The Place Presents Splayed Festival: An Eruption of Disruptive Femininities

Energised by queerness as a creative spanner in the works, this new festival curated by dance artist Amy Bell is a response to the growing urgency within dance to challenge ideas of female power. Splayed Festival draws together a cluster of subversive artists to challenge what we think we know about gender, desire, identity, violence, performance and power. During a week of bold and playful performance, engaging discussion and a free zine, conventional notions of femininity will be thrown into question and new possibilities set rubbing up against each other.

Highlighting the festival is the London premiere of Violence by Glasgow-based performance artist FK Alexander, whose (I Could Go on Singing) Over the Rainbow became a cult hit at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2016. FK identifies as living in recovery from drug addiction and mental collapse, and her work is concerned with issues of wounds, recovery, aggressive healing, radical wellness, industrialisation and noise music. Her new work, Violence, which was performed at Tramway in Glasgow this month and closes the Splayed Festival on 9th June, uses text and percussion in a meditative investigation of the cruelty of love, the weight of loneliness and the freedom of anxiety. The Herald said of the show "this extraordinary performer makes small details tell huge stories about the hopes and heartaches that matter to us".

Opening the festival is a double bill from Northern Irish performer Sheena McGrandles and Norwegian artist Hilde I. Sandvold. Figured from Sheena McGrandles presents two female bodies editing and re-editing themselves across a wall, creating and recreating images of butch female sensuality and possibilities of lesbian cruising. Figured is followed by Hilde I. Sandvold's humourous reflection on sex and sexuality, Dans for Satan (Dance, dammit). The solo show aims to discuss a society where we can grow up being told that men and women can do the same thing: that it, exactly whatever they want.

Also in the festival, durational performance Slug Horizons from Florence Peake and Eve Stainton promotes an emotional landscape of bravery as it enquires into issues of marginalised affection, sexuality and the expressive potential of women's bodies through intimacy. Florence Peake is a London-based artist who works in both dance and visual arts, with artwork being displayed in galleries such as the National Portrait Gallery and the Hayward Gallery.

Finally, in free performances at the Wellcome Collection, Charlie Ashwell is a dance witch exploring gender and power in Banishing Dance.

Amy Bell is a dance artist whose work embraces performing, making, teaching, writing, dramaturgy and curation. She said, "Splayed sprang out of a desire to do more than shake our fists at conventional notions of femininity, but to propose new possibilities through experimental movement, performances, discussions and a free zine. The festival addresses the fact that there is amazing work going on at the moment both in the UK and abroad, rocking expectations about gender, sexuality and queerness in dance. As an independent artist, it feels important that The Place are inviting different voices to create new contexts for audiences to experience new ideas. It's been great to work together with them as guest curator and to partner with Wellcome Collection again on this project. I hope that Splayed might play a part in a wider and much needed debate about dismantling the norms in dance and culture around embodied gender and sexuality. I also hope audiences will enjoy this rich and playfully subversive programme of bold and innovative artists." Amy is an Associate Artist at The Place on their Work Place scheme.

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