With a programme which speaks to Glasgow’s past record of hosting experimental superstars and looks to the future of performance, Take Me Somewhere has a reputation for curating provocative and innovative work. Based in Tramway, it welcomes artists from the city and across the world, with a strong presence of queer creators and artists of colour.  

This year, we move from Goldendean’s exhibition Soft Vxnxs, which invites audiences to take some gentle time with a large-scale inflatable sculpture, through to Desire Marera’s electronica gig, and Anahit by Giorgia Ohanesian Nardin, an exploration of movement, language and physical geographies. Each event promises a celebration of art’s potential to articulate personal and social philosophies, and a counterblast to predictable and simplistic notions of creativity.

For artistic director LJ Findlay-Walsh, the key to the festival lies in its eclecticism. ‘We never work to themes; that is very restrictive,’ she says. Rather, there is a deeper sense of ambition. ‘We want Scotland to be the place to experience and create world-beating radical performance. We are interested in work that sits between genres. It all goes back to our mission: I really want world-leading artists to be here in Scotland.’ Historically, Tramway has hosted international companies who played with boundaries of what is possible on the stage. ‘We have a strong legacy, but we don’t have the same resources as mainland Europe,’ she continues. ‘We really think about having international work which speaks to local artists here, either because it is similar in form and content or because it really challenges the dominant preconceptions.’

Take Me Somewhere (its very name evokes a desire to be moved and to move forward) has an agenda to connect the dynamism of the Scottish scene to global currents. This is reflected in the organisation’s structure, combining the festival itself and The Centre Of Somewhere, a supporting programme of residencies. One such product of that programme is proxy (2.2). A bricolage of soundscapes, ideas, objects and movement, this is a collaboration between NXSA and Roby LE, and offers an invitation to a moment in ongoing creation. 

‘It comes from a conversation I am having with myself and people and forms of knowledge,’ NXSA explains. ‘It’s a meditation on a particular area of my research.’ Aware of a responsibility to the audience and the work’s integrity, NXSA articulates the ‘necessity of finding the balance’ between ‘bringing the audience into the conversation’ and an artistic practice that ‘I make because it is what I have to do, and that doesn’t rely on an audience being present. I am opening a door on something largely invisible becoming visible.’

This manifestation of thoughts as experience speaks to the festival’s spirit, and its relationship to the recent past. As Findlay-Walsh recognises, a legacy of radical performance has come from The Arches. That city-centre venue, through bold programming, support for emerging artists and two annual festivals, energised the Scottish performance landscape and introduced many of the artists who are now part of Take Me Somewhere. These include FK Alexander who will produce The Problem With Music, a textless work which features two metal bands playing simultaneously. Adventure and risk, but also nurture and engagement, is now part of the Take Me Somewhere ethos.

‘I believe if you create the right conditions for artists, you will be doing the right thing for audiences, and everything else will follow,’ says Findlay-Walsh. But even the programme’s diversity recognises the spectator’s needs. ‘We are aware that not everyone has the same accessibility requirements. Some of our work can be loud and rumbunctious, almost like a club environment, and some of it is very participatory . . . some people won’t touch that with a bargepole! But some is slow and contemplative.’

Findlay-Walsh has always been interested in innovation but in the last couple of years, she considered it as an access requirement, to have a broad base of forms that suits what different people want. ‘I’m making an opera for the first time in my life,’ says Louise Ahl, creator and performer of Skunk Without K Is Sun. Aided by its audio description, this is an opera that describes itself, and as expected from this maverick artist there is a twist: not only is the opera a combination of live solo and a prerecorded chorus, it uses another of the senses. ‘I have been thinking about accessibility and different ways to create narrative by not always using words. Scent is an ephemeral thing. Each act has its own scent, basically smells that I imagine are the actions. I am not saying what the smells are, as that would ruin it…you smell as you listen and see the work.’

Meanwhile, Ashanti Harris’ Walking With The Ancestors In Joy And Healing exemplifies the gentle end of audience participation. Harris frames the work as drawing on ritual, but one that looks at her own personal and cultural histories. ‘A dance to me is a lovely ritual, embodying history,’ Harris notes, commenting how the process of dancing simultaneously expresses the body of the dancer and those who danced before.

This work has emerged from Harris’ research during covid, where she developed a practice to share her work that didn’t break lockdown restrictions. ‘I was making soundscapes that were somewhere between a guided meditation and an instructional movement workshop, with a reading. It became a way of working that I loved, a joyful act of healing, like a ritual or sacred practice.’ And while the content includes some difficult histories of colonialism, Walking discovers a way to reclaim the past. ‘To embody your history in joy, like in carnival, is an act of healing; being joyful in the face of those histories is an act of resistance.’

Take Me Somewhere is a meeting between audiences and artists. Findlay-Walsh acknowledges that much of the experience comes from ‘conversations in the bar, or the embedded partnerships that come from the residencies, as well as in those performances that pull audiences together in acts of ritual that create solidarity.’ And while provocation and experimentation may drive the productions’ journeys, Take Me Somewhere revels in the possibilities of arriving in a new, inclusive and resonant place.

Take Me Somewhere, various venues, Glasgow, Friday 13–Saturday 28 October.