19-21 JULY 2024
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Physical Theatre Bursary Artists at Manipulate
Surge's Physical Theatre Bursary artists are appearing at Manipulate Festival on February 6th in a double bill of work-in progress at The Studio. Festival Theatre, Edinburgh. Tickets can be bought from £12 here.
Hover by Althea Young
HOVER is a duet between human performance artist Althea Young and remote remote-operated drone named DJ (DJI Mini Pro 3). Intersecting choreography, physical theatre and film, HOVER uses technology as a ‘puppet’ in an attempt to explore the dynamics of camera surveillance, Silicon Valley capitalism and the modern applications of flying technologies. Onstage the human and drone continuously watch each other, performing a series of experiments and choreographies. Born in 1998 in San Francisco CA., the city home to the tech boom which spread worldwide throughout the 90s and 2000s, artist Althea Young brings an immediate lived history of the capitalist and cultural explosions which have led to our current, global relationship to technologies such as drones.
HOVER has been devised in the wake of news that in 2023 Amazon’s parcel drone service delivered its first parcel in the UK, calling into question the sanctity of privacy, as well as the safety of the human workforce. DJ, the drone, is piloted by an off-stage operator - collaborator Sam Cogdon, whose recent study of film at the University of Glasgow culminated in a performance-focussed thesis regarding the documentation of contemporary performance works - in which he and Althea collaborated on a performance piece recreating the work of Linda Montano and Tom Marioni.
I, Honeypot by Nikhita Devi
I, Honeypot is inspired by the lived experiences and intersectional identities held by lead artist and creative director Nikhita Devi. Born in India and raised in Scotland, they are a queer, femme, neurodivergent, non-binary dance and movement artist based in Edinburgh.
In this piece Nikhita explores the tension between their Indian cultural heritage and Scottish upbringing, as well as their belonging to various intersecting marginalised communities, using a diverse range of movement forms such as Odissi (a form of Indian Classical dance) burlesque, clown and physical theatre to create work that is personal, visceral and meaningful. The piece expresses the universal human search for identity, community and meaning while battling the deep-rooted programming that dictates our self-expression and is their debut full-length solo professional work.
