NAVIGATE is a pilot programme for emerging artists based in Scotland who face barriers to making new work, and which will help develop their practice.
I will collaborate with five emerging artists at a very early stage of project development to help them make small-scale work that allows for Covid-19 restrictions. This will involve a practical approach to applying health and safety regulations and government guidelines, but will also include a creative aspect, exploring alternative ways of telling stories which may include Covid-safe live performance or new digital technologies. The project offers a support to artists to find new pathways to making work within a rapidly changing regulatory environment.
I am delighted to announce that this project is supported by Creative Scotland.
Meet the Artists
Emma Ruse of Framework Theatre
Emma Ruse is the Creative Producer of Framework Theatre Company, an emerging female-led company based in Edinburgh. They have an interest in socio-political work with a feminist edge and creating new work with new voices. Emma has studied at Performing Arts Studio Scotland and Queen Margaret University, and is currently undergoing mentorship with Vanishing Point, facilitated by the Scottish Drama Training Network in order to develop as a Producer.
Emma's project is Witches.
Witches is a developing theatre project surrounding the Great Scottish Witch Hunt, and the power that groups of women hold over shaping culture in Society. Linking teenage girls, modern day witches and the history of the Lothians, this is a feminist call-to-action piece.
Hamshya Rajkumar
Hamshya Rajkumar is a multidisciplinary artist working across live art, dance, graphic design and community. She graduated with a BA(Hons) Sculpture & Environmental Art from the Glasgow School of Art in 2018, and Land Arts of the American West 2016 alumna.
By situating the body outside the constraints of binary structures, she explores our human place in a world where 'nature' is separate, dominated and objectified. Her performance work strives to reveal the spectrality of multiple scales of coexisting lifeforms as a social body. Current research involves decoding and distorting the traces of Ecologies in language, culture and gesture.
Hamshya's project is trâu.daze.
trâu.daze intends to be an immersive soundscape performance involving dancer + audience placed upon socially distanced geometric points on a kōlam inspired set design. The visual design of the kōlam will reflect the flora and fauna of post-industrial Land:scapes. Primordial beats (e.g. electrical pulses of sprouting fungi), nocturnal wayfinding (e.g. bat calls), and distorted spoken word (e.g. poetic narration of life forms) will dominate the soundscape vibrating through performer + audience to unify space. The blend of these sounds will behave like a sound bath. The duration of the soundscape will represent the removal of the barriers of fear to absorb trauma.
Kirsty Biff Nicolson
Drag-artist and theatre maker Kirsty Biff Nicolson will use the NAVIGATE residency to expand on their character/performance of Eagle.
Eagle is a meninist, vlogger and self-appointed online forum mediator in the 'manosphere'. His life's mission is to convert men to his cause MGTOWN (Men Go Their Own Way Now). He will do anything to recruit new comrades to the cause. Eagle came about through research into (cis white) men's rights forums advocating for men to separate themselves from society and contact with women.
"Collaborating with Louise through NAVIGATE will create an opportunity to experiment and play with building Eagle's online world or universe and work towards an online performance at Buzzcut Festival.
I will play with the concept of a 'live internet forum'/interactive theatre and how to create a live responsive space in a digital world.
I will continue to use drag and clown as my lens into understanding Eagle's world (where gender queer bodies like my own are not invited). I will explore themes of isolation, power, loneliness, toxic masculinity and how the meninist movement has gained traction and legitimacy online."
Ruth Rankin
Ruth Rankin is a director, writer and community arts specialist based in Perth, Scotland who is passionate about accessibility in the arts for all, in both participation and audience engagement. She is currently undertaking a MEd at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and is the founding director of an inclusive theatre school called Perthformance.
Ruth's project is UnTangled
"Mother knows best"
But what happens when others tell you they know what's best?
Educational Psychologist, Doctor, Teacher, Occupational Therapist, Health Visitor. A web develops that a mother has to unTangle to make sure her child doesn't suffocate.
This piece was initially written and developed with seed funding and support from Stellar Quines and Birds of Paradise post-Covid 19 and will now be adapted through NAVIGATE in developing a Covid-safe digital work.
UnTangled celebrates the relationship between a mother and her sensory seeking child, exploring the role of the mother as untangler. The piece encourages mothers, as well as humanising the often 'statisticised' ASN community.
Sweætshops®️
Sweætshops®️ is a multisensory multipersonality conglomerate engaging in media channelling, conjuration of capital spirits, demographic violence and other activities allowable. Sweætshops®️ sole legal entity was created from the merger of two undisclosed parent companies and subsequently birthed in 1992. Beginning its growth as a company final going public in 2017. It has undertaken a wide variety of campaigns covering areas of live performance, sound, video, literature and public disruption. Simultaneously legally married/divorced for Brexit, shows closed over "cultural desecration" and "suspected cult activity" and winner of the //BUZZCUT// Emerging Artist award. Sweætshops®️ output is provocative, esoteric and intense reflecting the strangleholds of the various impersonal and absurd systems we live within in the 21st century.
MUCH OF THIS INFORMATION IS STILL CLASSIFIED. An investigation into the rise of conspiracy theories and distrust in historic institutions as a side-effect of information overload, manipulating digital mediums that manipulate their users in this way to create new configurations for live art, engagement and concept. We can neither confirm nor deny the existence of this project but, hypothetically, if such project were to exist, the subject matter would be classified, and could not be fully disclosed. [REDACTED]
NAVIGATE will also be offering a special micro-commission to Nicola Tuxworth.
Nicola Tuxworth
"I have always been into many different things such as Judo, Swimming, Horse Riding, Acting, Writing, Photography, Art, Music, History, Animals and Nature. My love of Theatre started from my local Pantomime when I was about 10 years old and in 2008 I joined Lung Ha's Theatre Company. Even though people may not think it I am now 31 years old. With many passions in life and I am beyond delighted to do a special micro-commission with NAVIGATE to help me develop my skills as a writer and storyteller. What I hope and what I would love to achieve is to leave my mark on history, through the work I do and for my stories to make it to the stage and to be seen and enjoyed by people all over."
Nicky's project is
World War I, a series of stories of people affected by the First World War, which we will be developing as a multimedia project.
Nicky will be mentored by Andy Edwards.
Andy Edwards (b.1990) is a Glasgow-based playwright and dramaturg. His plays include 'Happy Ark Day :)' for National Theatre of Scotland’s ‘Scenes for Survival’, 'In Burrows' and the 2017 ART award winning 'Scribble'. Andy was Tron Theatre’s 2019 Mayfesto Writer In Residence and a PYROMANIA playwright with FIRE EXIT.
Andy’s dramaturgy includes writing, artist mentorship and collaboration with Carrie Skinner, Lung Ha Theatre Company, Talking Dramaturgy and Exeunt Magazine. During 2020 he co-facilitated 'Make It Accessible', a digital working group exploring access in performance with Birds of Paradise. Click here to check out his publications.
