What Is the City But the People? // Clare McNulty

Manchester

Madchester

Womanchester

It has a good few names. Quite succinctly it is goosebumps. A frisson of fashion and fascination. Shudders of connectors and receptors. Born from changes and hormones.

Piccadilly Gardens grew a limb for MIF's opening ceremony. It was strong, white yellow and black, a suspended scaffolded catwalk bookended with gargantuan screens. Forcing us to face elevated people of hairs and muscles we wouldn't necessarily notice but need. 

Outcasts can find homes here and be heard. Happiness happens. Ageing graffiti is persistent proof on decayed tooth buildings. In love longing and loss, the people present made the same marks of defiance and delighted in difference. 

The community of Manchester is multicultural, multidimensional and multi-layered. Overhead city birds flew through bringing beats of Graham Massey, familiar yet distant and path-promising. The music drove the spirit. Instrumental expressions inspired individuality in absolute purity. Each person offered a preserved presence and prominent pride. Some were meditative and mindful. Moving with the same precision, simplicity, honesty and dignity of a Japanese Tea Ceremony. 

This misplaced MIF limb shone an examination light on the pulse of Manchester, linking lives and the humbling cure of courage people can bring. That's how the city sings its sounds. They echo against minimalist movement in a microcosm magnified. 

We are all blood cells moving through concrete capillaries, veins and arteries. The buildings house pains and electric brains. Without our power our city's complexion would wither to the wan of winter.  There would be no ideas. A computer not operated, not invented even.

We consider a baby's first breath. Nature and inherent beauty. A mother's love and another mother's duty.

Beautifully beaming brothers burst out. One romancing with adrenaline fuelled break-dancing. We all feel it. It happens again. We smile. We are related in bird skin. We rub our arms but we are not cold. In that collective moment we're reminding each other of our fragile mortality through silent screened stories and broken open emotion. Undoubtedly, those of us who were not elevated, were raised in other ways.  

A counterbalance of contemplation and cognition came curling round cogs of memory, giving mind to Maslow's hierarchy of needs. A medical tool based in subjectivity and judgement, stuck in me from my nursing history. The individuals we saw seemed to present in Maslow’s self-actualisation. It gave a great faith for fruitful futures in friendship. We surely shouldn't take our time or significant others for granted. That is a given. Each moment is a gift into learning about ourselves and others. Promoting our purpose. But entrenched medical models are archaic and here in Manchester we face forward. Or at least we try to. 

Ahead on my own path I look to a person lying on the floor. Amongst bags and cans and covers. Somewhere else on the scale of self-actualisation. I judge. I do not want to but I do. I've already assigned him a gender. I wonder about this life story. How he see's the city. How he saw the runway? I imagine his goosebumps are from other places. I hand him some money from a guilt-lined purse. 

- Clare McNulty

Links relevant to this diagnosis:

Womanchester Poem - Ella Otomewo

Why Do We Get Goosebumps?

808 State – Pacific State

Baby Delivered Inside Amniotic Sac Takes First Breath

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs - Simply Psychology

DROPPED // Gobsmacked Theatre Company

It’s an irony as old as time. Women may be seen as fit subjects for every conceivable violence, but they are not suitable for fight in war. From recent conflicts in Iraq, Afganistan and elsewhere, women's roles in the armed forces seem to extend little past the 2D. Physical, mental, societal violence is fit and fair game. But for a woman to fight in times of conflict has, until very recently, been seen as a frightening or morally disgusting transgression.  

Dropped may deal with a fictional Middle Eastern conflict with Australian personnel (the show originally ran at the Adelaide Fringe earlier in 2016 and was awarded the prize for Best Local Theatre Production), but it’s topical concern to British audiences is amplified by July’s lifting of the ban on women serving in close combat roles in the British Army. The performance poses the question to the audience: what effect does the violence of war have on women?

The answer, if there is one reducible answer, is that there is a difference, if only because of the warped saint-like expectations visited on women: those of holy mother, or kindly protector. They may experience the same traumas, deprivations and horrors as the male soldier in times of war, but the concern visited from outside isn’t to do with them as soldiers, but as mothers or uprooted occupiers of the domestic space.

We are led as an audience to believe that Sarah Cullinan and Natalia Sledz’ characters have witnessed the harm of a child, though it remains shrouded in mystery whether this a just an effect of PTSD related trauma. The effects of David McVicar’s direction leaves it purposefully ambiguous and offers no ready made, trite conclusions as to the effects of violence.

- FG

Dropped played at the Pleasance Courtyard - https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/dropped

British Army’s Women Soldiers to Go Into Combat- http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/defence/12060225/British-Armys-women-soldiers-to-go-into-combat.html

On Motherhood and Violence- http://makhzin.org/issues/feminisms/on-motherhood-and-violence

Women, Trauma and PTSD- http://www.ptsd.va.gov/professional/treatment/women/women-trauma-ptsd.asp

Gender based violence and the global hypocricy that fuels it- http://www.humanosphere.org/opinion/2016/06/gender-based-violence-misogyny-and-a-global-hypocrisy-that-fuels-it/

Sexual Violence as a Weapon of War- http://www.unicef.org/sowc96pk/sexviol.htm

TRAVESTY // Fight in the Dog

Travesty is a play dealing with transitions. From one state of life to the next. Between innocence and ageing masquerading as experience. From a romantic relationships move from cradle to grave. From early 20s insouciance to the creeping fear that this might be all you’ve got. From dissatisfaction to, well, what exactly?

Both Lydia Larsen and Pierro Niel-Mee are two typical-ish archetypes. She- playing the older, acerbic, disillusioned (and male) teacher Ben- is full of a coiled tension hiding behind an aloofly ironic exterior. He- playing middle-class (and female) PR executive Anna- is full of easy first-flush of youth optimism. Their relationship is charted over four acts, from enraptured beginnings to fraught, bitter end.

It’s a play that creates a certain sense of frisson in the audience by subverting lazy gender norms, not by doing anything wildly radical, but by simply by inverting them. There’s the possessive slaps that Larsen gives Niel-Mee on the behind. There’s the shamed covering of the male, not female nipple. And then there’s the language.

What is ‘female’ language? For that matter, what is ‘male’ language? It’s not so much a question that’s taken up, but rather a set of cliched assumptions played out for comic effect. Anna, at points, both sly and circumlocutory and we’re invited to laugh at our smug assumptions because it’s coming out of a man's body. Ben is, at points, gruff and absurdly affected. Again, we are invited to laugh because it’s a set of language and gestures that we aren’t primed to ‘expect’ coming from a certain kind of body.

What keeps the work from merely reinforcing these stereotypes is that the writing is good enough to subtly acknowledge that we as an audience are having our own assumptions played with and teased out. Not only is Travesty a play explicitly dealing with all of the manifold day-to-day compromises we make to sustain, or break, relationships; it’s a play that forces you to acknowledge the compromises we make in communicating through our bodies and our imperfect language.

- FG

Travesty played at Assembly George Square Studios - https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/travesty

A Short Introductory Essay on Judith Butler- http://www.theory.org.uk/ctr-butl.htm

How to Shake Up Gender Norms- http://time.com/3672297/future-gender-norms/ 

Performative Acts and Gender Constitution- http://facweb.northseattle.edu/mjacobson/SPECIAL%20TOPICS%20IN%20PSYCHOLOGY/Subjectivity/PerformativeActs.pdf

The Non-Verbal Semantics of Power & Gender- http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-4612-5106-4_8#page-1

JOAN // Milk Presents

In ‘Mind, Modernity and Madness’, Liah Greenfeld writes that “A widely held idea (say, that hell awaits those who eat flesh on Fridays, or that all men are created equal) is no less a reality for people in the community holding the idea than the Atlantic Ocean”. Her bracingly forthright sociological study goes on to dismiss those who “diagnose entire cultures as psychotic...retroactively pronounce medieval saints schizophrenics”.

It’s a helpful thought to bear in mind when hearing the story of Joan of Arc. It’s a historical fact that a teenage peasant girl with no military background presided over a period of astonishing success for the French army in the 13th century -- while claiming to be taking directions from God. Accounts of the time stress her femininity, purity and delicacy, as a holy maiden who was literally heaven sent.

Lucy J. Skilbeck’s play makes her something a little tougher. Where medieval commentators were keen to emphasise that she only dressed as a man to preserve her chastity and safety, drag king LoUis CYfer embraces the masculinity of a woman who charged into battle in a specially made suit of armour.

Skilbeck’s focus on gender identity shows the power of religious zeal to overcome other culturally ingrained ideas, like the need for women to be meek and submissive. Medieval saints could (often literally) float over gender norms by dint of divine intervention. But medieval ideas on gender were also surprisingly modern: themes of gender transformation fill romances, while scientists believed that physical exercise, sexual desire or even just excessive heat could transform women into men. Skilbeck’s approach makes Joan’s approach both natural and deliberate: a series of tiny decisions, as well as one broad ecstatic creation. CYfer is an acclaimed performer on the drag cabaret scene, and this experience shows in a brilliant observed set of comic songs and physical performances. CYfer parodies all kinds of men, from a gruff father to a camp priest, and borrows their mannerisms: their self-consciousness heightened by the mirrors that surround the stage.

Joan becomes the world’s first drag king, a joyful anachronism heightened by CYfer’s Tank Girl t-shirt and 21st century song choices. Skilbeck’s story sticks close to its medieval source too, though, spelling out the painful details of victory in battle, then backlash from the religious establishment. In medieval times, as now, the freedom to step outside prescribed female roles is dependent on cultural mood. And when the mass shared belief in Joan’s divinity fades, so does Joan’s ability to perform a gender that’s artificial and hugely natural, at once.

- AS

Joan was on at Underbelly at Edinburgh Fringe, 5-28th August https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/joan

‘Mind, Modernity and Madness’ by Liah Greenfeld https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Le4anj8kJPkC&dq=medieval+saints+psychosis

Ideas of gender transformation in medieval fiction http://ir.uiowa.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1813&context=mff

SCORCH // Prime Cut Productions

‘My body is a weird black hole I drag around with me’

Amy McAllister plays the gender-curious teen Kes in Stacey Gregg’s monologue revealing society’s lack of understanding towards gender fluidity.

Based on the real case of Justine McNally, Scorch shows the law’s gender binaries when Kes, born female but uncomfortable in her gender so presenting herself as male to a girl she meets online, is accused of gender fraud and sexual abuse. In the eyes of the law a woman can’t rape another woman, as according to the Sexual Offences Act 2003, the penetration can only be done with a penis. Where the law stands on the concept of being gender fluid with regards to accused rape is unclear due to its rarity.

Language is also questioned in Scorch as we learn queer slang, with ‘cute boi’ meaning a biologically female person who presents themselves in a boyish way, often genderqueer. Though the internet provides a safe place to explore or hide gender, when real life romance crashes and burns, Kes is dropped into a seething pile of accusations and assumptions. When the press get a hold of Kes’ story they call her ‘lesbian’, automatically defining her gender as well as her sexuality. They label her before she’s decided, without providing her with a choice.

McNally called herself ‘Scott’ when presenting herself online, forming a relationship over several years with a young girl. Gayle Newland is another accused case of gender fraud. Calling herself ‘Kye’, Newland insisted the woman she had sex with wear a blindfold, and would penetrate her with a prosthetic penis. Newland’s justification was that she was body-conscious, but in preventing her partner from seeing her strap-on, she hid her biological identity. Gavin Haynes writes of women such as Newland and McNally, ‘Theirs were attempts to push back against the physical realities of the world in which they found themselves at an almost atomic level.’ The law is not up-keeping with more modern, fluid understandings of gender. When McNally was taken to court, her judge called her deception ‘selfish and callous’, rather than attempting to understand her reasoning and questioning her gender identity.

Kes’ family’s views aren’t made entirely clear, and the details of the court case yearn to be explained, but Scorch brings to light the lack of support for people going through a gender identity crisis. It is an area that is far too under-researched, and Scorch reveals this lack of understanding, urging us to do something about it.

- KW

Scorch was on at 18.05 at Summerhall through August 28. - https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/scorch

Sexual Offenses Act 2003 http://tinyurl.com/zkjnx3o

Justine McNally: http://tinyurl.com/oeomtxk

Queer slang http://tinyurl.com/36jxfr

Is the law on rape sexist?: http://www.blmsolicitors.co.uk/2014/03/is-the-law-on-rape-sexist/

BBC rape briefing: http://tinyurl.com/zjn2hl7

Raped by a woman: http://www.marieclaire.com/culture/a19495/women-raped-by-women/

A forum for expressing gender curiosity: http://emptyclosets.com/forum/gender-identity-expression/154319-gender-curious.html

Understanding your gender identity: http://teenhealthsource.com/giso/understanding-sexual-orientation-gender-identity/

Gayle Newland http://www.theweek.co.uk/65251/what-the-gayle-newland-sex-deceit-case-means-for-transgender-people

Strap-on dildo morality http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/justine-mcnally-scott-gemma-barker-strap-on-dildo-morality

There’s been a modest but welcome uptick in the media’s ability to report sensitively on transgender issues, recently. Outspoken campaigners like journalist Paris Lees have helped dispel some of the very worst cliches of tabloid outrage, celebrities like Caitlyn Jenner have brought a new glamour to trans life, and Stonewall have finally added the ‘T’ in LGBT into their consciousness-raising remit.

But the case of Gayle Newland was too complex and too unusual for newspapers to attempt anything like tact. 19-year-old Newland developed a male online personal and built up a long online friendship, then relationship, with a woman. They met up on multiple occasions, and the woman wore a blindfold during their sexual encounters - before pressing charges for sexual assault when she discovered she’d been ‘tricked’. Following the Newland case, legal observers have pointed out its serious potential ramifications for transgender people: if they don’t disclose their trans status, they could be liable for charges of sexual assault through deception.

Stacey Gregg’s Scorch is directly inspired by the case. But where Newland’s voice has necessarily remained silent, Gregg presents the story entirely from Kes’s point of view. Kes is naive, in love, and incapable of understanding how badly their actions hurt the girl they forms a relationship with. Kes’s life online is a rich community full of resources, help and support for trans teenagers - they make assuming a new gender identity feel natural, and normal. But in the world Kes lives in, it’s anything but: “I feel like an alien”, Kes says.

In one particularly moving passage, Kes reels off all the completely legal ways people can deceive their partners: by hiding the fact they’re married, by giving a false identity, or even just by saying they love them when they don’t. It’s a passage that shows the intricacies of human relationships and gender identities, and the bluntness of the laws designed to govern them.

Newland didn’t claim a trans identity in court. And nor does Kes. In an interview, Gregg has stated that although Scorch intersects with trans questions, it’s a piece that “boils down to something that’s actually much more mundane, which is just misogyny.”  The responses Kes faces from family and friends highlight the fact that trans men are often either invisible, or mistrusted, in a world that’s suspicious of attempts to claim masculinity.

Away from the crystal-clear transformation narratives in mainstream media, gender identity is more murky. Gregg’s piece shades in all its intricacies, and shows how difficult a place the world is for teenagers who aren’t ready to choose their own identity, outside the world of video games.

- AS

Scorch was on at the Edinburgh Fringe, Aug 5-28 https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/scorch

Interview with Stacey Gregg in the Irish Times http://www.irishtimes.com/culture/stage/stacey-gregg-on-gender-identity-and-the-theatre-s-gutting-lack-of-women-1.2424367

Impact of Gayle Newland case on trans rights http://www.theweek.co.uk/65251/what-the-gayle-newland-sex-deceit-case-means-for-transgender-people

Increased risk of mental health issues in transgender young people  https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/hsph-in-the-news/transgender-youth-at-risk-for-depression-suicide/

CAMILLE // Kamila Klamut

History has painted Camille Claudin as 'Rodin's tragic lover' - a muse-turned-artist-turned-asylum patient, desperate and alone. But although her 10 year love affair with the master of French sculpture has defined her, she's increasingly recognised as an artist in her own right: the 70th anniversary of her death was marked with asignificant retrospective of her work at the Rodin Museum.

Polish artist Kamila Klamut isn't the first to bring Claudin's story to the stage. But her physical solo performance draws attention to the bodily indignities and torments she suffered after her brother committed her to an asylum. She adopts a low voice to explain his rationale, that she's bringing shame on their wealthy family's reputation. It's a frightening insight into a time when asylums were a form of social control, designed to keep people who threatened the social order out of sight - and mental health treatment within their walls was all but non-existent.

Flashes into Claudel's past reveal an unconventional, fierce woman: one who stepped out of a life of privilege to live as an artist making then-shocking nude sculptures, and who sought an abortion at a time where doing so was both dangerous, and seen as an unforgivable sin. But she was held back by a patriarchal art world: where her lover Rodin presided over a large workshop that could make over 300 bronze casts of The Kiss, her struggle to win wealthy backers meant she was restricted to cheaper materials, and her behaviour became increasingly erratic. Over 100 years on, it's impossible to interpret her true mental state. Was she too far outside of social norms to be allowed to live unchallenged? Or was she genuinely mentally ill, suffering from delusions of persecution by Rodin and the art world?

Klamut shrinks in on herself as Claudel's years in imprisonment pass, her letters ignored. She changes her from an expansive, wild artist into a petty, child-like being who quibbles over butter and greasy soup. But even in the asylum, her class buys her a kind of comfort: she is sent wine, and chocolate, and alcohol-soaked cherries.

The text of Camille is culled from Claudel's letters, meaning that the personalities of Rodin and her family are only visible from her own, increasingly desperate perspective. It is difficult to truly understand how she felt when her words are isolated from the context of the social world that lionised and destroyed her. But her physical suffering is intensely visible, as Klamut's contorted body becomes a visual representation of the oppression visited on Camille by both society, and the asylum that she was imprisoned in.

- Alice Saville

Camille was on at Summerhall, Edinburgh Fringe http://festival16.summerhall.co.uk/event/camille/

Kamila Klamut’s website http://www.kamilaklamut.pl/

An overview of Camille Claudel’s life and work http://www.musee-rodin.fr/en/exhibition/camille-claudel

Asylums as a form of social control, rather than sites for medical treatment http://www.academia.edu/894595/Getting_Out_of_the_Asylum_Understanding_the_Confinement_of_the_Insane_in_the_Nineteenth_Century

Rodin’s workshop, and the expense involved in being a sculptor http://festival16.summerhall.co.uk/event/camille/

THE INTERFERENCE // Pepperdine University (USA)

A series of high-profile cases has drawn attention to the idea that a ‘rape culture’ exists in American colleges - a micro-climate where sexually predatory behaviour is both normalised, and enabled by social codes around masculinity. And one, too, where victims are either disbelieved or blamed. Cork-based playwright Lynda Radley’s latest play is a 360 degree view of a female student Karen’s experience of reporting a campus rape, and seeking justice. But unlike most reporting on campus rapes, it takes her perspective, showing the serious mental health impact of her experiences while her college football star rapist Smith emerges unscathed.

There’s a culture of doubting rape victims, one that’s made worse both by right-wing observers who pounce on the very rare incidents of false reports. In particular, the 2014 Rolling Stone article ‘A Rape On Campus’ received widespread criticism for the way in which it trusted and relied on the testimony of victim ‘Jackie’ - the magazine retracted the article in the wake of multiple lawsuits. In Radley’s play, media commentators use the discredited Rolling Stone article as a reason to disbelieve Karen’s story.

But there are other, more pragmatic reasons for doubting Karen. Smith is a star quarterback, who has huge symbolic and monetary value to the college: the administration rallies round their sporting cash cow. Meanwhile, hostile college students point to Smith’s social cachet to suggest that Karen must have been attracted to him, then regretted the incident later.

Radley’s play is densely researched, giving it a verbatim feel. It offers an insight into the huge range of strategies used to discredit women who report rapes: including the notorious 1999 case where a judge ruled that a woman wearing jeans could not have be raped, as they were difficult to remove without her consent. But her comprehensive approach is given immediacy and urgency by its use of a cast of 12 performers from Peppardine University. They’ve got a stereotypically all-American preppiness and wholesomeness that evokes a culture that’s very different from British universities - one where sports stars are idolised, and fraternities give a social elite of male students added control over the wider student body.

Karen’s experience transforms her from being a confident member of this social elite into a hated outcast, depressed and failing her classes. It’s a multi-layered insight into how the mental health repercussions of rape are multiplied by a system that works to silence survivors by systematic gaslighting, bullying, and intimidation.

- Alice Saville

The Interference was on at C Venues from 9-16 August - more information here: http://www.cthefestival.com/press/2016/the-interference

Rolling Stone’s retraction of its article ‘A Rape On Campus’: http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/a-note-to-our-readers-20141205

A survey of the three lawsuits in progress as part of the fallout from the Rolling Stone article ‘A Rape On Campus’: http://www.npr.org/2016/04/10/473702981/revisiting-rolling-stone-s-discredited-campus-rape-story

Judge’s ruling in 1999 rape case: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/277263.stm

Lynda Radley’s website: http://www.lyndaradley.com/

AND THE ROPE STILL TUGGING HER FEET // Caroline Burns Cooke

Abortion is still illegal in Ireland, as it was during 1984 when the Kerry Babies scandal raged forth from the intertwined powers of church and state. It was a cruel culmination of a logic that imposes shame on women’s bodies, on their sexual activity whilst excusing men, and on their ability to choose to not follow through with an unwanted pregnancy. For all the difference between then and now, on the day that I saw And the Rope Still Tugging Her Feet, #TwoWomenTravel was trending. As Caroline Burns Cooke (the writer and performer of the monologue) recounted the story of the young woman at the centre of the 1984 scandal, two other young women were, in 2016, sharing their story of having to travel from Ireland to the UK in order to secure a safe and legal abortion.
 
Organisations in Ireland and elsewhere are still struggling to reverse the regressive policies that force women from their home countries in search of help, or into back-alley alternatives. Art and performance can have a powerful impact on public conversation, and the direct action of groups like Speaking of I.M.E.L.D.A (Ireland Making England the Legal Destination for Abortion) contributes to a gathering clamour around the repeal of the 8th amendment to the Irish constitution, which prohibits safe options for women. Even the UN has ruled that Ireland must provide “accessible procedures for pregnancy termination” in order to avoid impinging on the human rights of its citizens. Even the Irish Minister for Health thanked the two women who tweeted their journey for highlighting the debate, although time will tell what difference it might make. In a worrying sign of the global polarity of the argument, the vile American blogger Courtney Kirchoff has already decried their documentation of the journey.
 
As a piece of theatre, the performance is a dissection of a historical abuse of power and victimisation of a young woman devoid of options. But it has resonance now, as a precursor to the ongoing battle to secure safe choices for women, in Ireland and around the world.

- Lewis Church

And The Rope Still Tugging Her Feet ran at Gilded Balloon Teviot until August 29th - https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/and-the-rope-still-tugging-her-feet

The Kerry Babies Case: http://www.thejournal.ie/kerry-babies-case-30-years-on-1413918-Apr2014/
 
#TwoWomenTravel: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-trending-37156673
 
Speaking of I.M.E.L.D.A (Direct Action Group): https://twitter.com/speakofIMELDA
 
UN Ruling on Irish Human Rights Violations: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jun/09/ireland-abortion-laws-violated-human-rights-says-un
 
Courtney KirchoffSends Open Letter: http://irishpost.co.uk/american-novelist-slams-pro-choice-campaigners-two-women-travel-scathing-blog-post/

LIFTED // Triad Pictures

The recent terror attacks in France and Belgium, have assured that Islamophobia is on the rise but it’s Fife that proves the culture battleground for Lifted. Ikram Gilani plays drug dealing secular Scottish Muslim Anwar with humor and intensity and the small hot stage at theSpace @ Surgeons Hall makes the audience genuinely feel part of Anwar's interrogation by invisible forces at Glenrothes Police Station.

Anwar is being interrogated about his acquaintance Moody. Originally from Kuwait, Moody had come to Scotland to study but flunked out. Now Anwar suspects Moody has been hauled in for questioning due to his suspect heritage. Through a series of flashbacks we revisit their relationship bonded over magic mushrooms and shared distaste for Scottish weather, while joining the current discourse on Islamohobia, drug dealing, homophobia within Islamic communities and the war against terrorism. Even with Obama’s best intentions, Guantanamo Bay is still open and while society continues to see stereotypes as a security threat, the kind of persecution Anwar and Moody face will be firmly entrenched.

Lifted explores current discourses such as personal, religious, cultural and national identity, as well as the harassment of stereotypes. As Anwar describes Moody’s disillusionment with both western and eastern societies we are given an insight as to how these two friends found a solution to their difficulties, though ultimately falling foul of both cultures. This lose/lose cultural paradigm is most present in the continuing harassment and scolding of women seen to be wearing too little and the violent disrobing of woman wearing too much (burkinis).

- Lucy Orr

Lifted is on at 11.05 at theSpace @ Surgeons Hall (Venue 53) - https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/lifted

Dalia Mogahed: What do you think when you look at me?: https://www.ted.com/talks/dalia_mogahed_what_do_you_think_when_you_look_at_me?language=en

Scots Muslims speak out over racist abuse after terror attacks: http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/14653092.Verbal_abuse__violence_and_suspicion__prominent_Scots_Muslims_speak_out_as_racism_ramps_up_amid_summer_of_terror/

Surge in racist attacks on Scots Muslims: http://www.thenational.scot/news/surge-in-racist-attacks-on-scots-muslims.10287

Can We Finally Talk About Muslim Homophobia in Britain?: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/johann-hari/can-we-finally-talk-about_b_828037.html

MAKING MONSTERS // The Golden Fire Theatre Company

The sexism that Mary Shelley experienced while trying to write literary classic Frankenstein is unfortunately still an immediate and modern concern as literary award shortlists continue to be male dominated. Making Monsters does its best to explore the feminist context surrounding the creation of this psychologically gripping, and essentially modern landmark text.

As the performance starts we are transported to Geneva, where sycophants gather around literary giant and romantic Victorian wide boy Lord Byron. Mary Shelly, Claire Clairmont and Percy Bysshe Shelley along with Byron himself convinced themselves to interrupt the boredom they will compete in a literary challenge: to conceive a horror story.

The male characters are larger than life as Mary and Claire are instantly sidelined; a reflection of the recent discussion surrounding male dominated contemporary literally criticism and awards. Dismissed and belittled by Byron, Mary is not to be banished and slowly she cultivates her ghastly narrative.

Mary’s mother was Mary Woolstonecraft, the writer of A Vindication on the Rights of Woman and references to her writing act as a stepping stone to connect the themes to contemporary feminist discourse. While assessing Claire's stitching, Mary mumbles about body parts and voltage, forehead creased, considering the fear of the promethean monstrosity her mind is creating - born of dangerous knowledge and symbolic of secretive scientific endeavor. Instead of the female anatomy being created from Adam's spare rib, it is Mary, a woman, creating this twisted masculine form. News of the first human head transplant being performed in Russia this year and the ethical minefield this kind of surgery inspires, suggest Mary Shelly might be the mother of modern medical ethics.

Mary Shelly’s writing was a primal manifestation of Fuck the Patriarchy. Manarchists and brocialists -  Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley, the sexist radicals of their day -  just couldn’t compete.

- Lucy Orr

Making Monsters ran at 17.05 at theSpace @ Surgeons Hall (Venue 53) until August 27th - https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/making-monsters

Sexism in publishing: 'My novel wasn’t the problem, it was me, Catherine': https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/aug/06/catherine-nichols-female-author-male-pseudonym

The Deep Rooted Sexism In Literary Awards: https://thinkprogress.org/the-deep-rooted-sexism-in-literary-awards-9b4f49c7f9e3#.14cmjvy9p

Publishing and Prejudice: 5 Female Writers Weigh in on Sexism in the Literary World: http://brooklynbased.com/blog/2013/11/15/publishing-and-prejudice-5-female-writers-weigh-in-on-sexism-in-the-literary-world/

The Ethics of Organ Transplantation: A Brief History: http://journalofethics.ama-assn.org/2012/03/mhst1-1203.html

A year after face transplant, man says he is 'feeling great' – video: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/video/2016/aug/24/face-transplant-patrick-hardison-video

TWO MAN SHOW // RashDash

There is a crisis in masculinity. Men can no longer be bearded, belching monsters, retreating to their man-caves at the merest whiff of emotion. Women are in charge now, and men now have to stop solving problems with their fists. They have talk to each other. They have to have feelings, damn it. This is the initial premise of Two Man Show – actually a three-woman piece. But, just as the title of the show misleads us as to the gender identities of the performers, the show itself tells us less about what it is to be a 21st century man, and more about what it is to be a woman.
 
Following a quick overview of how the patriarchy has ruined everything, we see women portrayed as goddesses, as muses, on pedestals, as voiceless figurines. We see women acting out the characters of two brothers, struggling to communicate about death and impending fatherhood, jaws and hearts hardened and set against each other.
 
Most of the show involves the two main performers and creators – Helen Goalen and Abbi Greenland – either topless or completely naked. It seems potentially gratuitous, titillating or desensitising. Then as women playing men, standing about in their boxer shorts in the morning, it seems fine. After all, men are allowed to walk around in just their pants, aren’t they?
 
It’s not the only ‘un-ladylike’ behaviour the audience is asked to confront. Women swear. We fight. We fuck. We make our own rules. We rule our own lives now, thank you very much. But does this mean we’re no longer allowed to be feminine? To use our power softly rather than screaming and shouting? Two Man Show speaks to the very heart of identity yet acknowledges that sometimes there are no words to say how we really feel.

- Dr Kat Arney

Two Man Show ran at Summerhall until August 27th - https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/two-man-show

RashDash: http://www.rashdash.co.uk/

Thoughts from RashDash about on-stage nudity and playing men: http://www.rashdash.co.uk/thoughts/two-man-show-week-four-diary/

Time – The Crisis in Masculinity: http://time.com/4339209/masculinity-crisis/

Ms Magazine – Empowering Femininity: http://msmagazine.com/blog/2014/07/28/empowering-femininity/

PUSSYFOOTING // Knotworks

Five self-identified non-men interrogate the tropes of womanhood, the limits and pressures of gender and the political ramifications of their bodies, built from a research process of interviews and workshops. Pussyfooting rehearses the core concerns of contemporary feminism, of the positions taken and opinions thrown on University campuses, internet message boards and in the corner boxes of broadsheets who should do better. It smartly favours autobiography, keeping the focus on the lives of the performers and their peers, a policy that sacrifices some intersectional awareness in favour of personal authenticity. The piece questions the expectations of family and schoolmates, highlights the difficulty and necessity of gender assertion and enjoys the community found amongst university peers through the first steps of the development of an artistic practice.
 
Pussyfooting addresses tropes of female identity in meme-like fashion, short humorous moments of insight that survey the depressingly vast catalogue of problems perpetrated by a clueless culture of patriarchy. Any one of the issues referenced might be a full show; the intolerance and misunderstanding of sexual orientation, the disempowerment of women even over the agency of their clothing choices (seen so vividly and disturbingly now in France’s burkini ban) or the deft undermining of women’s voices as authoritative or knowledgeable about ‘male’ subjects. Similarly, the show enacts a challenge of the logical fallacy that a woman is defined by female genitals, or periods, or not having a penis. As the fringe happens this year in the shadow of the Rio Olympics, the interrogation of gender and identity is brought into sharper relief by the shameful questioning of South African sprinter Caster Semenya’s fitness to race by pundits and the press. The performers encourage the audience to question uncritical assumptions of fixed biological definition by referencing women who identify as such without adhering to prescribed biology or meaningless societal conventions.

- Lewis Church

Pussyfooting is on at 20.10 at Paradise in the Vault until August 28th. Wheelchair Acces, Level Access, Wheelchair Accessible Toilets, Relaxed Performances - https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/pussyfooting

Knotworks Theatre: http://knotworksox.tumblr.com
 
Burkini Ban/Clothing Agency: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/burkini-swimwear-ban-france-nice-armed-police-hijab-muslim-a7206776.html
 
Understanding the Caster-Semenya Controversy: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/20/sports/caster-semenya-800-meters.html?_r=0
 
The Sporting Spectacle (Jennifer Doyle), Capturing Semenya: https://thesportspectacle.com/2016/08/16/capturing-semenya/

TORCH // Flipping the Bird

The setting for Torch is a narrow one: its narrator has locked herself in a toilet cubicle at a nightclub, unable to summon the confidence to storm the dancefloor despite plenty of shots and a snort of coke. Within its confines, she journeys across her past, reflecting on the relationships and sexual experiences that shaped and eroded her sense of self. It's a history of disappointment, mostly: whatever she wanted of the men who paraded through her life, she never got it. All that remains of them is a set of lifeless mementoes, a jumper maybe, recording their interaction.

But the disappointment is also in herself: reaching back to her teenage years, she wonders at her youthful exuberance, revels in the memory of her ease in her own body. Having sex for the first time, she says, “I finally understood my own power.” That teenager didn't hide her body behind baggy t-shirts, and didn't need a man's permission to do anything. More than once the woman cries out that she wants that teenage self back.

The experiences described in Phoebe Eclair-Powell's text are common enough to feel like archetypes; performed by Jess Mabel Jones, iridescent with gold glitter strewn across her eyes and lips, they gain a potent charge. Interspersed between each anecdote is the song this woman might have belted out in her kitchen, or listened to on an iPod while crying on the nightbus: some morose, some cheeky, none of them specifically relevant to the story but useful all the same. There's some fascinating neuroscience describing the ways in which music – especially the music heard as a teenager – impacts on the human brain: the nostalgia connectors that develop as a result are the same ones triggered by this show.

The text doesn't do much sexual-politics work: the affairs described are all heteronormative; and although the woman remembers with regret not kissing a woman she found attractive, her desire for lesbian experience is vague. And although the work is feminist on the surface, it's noticeable that the woman seeks self-definition in sexual relationships rather than intellect, work or non-physical engagement with the world. In essence, Torch is itself a torch song: a shot of emotion directed straight at the heart. (MC)

Torch is on at 20.50 at Underbelly Cowgate until August 28th. Hearing Loop - https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/torch

On the lack of scientific research into female sexuality: http://www.slate.com/blogs/outward/2015/08/03/sexual_orientation_in_women_why_so_little_scientific_research.html

On lesbianism and sexual fluidity: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/nov/26/lesbianism-women-sexual-fluidity-same-sex-experiences

Questions raised by women equating sex with power: http://everydayfeminism.com/2015/12/power-in-sexuality-problem/

The neuroscience of musical nostalgia: http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2014/08/musical_nostalgia_the_psychology_and_neuroscience_for_song_preference_and.html

On the benefits of nostalgia: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/09/science/what-is-nostalgia-good-for-quite-a-bit-research-shows.html?ref=science&_r=1

HOT BROWN HONEY

First impressions of Hot Brown Honey are misleading. There's a merchandise stall selling earrings made of guitar plectrums, a honeycomb of beige lampshades forms their set, the show begins with a noisy hip-hop call and response: all the signs seem to point to an irreverent, high-octane, low-content pop video of a show. But then DJ/MC Busty Beatz does three things: she declares it time to “heed the mother”, shouts “fuck the patriarchy” and soberly reads out a feminist statement by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Those first impressions are overturned, the assumptions underlying them challenged, the tone of radicalism set for the rest of the show.

Based in Australia, Hot Brown Honey are a collective of all-sizes women of colour on a mission: to deliver “black feminist truth” and “cultural awareness training” while subjecting received white feminism and unconscious colonial-supremacist thinking to close interrogation. That they do all this using the tools of irreverence and high-octane pop culture ensures that their message can reach further, to a general and age-diverse audience who might not even be fans of Beyonce, let alone poet and activist Audre Lorde. The group take a historical approach to burlesque, which was used to lampoon modern politics before it mutated into a general word for striptease. Bodies definitely appear almost-naked and sexuality is rampant, but there is always a clearly articulated political purpose behind this flaunting: one that bypasses individual parties or leaders, and instead digs to the very foundations of capitalist-patriarchal structural oppression.

At the lighter end of the scale, there's a song about black women's hair that goes through a number of musical styles before finishing with thrashing, head-banging hair metal. At the most poignant, there's an aerial routine which uses the bondage of looped ropes to inspire empathy with the women silenced by their experience of domestic violence. In between they debunk romanticised fantasies of the African motherland, condemn the ease with which white holiday-makers vomit entitlement over other countries, and reject the hollow chatter of those with “two cents to put in but not common sense”. Throughout, erudition and entertainment are kept in balance, with quotes from other key black feminist thinkers, including Indigenous Australian Lilla Watson, demonstrating the group's respect for and solidarity with their intellectual foremothers. Hot Brown Honey's work might never be catalogued in the library of feminist academia, but as long as the female body – especially the body of colour – remains objectified, their expression of radical politics will be no less essential. (MC)

Hot Brown Honey are on at various times at Assembly Roxy until August 28th (not 22nd). Wheelchair Access, Level Access, Wheelchair Accessible Toilets - https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/hot-brown-honey

Excerpt from 'We Should All Be Feminists' by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: http://www.feminist.com/resources/artspeech/genwom/adichie.html

Excerpt from Audre Lorde's 'The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action': https://iambecauseweare.wordpress.com/2007/06/26/the-transformation-of-silence-into-language-and-action-excerpt-by-audre-lorde/

A potted biography of Lilla Watson: https://lillanetwork.wordpress.com/

Beyonce's Formation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfMlFxrMb18

Dita von Teese's brief history of burlesque: http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/theatre-dance/features/a-brief-history-of-burlesque-471288.html

A basic reading list on race and racism: http://citizenshipandsocialjustice.com/2015/07/10/curriculum-for-white-americans-to-educate-themselves-on-race-and-racism/

On the hideous whiteness of Brexit: http://www.versobooks.com/blogs/2733-on-the-hideous-whiteness-of-brexit-let-us-be-honest-about-our-past-and-our-present-if-we-truly-seek-to-dismantle-white-supremacy