Press

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Feedback and Press Quotes From 2009

'Asides from offering a programme that is the envy of any major city, New Territories is cultivating the next generation, offering them new opportunities. Here is a festival that sacrifices neither quality nor integrity for size and success.'
Gareth Vile, The Skinny

'So, as we approach the end of the first decade of the 21st century, the much vaunted demise of the traditional barriers between theatre audiences appears to elude us. However, from the Edinburgh Festival to New Territories and the Arches, we can at least celebrate that fact that, despite the UK's historic scepticism of the avant-garde, we still have a healthy radical fringe. Perhaps the real question is about the future of the mainstream.'
Mark Brown, The Scotsman

'The NRLA is far more than just the programming or the acts. It is the conversations, the annual moans and the applause and ongoing resonance of having the festival In Glasgow. It flies the flag for adventure, communication and technique, setting new artists alongside the big names. Moving, inspiring and frustrating, educating and confusing, The National Review of Live Art braves criticism and defies categorisation, becoming a performance in itself.'
Gareth Vile, The Skinny

'It's exactly what is says on the tin but, although the title may be a little dry, the importance and wide-reaching effects of these five days are too great to be measured... a wonderful showcase of work and workshops, talks and networking opportunities.'
Lyn Gardner, The Guardian

'It's probably a good thing that The National Review of Live Art totters on the brink of confirming your worst nightmare about avant-garde theatre. If it didn't, perhaps it wouldn't be such a stimulating event.'
Mark Fisher, Guardian theatre-blog

'While the sheer range of experience on offer is the main attraction of the NRLA, like any festival it has its headliner, and this one's was Franko B. Franko is a live art veteran, his CV is his body - tattooed head to toe, skin covered in self-inflicted scars. His show this year was beautifully simple... Somehow, this poignant, dreamlike juxtaposition of hard-won experience and childhood innocence amounted to way more than the sum of its parts. Like the best of NRLA, trying to describe or classify it does no justice, but it lingered in the mind long afterwards.'
Andrew Eaton, Scotsman

'It started with a blindfold. It ended, as in previous years, with the blinkers off and the outside world seen in a new light.'
Mary Brennan, The Herald

'A five-day-long celebration of the cutting-edge, the NRLA is the place to discover the most daring performers and difficult ideas that can hardly be expressed in words... it is undeniably unique and intense.'
Margaret Kirk, The Skinny

 

Feedback and Press Quotes From 2008

'In a world in which the rate of human suffering is not slowing and in which political engagement is ever more muddled, where is the artist left standing? In the words of performance artist Guillermo Gómez-Peña, whose own work arrestingly deals with issues of exploitation, suppression and power, he suggests that it is possible to remain true to both the necessity and the privilege of art making: Artists make practical solutions; we make people think, imagine and laugh. Sounds so corny, but so appealing que no?'
Axis Dialogue online journal

'It's probably the most valuable strength in the whole NRLA canon, this point of conflict that the work can stir inside your head, so that even as you are evaluating it you are re-evaluating yourself and your values and the distance between the self you are and the self you'd like to think you are.'
Mary Brennan, The Herald

'Yes, it can be a walk on the weird side. But NRLA is also an unrivalled opportunity to engage with some of the world's most innovative, radical talents and with work that resolutely crosses boundaries of form and cultural taboos.'
Mary Brennan, The Herald

'Prepare to be dazzled! One of the most outstanding displays of contemporary live art in the world, New Territories showcases fresh and experimental performance...'
Glasgow Diary

'The National Review is a venerable institution, now in its third decade and still discovering new performers and ideas. Like a mutant hybrid of an academic conference, a busker's paradise and an intense '60s happening, the NRLA is one of the few theatrical events where MC Ian Smith's claim that "anything can happen, and probably will" is more than just lazy advertising. The purpose of live art is to challenge definitions, and it crosses every boundary of taste, media and acceptability. The NRLA selects the most radical artists, and provides them with a space to fulfill their fantasies - or fail miserably.'

'There is no question that certain pieces will open up new ways of thinking and performing, shine light into darkened recesses and become, what critic Mary Brennan has called "the closest I come to acts of faith. It is a huge spiritual excursion". The modern aesthetic pilgrim needs patience and compassion, and the ability not to become too irritated by patent absurdity, but New Territories and the National Review of Live Art collect together a stunning array of original expressions.
The Skinny 2008

'The National Review of Live Art is one of the world's artistic wonders. Each year in Glasgow an international community of artist-innovators of all ages, disciplines, and inclinations congregates to remind one another of the things they believe in. Be prepared to have your life changed.'
Michael Mayhew 2008

 

Feedback and Press Quotes From 2007

'Isn't is great to get your head really stuck into something decent without knocking over your favourite lampshade? At New Territories festival in Glasgow, you can do just that. This year, New Moves International once again produces one of the most widely respected festivals on the calendar, profiling fresh, experimental and interdisciplinary performance. This is Scotland's International Festival of Live Arts, and it is not your average art programme. New Territories is an extraordinarily immersive, creative village experience. You become part of it just by being present. From established arrtists to emerging new talent, the radically different direction mapped out in the New Territoires programme ensures the festival's place as one of the most outstanding displays of contemporary live art in the world.'
www.artshub.co.uk

'For five days, every nook and cranny of Tramway will buzz with a programme of live performance, video, art installation and music that is still the envied leader in the international field of what is newest, bravest and best in hybrid art forms. And it's all right here on our doorstep.'
The Herald Arts, Books and Cinema Magazine, 3 February 2007.

'The mix defies definition, but if you're a stranger to these arts let Black Market International intrigue you with its ten rules of practice: nos 1-9 are "don't be boring" and the tenth is "don't give up control". It could become your mantra for life.'
The Herald Arts, Books and Cinema, 3 February 2007.

'New Territories is a platform to show the world how valuable art's role can be in society.'
Scotland on Sunday, 4 February 2007

'For those with an open mind, the packed programme offers plenty to get excited by. The NRLA is not just a collection of works that transgress genre boundaries; it creates a collective environment where genre does not exist. It seems increasingly to resemble an artistic representation of cyberspace.'
The List, 1-15 February 2007

'Without question, the hottest ticket is the Scottish premiere of Michael Clark's Mmm... Originally created in 1992, and inspired by Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring, expect a defiantly modern, intelligently humorous and quirkily sexual production.'
Sunday Herald, Seven Days, 4 February 2007

'We may think of live art as a weird and sometimes wonderful art form not really suited to straight-laced British tastes. In fact, New Territories is one of the world's leading platforms for live art. Give it a go; you have nothing to lose but your inhibitions.'
Sunday Herald, Seven Days, 4 February 2007

 

Feedback and Press Quotes From 2006

'EARLIER THIS YEAR I PRESENTED A SOLO AT NRLA 06. I PERFORMED BEHIND A SEATING BANK WITH A COUPLE OF HUNDRED PEOPLE CROWDED AROUND ME HUDDLED IN A SEMI-CIRCLE. IT WAS THE FIRST NIGHT OF THE FESTIVAL AND I WAS THE FIRST LIVE EVENT. I REMEMBER FEELING LIKE I WAS GOING TO VOMIT RIGHT UP UNTIL THE AUDIENCE WALKED THROUGH THE DOOR. AT THE END OF 20 MINUTES MY SHIRT WAS WET WITH PERSPIRATION. OVER THE NEXT FEW DAYS I MET ARTISTS FROM ALL OVER THE WORLD, TALKED TO PRESENTERS ABOUT FUTURE POSSIBILITIES AND WATCHED LIVE ART FOR 10 HOURS A DAY. AS AN ARTIST IT WAS ONE OF THE MOST EXHILARATING EXPERIENCES I HAVE HAD TO DATE.' 
Rosie Dennis

'Among the absolute blessings? Your programme actually, these days the NRLA is the closest I come to acts of faith. It is a huge spiritual excursion for me, a marvellous church of inspired witness to humanity under pressures, yet determinedly breathing deep and passionately in a shared celebration of what can be felt, achieved, revealed, by artists and onlookers alike. I feel warmer through and through just remembering it all.'
Mary Brennan

'Glasgow is the place to be over the next few weeks. New Territories offers the opportunity to see an amazing range of new and established artists of international repute whose work crosses the boundaries between theatre and visual arts, performance and installation, live art and video.'
The Guardian Guide

'The NRLA fields one of the most open-minded, far-reaching and rewardingly varied programme of radical new work in the world.'
The Herald

'NRLA has forged a wealth of worthwhile connections between artists, audiences and Tramway the building has simply buzzed with the kind of energy it should be able to be home to all year round.'
The Herald

'Historically, the role of the artist in society has been to produce and criticise culture. In an unstable climate of religious censorship and governmental control over the arts, never has it been more pertinent to restate the value of art and its role in society.'

'If the Scottish Executive ever needed reassurance of that value then the Minister for tourism, culture and sport, could hardly have done better that to visit Tramway in Glasgow at the weekend for this years National Review of Live Art.'

'With such consist quality and engagement, Scotland should be proud that Nikki Milican has again succeeded in producing a festival that holds a pride of place in the international cultural calendar.'
The Scotsman

'Not even in the glory days of 1990 and Glasgow City of Culture, have I seen Tramway so buzzing with life.'
Scotland on Sunday on the NRLA

'A festival that will be occasionally absurd, often unequivocally vulgar but irresistibly compulsive, The National Review of Live Art will be a cavalcade of freaks, exhibitionists and unhinged social-commentary which will prove to utterly compelling.'
The Skinny

 

A flavour of press & public reaction to previous festivals

'Glasgows festival of the imagination'
The List

'Pick of the week the NRLA if you're only going to see one thing this week'
The Guardian

'Pick of the week the NRLA international work that defies definition by artists who know no rules.'
Scotland on Sunday

'A strange subterranean world of performance where anything can happen and frequently does.'
Metro

'It is the very ability to destroy her own creations and then raise new ones from the ashes that makes Milican such a brilliant, defiantly risky programmer.'
Metro

'The thrill of the new everything from three-hour epics to five-minute snatches of some of the most exciting, innovative and sometimes downright weird bits of dance, art installation performance art and otherwise unspecified creative happenings currently reverberating around the globe.'
Metro

'Pick of the day the NRLA Glaswegian live art lovers must be about the happiest people on planet earth right now.'
The Scotsman

'Things you simply have to do low tech, silly, inventive, surreal, demanding, improvised yep its Glasgows annual dip into the avant-garde.'
The List

'Last year it won international recognition (the International Theatre Institute Award), this year it has secured increased SAC funding a faith in work thats never plain, rarely simple and always challenging and at the cutting edge.'
The Herald

'non-stop adventures and experiments'
The List

'As you would expect, the NRLA reflects fresh attitudes in a traumatised society five days of experiences that roller-coastered from the touchingly elegiac to the gloriously vulgar.'
The Herald