Luca Manning Trio (London)

Free Jazz Friday, Presented by B:Music

Friday 14 October 2022, 5.00pm6.30pm

Broad Street
Birmingham, B1 2EA United Kingdom
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Presented with B:Music

90 mins

Free

This event is free, but ticketed. Tickets can be booked via the B:Music website on the link below.

‘Once in a very great while a performer comes along who is touched by greatness, who mixes a incredible, innate ability with insight,  great wit and a knowledge of the great artists who have preceded them. Luca Manning is such an artist.’

Luca Manning is an artist who questions rigidity.

Shaped initially by the buzzing Glasgow music and arts scene, Luca now finds their heart stolen by all that East London has to offer.

Luca is a resident artist at London’s iconic Roundhouse where they are continually expanding their practice allowing them to create transdisciplinary work that offers an immersive experience for the audience; a chance to escape the rigidity of every day life. Luca’s world is an invitation to strive for what lies beyond the mundane and to exist freely, proudly and fully.

Music is one of the most evocative ways to share our stories and Luca is continually exploring their voice as an artist, vocalist, musician, songwriter, poet, performer and storyteller on stages, at festivals, in concert halls, sticky floor venues and amongst beautifully dingy queer basements. Luca’s recent performance highlights include: Roundhouse, The Great Escape Fest, The Glory, Cadogan Hall, VFD, Wilderness Festival and Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club.

Aside from music, Luca enjoys embracing their gobby side when co-hosting the ‘how not’ podcast alongside Kim Macari, working with Trade Unions to deliver webinars and workshops on songwriting/storytelling, making mediocre lattes for the public, dancing to disco, turning lewks and dreaming of the day they’ll own a baby sausage dog called Aretha.

Manning will be joined by musicians Xhosa Cole and Jamie Safir.

Critically acclaimed saxophonist, flautist and composer, Xhosa Cole is an embodiment of the success of numerous community outreach arts programmes in Birmingham. Having started playing Tenor Saxophone at Andy Hamilton MBE’s Ladywood Community Music School, Xhosa has now established himself among the long legacy of Birmingham Saxophonists including Soweto Kinch and Shabaka Hutchings

Jamie Safir is a Decca-Recording artist (featured on ‘Alone Together’) and a stalwart of the London Jazz and Cabaret Scene. A talented pianist who has collaborating with Will Young regularly since 2015,  he’s toured with Mica Paris, Birdy, performed with The Brand New Heavies, Olly Murs, Claire Martin, Elaine Delmar, Le Gateau Chocolat, Clare Teal, Liane Carrol, Rebecca Ferguson, Steps & Tony Christie.

Details

enormousface (NYC/Autonomous Cascadia)

Nothing Is Also Possible

Wednesday 12 October 2022Sunday 16 October 2022

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Free

An Exploration of Garbage and the Void

GARBAGE, like God, has no known origin, although it seems to be a genus of inanimate object that has suffered the alchemy of human intervention: transforming first from living to dead (e.g. dinosaurs to petrol) and then from valuable to unwanted (e.g. gasoline to carbon), moving from deep intimacy with the human and its life, to a state of extreme ghettoization. Other animals do not seem to produce similar Garbage, nor have a need for idols or religious artefacts in general. But our ramping up of consumption just as Marxist materialism is on the rise does suggest replacing one with the other. 

When our new god, money, is exhausted, becomes boring, trite or banal, what will replace it? 

enormousface aka artist Kalan Sherrard, will be in residence throughout the festival week making interventions, garbage sculptures and performance. Check back for exact details nearer the time.

enormousface puppet shows in the Festival Late Night Bar
Wednesday 12th/Thursday 13th/Friday 14th – 11.59pm.
Free

enormousface Garbage Monuments Workshop
Sunday 16th October 12noon – 3pm, Friction Arts
Free

enormousface is a slime mold who lives in a (w)hole in the sky with dozens of wild abjects. xE tours Not-Happenings and Puppets Shows around much of the un/known world, has recently been involved in the organization of Garbage Fest in the abominable Amerikas, and periodically lectures on Speculative Inverted Ontology, exploring the cognitive dissonance of eco-nihilist jouissance and phoenix-like dHope [sic] on an exponentially crumbling planet.

https://www.enormousface.com/

Details

Wednesday 12 October 2022Sunday 16 October 2022

Various venues

crazinisT artisT (Accra)

Kall for Healing

Friday 14 October 2022, 5.30pm7.30pm

Midlands Arts Centre, Cannon Hill Park
Birmingham, B12 9QH United Kingdom
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Free

- Contains nudity

Healing is a process and a ritual of becoming through physical, spiritual, mental and emotional endurance, violence and alternative death. It intensifies its own pains by scratching our wounds. We die to live! Our endurance is only sustained through the joy, the hope and dreams of rebirth. Healing and its rituals are paradoxical, leaving us with new scars and fresh memories of our wounds that allow us to reimagine our own wholeness, survival, strength and experience a new perfection.

In the performance, the artist invites the audience to join the ritual of healing as an intimate encounter, communal solidarity and to reflect on their own wounds. It allows both the artist and the audience to reimagine their own journey to healings while contemplating on the wholeness and the wildness of that enduring process of becoming.

This project was developed while in residence at prohelvetia_residency hosted by the Progr_Bern Switzerland. Supported by @prohelvetia @prohelvetia_johannesburg

Details

Friday 14 October 2022

5.30pm

Midlands Arts Centre

Jesús Hilario-Reyes (New York City)

Akin to the Hurricane

Sunday 16 October 2022, 8.45pm9.45pm

Balsall Heath
Birmingham, B12 9AN
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European Premiere

60 mins

Free

Jesus Hilario Reyes on stilts surrounded by wooden statues carved from tree trunks

Continuing an iterative series that began in 2018, this impromptu sound performance utilises the symbolic space of the hurricane to question ideas of sovereignty and belonging. This is an effort to exercise fugitivity as a point of agency, autonomy and potentiality.

Artist Statement

As an interdisciplinary artist, my practice is situated at the crossroads of sonic performance, land installation, and expanded cinema. In my iterative works, I largely explore the impossibility of the black body, the failure of mechanical optics, and the reverb of cultural dissonance. By fragmenting my own positionality and history -I utilize familial footage, 3d animation, and land practices to remedy environmental and political disruption and to question ideas of comfort and belonging.

Through the examination of queer rave culture and carnival practices, my work takes on a necessary satirical approach to undermine the systems at play. In the act of reconciliation with generational and environmental trauma, I remap my body as a site of multitude, to fracture the autobiographical nature of my work.

 

Fierce Says

At the end of each festival we always ask the visiting artists who we should invite to the next one. After her incredible performance at Fierce Festival 2019 Keijaun Thomas recommended we get to know the work of Jesús Hilario-Reyes, and of course it didn't disappoint! Having also performer at this year's Rhubarb Festival in Toronto, you're in for a treat!

Details

Sunday 16 October 2022

8.45pm

Moseley Road Swimming Baths

Liz Ord (Birmingham)

Peaked too Soon

Tuesday 11 October 2022Saturday 15 October 2022

Free

- Flashing lights
- Smoking representation
- Loud sound
- Themes of mental breakdown

In this performance Liz relives the glazed moments of ecstasy working as a fashion model and tries to style out the inevitable prevailing silence. Celebrity voyeurism, tantrums turned memes, cigarette break chic… Screenshot the anguish and calling it a #MondayMood ;)

“Maybe you peaked too soon?”
I think that’s a bit harsh Mum. I must have burst out of that cake a hundred times but no one ever offered me a slice.

Lookout for this performance popping up at the following moments during the festival.

Tuesday 11 October, 7.15pm
Warwick Arts Centre, Foyer (before Farm Fatale)
Free

Saturday 15 October, 8.15pm
Midlands Arts Centre, Foyer (after Lavagem)
Free

Details

Tuesday 11 October 2022

7.15pm

Warwick Arts Centre

Saturday 15 October 2022

8.15pm

Midlands Arts Centre

Rosie Gibbens (London)

Skin of my Teeth

Sunday 16 October 2022, 2.30pm5.30pm

Midlands Arts Centre, Cannon Hill Park
Birmingham, B12 9QH United Kingdom
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180 minutes

Free

- Mild nudity
- Sexual references

‘Skin of my Teeth’ is a perverse product demonstration of office equipment which interprets the term ‘sex sells’ overly literally. Taking as its starting point the outdated trend for white-collar workers to photocopy their nude body parts, the performance presents various combinations of everyday objects and unruly bodies. The installation also includes figurative soft sculptural avatars and videos featuring digital bodies – both inspired by photogrammetry nets which act as a computerised ‘skin’. Rosie is interested in using absurdity to think about how tools can extend or restrict our bodies, to question our assumptions that new technology will make our lives more streamlined and to think about the ways that female bodies are often used as landscapes on which desire for commodities are constructed.

Skin of My Teeth is a new performance created for Fierce Festival 2022.

rosiegibbens.com

 

Special thanks to Grant from Scriptum Document Solutions Ltd

Details

Sunday 16 October 2022

2.30pm

Midlands Arts Centre

SaVAge K’lub (Auckland)

Kolonial Karma: Late at the Museum

Friday 14 October 2022, 7.30pm10.30pm

Chamberlain Square
Birmingham, B3 3DH
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Supported by Creative New Zealand

3 hours

Free

A very special evening with Aotearoa’s SaVAge K’lub. Fierce has been working with the SaVAge K’lub collective for the past twelve months, presenting their exhibition VA TAMATEA which is currently on show in Birmingham Museum. Because of pandemic constraints, the exhibition has been created by the SaVAge K’lub remotely.

We’re delighted to finally welcome the SaVAge K’lub to Birmingham, in person, for the first time as part of Fierce Festival 2022. They’ll be throwing a very special event ‘Kolonial Karma’, after hours at Birmingham Museum. Expect performance art, music, spoken word and more as SaVAge K’lub activate their exhibition and the Edwardian Tea Room space. More details will be revealed nearer the time.

Featuring Head SaVAge Rosanna Raymond and more to be announced.

Sistar S’pacific, aka Rosanna Raymond, is an innovator of the contemporary Pasifika art scene as a long-standing member of the art collective the Pacific Sisters, and the founding member of the SaVĀge K’lub. Raymond has achieved international renown for her performances, installations, body adornment, and spoken word.

Details

Friday 14 October 2022

7.30pm

Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery

World Premiere

Freddie Wulf (Bristol/Berlin)

we are all made of stars

Friday 14 October 2022Saturday 15 October 2022

Midlands Arts Centre, Cannon Hill Park
Birmingham, B12 9QH United Kingdom
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With a live sound score by Alicia Jane Turner.
World Premiere. Commissioned by Fierce and Attenborough Centre for the Creative Arts (ACCA). Supported by FABRIC. Funded by Arts Council England and Help Musicians.
Included in our tiered discount offer

50 mins £13/11

- loud and affective sound
- Nudity including close up views of the body
- Mild sexual content
- UV lighting
- Near total darkness
- Moving/flickering video images
- 18+

Close up blurred image of a pink flower with a blue background
close up image of just a pair of lips. The person has a piercing on their cupids bow and the lips are submerged slightly in water.

A journey through the body as a living landscape, an ecosystem, constantly in flux

Using a borescope camera Freddie Wulf explores the close-up textures of body, water, and plant, creating a journey through a cosmic landscape.

passing by hairs erupting, droplets on the tiny leaves of moss, lips and throat like an underwater cave

Performed in a bathtub, and inspired by philosophies of vital materialism, the show addresses themes of wellbeing, embodiment, and self perception.

 

Pre-Show Access Orientation

For this show we are offering a pre-show access orientation session on Saturday 15 October. This session, is for any audience members who would benefit from having time to familiarise themselves with the theatre space, see the set pieces, and get a sample of some of the sounds in the show.

The space is open for self-guided orientation; members of the team will be available to answer any questions you have, or support you in the space.

The sessions last for 30 minutes from 8pm. There is no need to book separately, just show your ticket.

 

Freddie Wulf is a trans masculine artist making visceral & visual performance. He is white British, dyspraxic & Mad. His work is sex positive & draws from kink methodologies.

Lead Artist: Freddie Wulf
Producer: Michael Kitchin
Composition & Live Music: Alicia Jane Turner
Lighting Designer: Joshie Harriette
Production Manager: Anna Smith
Movement Direction: Ania Varez
Outside Eye/Dramaturgy: An*dre Neely, Emma Frankland, Tammy Reynolds, Piper Piper
Prop Design: Ginger Johnson
Prop Consultant: Tom Cassani
Intimacy Consultant: Bishop Black
Access Support Worker: Celia Morris


Supported using public funding by Arts Council England and Help Musicians.

                 


*THIS SHOW IS INCLUDED IN OUR TIERED DISCOUNT OFFER*

New for this year we’re offering a tiered discount on bookings for multiple shows, giving you savings whether you’re planning to attend just a handful or all of them. The more tickets you buy, the more you save.

Buy tickets for 6 shows =10% off
Buy tickets for 9 shows = 15% off
Buy tickets for 12 shows = 20% off

Please note that this discount is only applicable to full-priced tickets, and only on certain shows. Please see each individual event page to see whether that show is included in the offer.

Please note that our ticket purchasing is administered by Midlands Arts Centre. If you are an existing customer of Midlands Arts Centre, please use your account login details to purchase Fierce Festival tickets on this website.

Fierce Says

Freddie has been developing this new show with Fierce for a few years through our Fierce Further commissioning programme. Come see what we've been cooking up. It's beautiful!!
This is a highly visual, and intriguing show performed in a bath tub. Microscopic cameras create illusions (or reveal truths?) that allow us to see the body as a landscape: not just in the universe, but part of it. Expect to cross mountains and oceans, from toes to nose.

Details

Friday 14 October 2022

8.45pm

Midlands Arts Centre, Foyle Studio

Saturday 15 October 2022

8.45pm

Midlands Arts Centre, Foyle Studio

UK Premiere

Ásrún Magnúsdóttir and Alexander Roberts (Reykjavík/Trondheim)

Teenage Songbook of Love and Sex

Saturday 15 October 2022, 5.00pm6.00pm

20 Sheepcote Street
Birmingham, B16 8AE
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Supported by Performing Arts Centre Iceland. UK Premiere.
Included in our tiered discount offer.

55 mins £13/11

- Loud noises / music
- Moments of complete blackout
- possible use of haze/smoke
- contains reference to r*pe and/or sexual assault
- contains strong language and adult themes

A group of teenagers standing together facing the camera with hands raised.

Image by Owen Fiene

A group of teenagers sat on the floor one in front of the other close together in a line formation.

Image by Laimonas Puysis

A group of teenagers sat on the floor spread out slightly

Image by Laimonas Puysis

a teenage girl plays the guitar, she has blue hair and is wearing a pink top and black trousers.

Image by Laimonas Puysis

Pop music and true stories about youth, sex and gender. 

Working with teenagers from Reykjavik, Iceland, the Teenage Choir of Love and Sex sing songs they have written themselves based on their own romantic and sexual experiences. They sing for themselves and each other. They sing for love, curiosity and heartbreak. They sing for every virgin, every slut and every thirsty bitch – so they never need to feel alone again.

Teenagers and music are made for each other. The songs we listen to in our youth, and the stories they tell, determine how we come to understand ourselves and the world around us, separating right from wrong. But what if all heteronormative pop songs were about something different? Based on stories told by youths, A Teenage Songbook of Love and Sex seeks new ways to talk and think about love, gender, and sex.

Concept and Creation: Ásrún Magnúsdóttir and Alexander Roberts

Musically directed and composed with: Teitur Magnússon 

Co-authors and performers: Lísbet Sveinsdóttir, Marta Ákadóttir, Salóme Júlíusdóttir, Ísafold Kristín, Katla Sigurðardóttir Snædal, Kolfinna Ingólfsdóttir, Óliver Ali, Uloma Osuala, Una Barkadóttir, Karen Nordquist Ragnarsdóttir, Egill Andrason, Haukur Guðnason, Hanna Gréta Jónsdóttir, Sverrir Gauti Svavarsson og Karólína Einarsdóttir.

Choir-conductors: Sigríður Soffía Hafliðadóttir and Aron Steinn Ásbjarnarson

Premiered: Meteor Festival, BIT Teatergarasjen, Bergen, Norway and Reykjavík Dance Festival, Tjarnarbío, Reykjavík, Iceland.

Co-produced by: BIT Teatergarasjen, Teenagers in Reykjavík, Reykjavík Dance Festival, the Nordic Residency Platform, NORDBUK and apap – Performing Europe 2020 which is co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union

 

*THIS SHOW IS INCLUDED IN OUR TIERED DISCOUNT OFFER*

New for this year we’re offering a tiered discount on bookings for multiple shows, giving you savings whether you’re planning to attend just a handful or all of them. The more tickets you buy, the more you save.

Buy tickets for 6 shows =10% off
Buy tickets for 9 shows = 15% off
Buy tickets for 12 shows = 20% off

Please note that this discount is only applicable to full-priced tickets, and only on certain shows.

Please see each individual event page to see whether that show is included in the offer.

 

Please note that our ticket purchasing is administered by Midlands Arts Centre. If you are an existing customer of Midlands Arts Centre, please use your account login details to purchase Fierce Festival tickets on this website.

Fierce Says

We first saw the work of Ásrún Magnúsdóttir way back in 2018 and we’ve been trying to work with her ever since. She creates brilliant participatory projects with different groups of people. Teenage Songbook, made with Alexander Roberts, is a joyous life affirming experience. Exuding agency, it's a privilege to have these teenagers perform for us.

Details

Cade & MacAskill (Glasgow)

The Making of Pinocchio

Wednesday 12 October 2022Thursday 13 October 2022

Midlands Arts Centre, Cannon Hill Park
Birmingham, B12 9QH United Kingdom
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Commissioned by Fierce Festival, Kampnagel, Tramway & Vooruit with support from Attenborough Centre of the Arts, Battersea Arts Centre and LIFT. Produced by Artsadmin.
Included in our tiered discount offer.

90 mins £15/13

There is no strobes, flashing lights or haze
There is a short section with loud music
There are no moments of complete blackness
Contains nudity
The show briefly talks about transphobia, and sometimes explores the exploitation and misrepresentation of trans people’s lives and bodies. Fuller information is available further down the page.

Tiu Makkonen

Two performers dressed as puppets with long wooden noses touching.

A true tale of love and transition told through the story of Pinocchio. 

Set in a fictional film studio, you are invited to go behind the scenes of Cade & MacAskill’s creative process and their relationship, and question what it takes to tell your truth.

Artists and lovers Rosana Cade and Ivor MacAskill have been creating The Making of Pinocchio since 2018, alongside and in response to Ivor’s gender transition. In this ‘funny, clever and thoughtful two-hander, rich in playful imagery’ (The Guardian) their tender and complex autobiographical experience meets the magical story of the lying puppet who wants to be a ‘real boy’.

With an ingenious scenography designed by Tim Spooner, layered with sound by Yas Clarke, lights by Jo Palmer and cinematography from Kirstin McMahon and Jo Hellier, the show constantly shifts between fantasy and authenticity, humour and intimacy, on stage and on screen. This “ravishingly beautiful’ (The Arts Desk) show is for anyone seeking to explore the sheer joy and limitless potential of queer imagination. Audiences called it ‘unmissable’, ‘breath-taking’, ‘phenomenal’, ‘showstopping’ and ‘the queer love story of the year’.

Access and content information to help you decide if The Making of Pinocchio is for you.

 

Access Information

Both shows are captioned. On Wednesday 12, the show will be audio described with a touch-tour available.

To access the Audio Description please visit the Welcome Desk at MAC where you will be able to sign out the receiver and headphones and the staff will show you how to use them.

Download the introduction to the Audio Description here

To book in for a touch tour, please email contact@wearefiece.org

 

Credits

A Fierce Festival, Kampnagel, Tramway & Vooruit Co-Commission. With support from Attenborough Centre of the Arts, Battersea Arts Centre and LIFT.
Produced by Artsadmin.
Funded by Creative Scotland, Rufolf Augstein Stiftung and Arts Council England.
Supported by The Work Room/Dianne Torr Bursary, Scottish Sculpture Workshop, National Theatre of Scotland, Live Art Development Agency, Gessnerellee, Mousonturm, Forest Fringe, West Kowloon Cultural District, LGBT Health & Wellbeing Scotland, Glasgow Zine Library.

 

*THIS SHOW IS INCLUDED IN OUR TIERED DISCOUNT OFFER*

New for this year we’re offering a tiered discount on bookings for multiple shows, giving you savings whether you’re planning to attend just a handful or all of them. The more tickets you buy, the more you save.

Buy tickets for 6 shows =10% off
Buy tickets for 9 shows = 15% off
Buy tickets for 12 shows = 20% off

Please note that this discount is only applicable to full-priced tickets, and only on certain shows.

Please see each individual event page to see whether that show is included in the offer.

Please note that our ticket purchasing is administered by Midlands Arts Centre. If you are an existing customer of Midlands Arts Centre, please use your account login details to purchase Fierce Festival tickets on this website.

Fierce Says

You may well remember Cade & MacAskill from their performance as Double Pussy Clit F*ck at Fierce Festival 2017, or for their hit show Moot Moot that we presented in 2018. This is their richest work to date, set behind the scenes of a movie: Pinocchio. Seriously, don't miss the latest hit Fierce commission. It's brilliant!

Details

Wednesday 12 October 2022

7.00pm

Midlands Arts Centre, Theatre

Thursday 13 October 2022

7.00pm

Midlands Arts Centre, Theatre