BUZZCUT Festival Returns to Glasgow this April

//BUZZCUT// Festival returns to Govan (Glasgow) for its sixth, five-day, community focused festival of live art and experimental performance from 5th - 9th April 2017. Over five days //BUZZCUT// will base itself in the Pearce Institute, a 100 year old community centre in the centre of Govan, transforming it into the heart of the festival with delicious food by local superstars Cafe 13, our own BUZZCUT Bar and a wild, friendly, vibing environment where all are welcome. The festival is pay-what-you-can to attend and centred around interrogating the accessibility of Live Art and experimental performance. This year we are spreading to more spaces than ever around Govan (including the Govan Old Parish Church, The Fairfield Working Men's Club, Elderpark Library, Cafe 13 and a local scrapyard) to present a full-to-the-brim programme of 50 radical performance works from across Scotland, the UK and the world.

Beginning as a collaboration between Glasgow-based performance makers Nick Anderson and Rosana Cade in 2012 //BUZZCUT//'s central enquiry remains, "How can an event strengthen a community?" and we inscribe this into everything we do. For the past five years we have strengthened the Glasgow performance community through bringing hundreds of artists to this city, celebrating risk, experimentation, friendliness and community solidarity. //BUZZCUT// is now an artist-centric, community focused effort and a year-round organisation with an office in the Pearce Institute. Our team is comprised of new vital people, Karl Taylor and Daisy Douglas, with the sole intention to radically envisage the growth of Live Art in and for Scotland. Over 2016 some of you may have been aware of 'Double Thrills!' our lovingly curated monthly programme of performance we delivered at the CCA as a means to offer regular performance events in Glasgow in the wake of the Arches closure.

This year, in a new partnership with The Goethe Institut, //BUZZCUT// will be hosting Side Burns, running on Wednesday 5th April for three hours and then informally across the whole festival. Led by academics Phoebe Patey-Ferguson and Simon James Holton, Side Burns will provide a free, open, supportive space for discussion, debate and critical action where we can figure out how we're going to carry on together in the political hell hole we find ourselves in, and what role community and performance might have in that.

Imaginate and //BUZZCUT// are clubbing together again to deliver Close Shave (Live Art For Young People), with a chocka full programme, designed and hosted by a group of young people from across Glasgow. In a development of last year's version, this mini-event on Thursday 6th April will be //BUZZCUT//'s well known performance restautant format called 'A La Buzzcarte'. Through an open call, artists will apply to create a three-course performance 'dinner' for all to enjoy!

As always, half of the programme is from some shining lights of Scotland and includes (but not limited to): Mamoru Iriguchi, who will be presenting 'The Journey between a man and a woman'. A performance where he attempts to explain queer identity to young people and adults alike. Nic Green will present an especially made version of c*ckand Bull. This will last 7hrs and 41mins (the average length of a House of Commons session) and is performed alongside Simone Kenyon and Rosana Cade. Blake Venus comes from Dundee and will perform a work relating to the spiritual interpretation of alchemy. Rosanna Irvine creates an outdoor, large-scale, kissing spectacle and also FK Alexander will perform a //BUZZCUT//-specific, site-responsive outdoor work!

The other half of the programme is made up of a range of exciting UK artists who have never shown work in //BUZZCUT// before, such as Natalie Ramus with a 9 hour action based exploration into the maternal female using masses of 'Mothers Pride' bread and milk Angus Maclean Balbernie and Stuart Jackson will perform as 343 M/S, with their first and probably last duet together. A one-off. Demi Nandhra perform 'The Sadness Got Too Much' - a vivid autobiographical work, looking at historical traumas in the everyday felt sensations of our lives.

We're chuffed to high-hell to have a wee selection of glorious, rad artists coming from international realms. They're all excellent and we can't wait to open our festival up to these very welcome cultural beacons:

Shannon Cochrane and Amanda Coogan (Canada/Northern Ireland), Steinunn Ketilsdóttir (Iceland), Anthony Hüseyin Pharaoh (Turkey), Erika Bulle (Mexico), Mairead Delaney (USA) and Ernestyna Orlowska (Switzerland)

As always there is a huge range of studio shows, durational actions, one-on-one experiences and outdoor interventions!

//BUZZCUT// is primarily focused on making the festival as accessible as possible to all and so we are continuing to develop our resource for disabled audience members at the festival. All spaces are wheelchair accessible on level access or via stairclimber, there is a roving team of BSL interpreters in the social spaces and several shows are BSL interpreted, there is a silent rest area available and we are developing our resource for visually impaired audiences with audio described works and Touch Tours available.

For more information visit www.glasgowbuzzcut.wordpress.com.

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