From a VR gay sauna to the gothic pile that inspired Cluedo – Fierce festival storms back
Venues across Birmingham As Britain’s longest-running live art festival returns, get ready for late-night artist dinners, a show in a swimming pool and Faye Driscoll’s incredible rotating disintegration The phrase “two things can be true” is a frequent refrain in popular psychology and it’s also a frequent response, I find, to witnessing the farther reaches of live art. Hmm, is this performance confusingly…
Key points
- Fierce, launched in 1998 and described as Britain's longest-running live art festival, returns to venues across Birmingham for one week.
- The programme includes a virtual reality gay sauna piece by Taiwanese artist Tung-Yen Chou, a swimming pool show, late-night artist dinners and a six-hour performance jam in a gothic hall said to have inspired Cluedo.
- American choreographer Faye Driscoll's award-winning Weathering, featuring 10 performers on a rotating platform, receives its UK premiere at the festival.
Fierce, described as Britain's longest-running live art festival, has returned to Birmingham for one week. Launched in 1998, the festival takes over the city's conventional theatres as well as unconventional spaces, particularly in the former industrial area of Digbeth, which the article says is fast becoming a creative hub.
This year's programme includes late-night artist dinners, a show in a swimming pool and a six-hour performance jam in a grand gothic hall that was apparently the inspiration for Cluedo.
Virtual reality and the body
The first piece reviewed is Traversing the Mist, a virtual reality work by Taiwanese artist Tung-Yen Chou set in a gay sauna. The reviewer describes walking through grey concrete corridors, a locker room, showers and cubicles, pushing aside curtains that are not really there, while identical blank-faced men populate the scene.
The experience is called both immersive and detached, engaging yet eerily lonely. Chou is also showing a shorter sit-down VR piece, In the Mist, described as a precursor to the longer work.
Well, it's Grudziński's way.
— the reviewer
Sweat, ritual and a UK premiere
Wojciech Grudziński performs his solo Threesome, in which he appears naked except for frilly knickers and moves through yogic poses while a voiceover tells of three Polish ballet dancers shamed for their homosexuality. The reviewer calls the piece strangely compelling and says it builds to a sort of catharsis.
Birmingham-based artist Melissandre Varin, known as n:u and calling themself an "atmosphere-maker", showed part of a rehearsal for FREE(HOLD), a ritual in which performers drag ropes around their ankles and keen to the sky. The reviewer says endurance, suffering, slavery and colonialism came to mind.
American choreographer Faye Driscoll's award-winning Weathering gets its UK premiere at the festival. The reviewer says it features 10 performers on a rotating platform and is far ahead of the rest of the programme in concept, commitment, execution and scale.
