Cabaret Voltaire & DADA

Cabaret Voltaire was the name of a nightclub in Zürich, Switzerland. It was founded by Hugo Ball, with his companion Emmy Hennings on February 5, 1916 as a cabaret for artistic and political purposes.

The cabaret featured spoken word, dance and music. The soirees were often raucous events with artists experimenting with new forms of performance, such as sound poetry and simultaneous poetry. Mirroring the maelstrom of World War I raging around it, the art it exhibited was often chaotic and brutal. On at least one occasion, the audience attacked the Cabaret's stage. Though the Cabaret was to be the birthplace of the Dadaist movement, it featured artists from every sector of the avant-garde, including Futurism's Marinetti. The Cabaret exhibited radically experimental artists, many of whom went on to change the face of their artistic disciplines; featured artists included Kandinsky, Paul Klee, de Chirico and Max Ernst.

Dada Manifesto (1916, Hugo Ball)
Read at the first public DADA soiree, Zurich, July 14th (1916)

John Smith - Associations

I remember going to a Friday lecture some time last year to see John Smith, who is a very renowned experimental film maker. This piece in particular raised quite a few issues which seem to be relevant to the area of investigation in which I'm heading.

John Smith - Associations (1975)

Images from magazines and color supplements accompany a spoken text taken from Herbert H. Clark's "Word Associations and Linguistic Theory" (in New Horizons in Linguistics, ed. John Lyons,1970). By using the ambiguities inherent in the English language, Associations sets language against itself. Image and word work together and against each other to destroy and create meaning.

"Associations is a straightforward rebus—a game in which words are replaced by pictures. But the text is so dense with contemporary linguistic theory, and the combination of visual puns so extensive, that a simple, unique reading of the film is impossible."
—A.L. Rees, Unpacking 7 Films (1980)

Steve McCaffery

reading from Carnival, Instal 2009, The Arches
Sat 21st March, Glasgow

Who

A leading Yorkshire/ Canadian language/ action/ sound poet since the early 70's.

What

He'll be performing his groundbreaking typewriter concrete poem Carnival. It's a beautiful, dizzying mandala of text, symbols, fonts and rubber stamps. And it's a kind of book as reading machine.

Why

In trying to sound the symbols (%%%..), runs of continuous letters (NZNNNZ..) and snatches of found text, Carnival, and Steve's performance emphasise the visual qualities of language. It's a kind of wander through a labyrinth of text as sound, full of exclamations, pops, clicks and absurd humour.

Highlights of NRLA 2009

Ivana Müller (Croatia) -
'While We Were Holding It Together'


While We Were Holding It Together creates images in becoming, always changing, depending on who is looking. Is it a rock band on tour? A picnic in the forest? A hotel room in Bangkok? We look, imagine and reinvent while searching for what is hidden and for what we want to see.



She develops defined performative concepts that use twists in perception or logic as a starting point, creating pieces that are poetic and scientific, philosophical and humorous, intimate and political at the same time. In her recent work she explores notions of self-invention and storytelling, often working on the borders between fiction and reality.

Highlights of NRLA 2009

Franko B


I'm essentially a painter who also works in performance. I come from a visual art background and not "live art" or theatre, and this is very important to me as it informs the way my work is read. In the last 20 years or so I have developed ways of working to suit my need at that particular time, in terms of strategy and context, by using, installation, sculpture, video and sound.
Franko B 2008

I’m Thinking of You presents a surreal, dreamlike image... a romantic vision of childhood fantasy and abandon. The body is central, but we are also presented with objects and music, which take the viewer through a contemplative, personal experience.
The first inspiration for I’m Thinking of You came from a childhood object, which Franko B made into a sculpture, altered for safe use by adults. The idea was to allow adults to play, to forget their problems, to let go, or just to have fun - in the same way that children are allowed to. Over time, and through engagement with the composer Helen Ottaway, the idea has developed and changed, with Franko using performance and music as a means to create his desired image.
The piece is presented as a durational installation, with audience members entering in small groups for 5-10 minutes at a time to have their own encounter.

Highlights of NRLA 2009

Raimund Hoghe


Raimund Hoghe was born in Wuppertal and began his career by writing portraits of outsiders and celebrities for the German weekly newspaper "Die Zeit". These were later compiled in several books. From 1980 - 90 he worked as dramaturge for Pina Bausch's Tanztheater Wuppertal which also became the subject matter for two more books. Since 1989 he has been working on his own theatre pieces for various dancers and actors. 1992 started his collaboration with the artist Luca Giacomo Schulte, who is till now his artistic collaborator. In 1994 he produced his first solo for himself, "Meinwärts", which together with the subsequent "Chambre séparée" (1997) and "Another Dream" (2000) made up a trilogy on the 20th century.


"Pier Paolo Pasolini wrote of throwing the body into the fight. These words inspired me to go on stage. Other inspirations are the reality around me, the time in which I live, my memories of history, people, images, feelings and the power and beauty of music and the confrontation with one's own body which, in my case, does not correspond with conventional ideals of beauty. To see bodies on stage that do not comply with the norm is important - not only with regard to history but also with regard to present developments, which are leading humans to the status of design objects. On the question of success: it is important to be able to work and to go your own way - with or without success. I simply do what I have to do."




"As I worked on my first solo 'Meinwrts' (Mewards) rather than begin in a studio, I worked in my flat, mostly in the evening, after nightfall. A window attended as a mirror. In the darkness the glass reflected my movements and the space in which I was. At the same time there was the possibility to have a look outside - on the garage roofs, trees, street lamps and a school in which Japanese children sometimes practised German folk songs. Perhaps these early attempts in front of the window reflect my interest in theatre: the relationship between the inner and outer worlds, what's personal and what's universal, nearness and distance, dreams and reality, past and present."