This Autumn, Take Me Somewhere returns to present its first in person festival since 2019, taking over Glasgow from 13-28 October 2023.
A large-scale inflatable sculpture celebrating radical kindness and queer identity takes over a Glasgow shopping centre. A challenging work exploring date rape and femicide sees the creator fall unconscious mid-performance. A solo-scent opera exploring ecological dystopia fills Tramway’s main stage with smells of decaying roses.
A solo performer sits atop a vibrating 6ft platform in a piece that looks at privilege and hypocrisy. A one-on-one immersive audio piece takes place in Glasgow’s Mitchell Library. Live welding and brash sensuality explore lesbian and trans-masc identities. A sinking into the darkness of the tumultuous night, delves into cruising as a relational, sexual practice.
A work has an autopsy of the Western stage and its entanglements with capitalism and coloniality. A documentary-style piece takes audiences to the depths of the ocean, where commerce and activism collide in an intimate portrait of sea mining. A durational sound clash, death match with two Scottish Hardcore bands explores destruction as a way of holding resentment.
The international, biennial festival is thrilled to announce a programme of radical work from some of the world’s most cutting-edge contemporary performance makers. Exploring themes of connection, disability, ecological issues, date rape, femicide, post-colonialism, queerness and racial identity, the programme will ignite the city’s stages and take over public spaces.
Artists presenting work at Take Me Somewhere include:
FORGED (in the tender heat of your embrace) by Laura Fisher | Installation
Fri 20 – Sun 22 Oct | Performance Sat 21 Oct | Tramway | Visually Described
https://takemesomewhere.co.uk/laura-fisher
ANAHIT by Giorgia Ohanesian Nardin
Thu 19 – Fri 20 Oct | CCA
https://takemesomewhere.co.uk/giorgia-ohanesian-nardin
SKUNK WITHOUT K IS SUN by Louise Ahl
Fri 20 – Sat 21 Oct | Tramway | Visually Described
https://takemesomewhere.co.uk/louise-ahl
BLACK PRIVILEGE by Mamela Nyamza
Fri 20 – Sat 21 Oct | Tramway | South Africa Focus https://takemesomewhere.co.uk/mamela-nyamza
The present is not enough by Silvia Calderoni / Ilenia Caleo
Sat 21 Oct | CCA
https://takemesomewhere.co.uk/silvia-calderoni
proxy (2.2) by NXSA
Thu 26 Oct | Tramway
https://takemesomewhere.co.uk/nxsa
This year, Take Me Somewhere embarks on a strand of programming centering artists from South Africa, in partnership with the British Council. The festival also has a focus on accessibility for blind and partially sighted audiences with creatively integrated visual description, adding to the organisation’s commitment to creative accessibility in performance, with many shows BSL Interpreted, Captioned & having wellbeing support available.
As ever, Take Me Somewhere exists to position Scotland as the place to create and experience radical performance with work from local, national and international artists.
Upon announcing the full programme, Artistic Director LJ Findlay-Walsh said:
“We’re delighted to present our first in-person festival since 2019. As ever we are working with some of the most radical and vital minds of our generation, artists who add to or trouble our understanding of the world in ways that inspire and exhilarate. We are presenting work across the city, everything from the joyful and sensual to the challenging and meditative.
The festival includes artists from across the world but there is something about its spirit that makes it perfectly placed in Glasgow. We have audiences who are voracious for new experiences and open to unravelling the nuances of what they’ve seen and heard.
Take Me Somewhere is artists and performance but it’s also the community that rises around it and the discussion that exists in the in-betweens. It’s this that takes us somewhere, fostering a collective insight into the here and now.”
For the full programme, more information and to book tickets visit tickets: https://takemesomewhere.co.uk/