The fusion of two of Scotland's most established international arts events, The National Review of Live Art and New Moves (new territories), promises a unique new festival for a new millennium. The evolution of New Territories as a truly distinctive hybrid arts festival is a significant addition to Glasgow's cultural calendar.
Like its predecessors New Territories is a festival that will continue to question and redefine artistic forms and cultural boundaries. Presenting some of the world's most audacious, multifaceted and influential artists currently working in contemporary performing arts, New Territories will continue to introduce to Scotland work by pioneering young creators exploring new artistic territories.
Not since 1993 has a Scottish audience been treated to the exhilarating, freefalling choreography of Ginette Laurin and her company O Vertigo, who have been at the forefront of Quebec's contemporary dance scene for nearly two decades; their new work is a joy from beginning to end. Poland's vanguard artists Akademia Ruchu, make a much-anticipated return to Glasgow dressed in wigs and dresses of Marilyn Munroe in a tragicomic look at today's mores. Hungary's Artus make their Glasgow debut with their bizarre, intimate journey that transforms the Tramway space. A special commission from composer Andrew Poppy and theatre director Julia Bardsley, celebrates the opening of New Territories, Avalanche Thoughts, wilful and erotic, teases and tempts us into unknown terrain; whilst Flemish choreographer Wim Vandekeybus returns with an all women cast who immerse us in shadowy and grotesque fantasies that will definitely leave you in no doubt of the power of the female psyche.
There is much questioning of what is real and what is "virtual", the UK's wonderfully clever Station House Opera leads us through doors that go, who knows where, and where a real person may well be a video double. Lovers of virtuosity of movement will remember Sylvain Émard's rich choreographic writing and we look forward to another superbly crafted work. Festival favourite Paulo Ribeiro introduces his multicultural company; as they consider their individual and personal European histories and feelings of exile, there is a gentle melancholy in Paulo's work that allays the heat and passion of southern European temperament. Young Australian artists Lisa O'Neill, the surprise hit of New Moves Australia and Cazerine Barry, with her seamless cinematic dance theatre, reminds us that wherever in the world the Festival ventures, there will be truly ingenious artists transporting their audiences into realms of the surreally comic and the magically profound.
The National Review of Live Art, the original - and longest serving - platform for radical work of all temperaments and constituencies, will provide an alternative channel, somewhere to look beyond the established horizons. For five days in the subterranean world of the Arches artists from across the globe will share this intensity of space and time to cross-fertilise ideas and ambitions in a supportive and creative environment for artists and public alike. Central to the artform's development over two decades, the NRLA's ability to showcase tomorrow's talent today remains indisputable.
The Platform artists emerging from this year's nationwide selection offer a wide ranging body of work that comprises many elements from performance to video projection and installations as today's artists explore the concepts of memory, time, familial designations, domestic routines, self-love, physical boundaries, fragments of memorabilia, notions of celebrity, voyeurism and the life and death cycle.
Welcome back four artists from last year's Platform, Anita Ponton deals with fragmented personae with lascivious delight; Oreet Ashery's Coloured Folks experiments in racial bankruptcy and investment, collaborative voyeurism and heavy make-up whilst Marie-Louise Blaney questions conventional notions of beauty as widely exploited in women's magazines, tabloids, novels and religion. Finally, Qasim Riza Shaheen's Conversations With Angels is a visual and poetic portrayal of identity that explores and transcends the private realm of Love's scream.
There is a rare opportunity to witness work by artists who are exploring a new language within an art practice being evolved in India today; Shilpa Gupta, Baiju Parthan and Monali Meher are all from the megalopolis Mumbai. Using different media and materials, these artists show an interest in exploring the impact of globalisation on their culture, it is interesting to observe how such an urbanized landscape has shaped their work.
Witness too, Rosemary Butcher's originality of vision in Scan, a performance that is visceral and uncompromising in its imagery and energy. Japanese American Rika Ohara's Shelter 9 is a digital video installation inspired by a dream of awaiting nuclear destruction in a glass shelter. By complete contrast, Completely Naked's Kissbox offers audiences the chance to engage in the ultimate experience of a kiss via video and live broadcast. Specially commissioned Third Angel will also bring the audience into play with a chance to have their say in one to one interviews.
Feminine Follies 2, is an ever-moving still life by Dutch artists Van Reek en Ten Bosch, all actions are boiling with restrained eroticism, whilst everything around them decays and falls apart. Investigating the many shades of masculinity Norway's John Øivind Eggesbø, performances deal with folkloristic rituals and the interaction between man and an eel. And from the home of Hieronymus Bosch, The Wolf & The Winter is a stark, fierce, mysterious and elemental journey that takes us through harsh medieval winters in the sanctum of the forest to the alien feeding grounds of the cities.
Hear new electroacoustic music from the UK during a day event that melds the musical avant-garde, dance music, sound art, radio art and theatre. FONNEM's reinterpretation of Reich and Poland's Freight Train, whose concert is played in front of backdrop of contemporary animated films, prove that music has the ability to traverse all boundaries.
A film and video programme offers a maverick feast varying from John Maybury's cerebral landscape populated by punks and new romantics to Julia Bardsley's meditation on perception and deception of the eye and mind.
Molecules In Motion tracks visual and performance artists from the UK, Italy, Sweden and the USA over three months as they take participants from communities across Glasgow to coast urban environments. Fly through Materiali Resistenti's Waterwall, talk 'territory' at Intersection, kick flip on a skateboard over Toby Paterson's sculptural objects and see Lars Silterg DVD ventures on air, ice and water at New Plaza.
A professional training programme of masterclasses, daily class and a choreographic laboratory, together with discussions and opportunities to meet the artist, create many different routes for people to navigate festival events. New Territories is a festival that offers a journey of discovery to all those curious enough to venture into the unknown.
New Territories begin where the old prejudices leave off...
