arabian flavoured dubstep, uptempo tech-tonics, chilled ambient compositions or classical-flute-meets-hip-hop. Quite a mixture across eight producers.

Words: Ian Pennington

White Flag @ Green Room, Thursday 4th March, 2010

March 2010 saw the second year of the Turn dance platform and in doing so brought together 20 of the Northwest’s finest dancers, choreographers and installations filling every available space within Greenroom. One of the 20 artists will be chosen for the Turn Prize and the opportunity to expand and show a full piece as part of Greenroom’s next season.

Tonight is White Flag, made up of dancers and choreographers Mancunian Jane McLean, Portuguese Vanessa Abreu and composer Sam Salem from Derby. They have been working together for just over 18 months and performed their debut work ‘Disregarding Gaze’ on the opening night of this year’s Turn event.

The dance piece is entirely engaging from start to finish. The performance takes place in a room little smaller than a squash court. Spectators are invited in whilst Jane dances in silence by herself in the dark, the only light coming from a laptop which shines on Sam’s face and the open door as the audience enter and settle jostling for a viewing point from the sides of the room. Once that door is closed the music begins and Sam starts ‘diffusing’, a process where the sounds and tones are pushed around the room though any combination of eight speakers strategically located in the extremities of the performance space.


A small 40w light illuminates Jane and her movements for the first time, but little else. As the music continues, floor lights turn on in time with the music, Jane stops and you can see Vanessa fully as she dances by herself. As the contemporary piece proceeds, both Vanessa and Jane display a huge variety of skills, at times balletic and on occasion acrobatic. They interact with each other both as discrete bodies but now and again in contact with jumps, catches and strikes in the air, on their feet and on the floor, arranged in time with the music and lighting changes. ‘Disregarding Gaze’ finishes with both dancers together on the floor; the room falls silent and is plunged into darkness, waiting for the audience to vacate.

The concept for ‘Disregarding Gaze’ was developed from Sam’s idea about modern day society and the perverse relationship we have with being watched. “We all crave privacy but at the same time are exhibitionists” says Sam. “I was thinking about how it’s beautiful in a way that big cities may have thousands of CCTV cameras linking to rooms full of screens but there’s probably just some guy sitting there reading a newspaper”.

The idea of “watching but not seeing” became the foundation for the whole dance collaboration. Composer Sam, who is coming to the end of his PhD in Musical Composition, works by going out and recording the sounds of the city and making pieces from it. The music and the melodies for ‘Disregarding Gaze’ come from voices and buskers and sounds captured on the streets.

Sam and Jane started White Flag over a year and a half ago with Vanessa joining them after a year. Wanting to achieve a true collaboration between and the music and movement Sam and Jane used to meet in Manchester, which was difficult because at the time Jane had been working in and studying at Laban Dance Centre for contemporary dance in London. Traditionally either the composition or the choreography in a dance piece takes precedence. “In the early stages, retrospectively we were actually learning what the other part does,” says Sam “we were developing the vocabulary for the piece together.”

The music was finished a few months prior to the completion of the choreography but essentially isn’t complete until the performance on the night as Sam diffuses the sounds around the room in real time. “When Sam finished and I started I did get caught up in dancing to the music” explains Jane “but realised that it’s not about that so went back to the original concept of ‘Disregarding Gaze’ and we came up with something else before coming back to the music.”

Vanessa, who has been studying dance for 13 years, including 6 years at Laban where her and Jane met, proved to be a good influence on the piece and its concept in particular. “My choreographic process is such that the movement is the last thing that I think of. I have an idea about the atmosphere that I want to create so I think about all of the sounds, textures and energy that need to exist in order to create it.”

Jane talked about how they tied it all together at the end. “When we got Sam’s music it was quite difficult as it’s very cinematic, if you close your eyes you can see it, it’s amazing! We were concerned about how we were going to fit with it and the resulting piece being too much. We found a way to work with it. Hopefully it works; hopefully we’re not too much!”

Words: Kobestarr
Image: Neil Shearer