The Russian Woods
Chto Delat
A spectacular musical show which discusses the representation of a nation state, its characters and history. A learning play on myth construction and its reproduction.
Arika have been creating events since 2001. The Archive is space to share the documentation of our work, over 600 events from the past 20 years. Browse the archive by event, artists and collections, explore using theme pairs, or use the index for a comprehensive overview.
A spectacular musical show which discusses the representation of a nation state, its characters and history. A learning play on myth construction and its reproduction.
How do communities formed under the duress of violent othering and the joy of solidarity – such as ballroom culture, Black diasporas, Zapatistas – reform bonds of kinship?
Thuja specialise in a unique and abstract folk music, a devoutly organic tapestry deeply rooted in the sway and bow of nature.
Emotional fantasies, towers of cakes, identity troubles, collapsed distance and time and Samuel R. Delany’s rarely seen 1971 film The Orchid.
A film performance about Guy then, and Guy now, as a metaphor for the passing of time, which of course all film is inherently about.
In 2008 we toured our Kill Your Timid Notion festival of experimental sound and image to London, Bristol and Glasgow, bringing audiences a taste of the previous 5 festival editions.
Performing with hand built radio transmitters, which react to interference in the atmosphere and the electrical impedance of his hands, his radio art is a form of social practice; a statement in opposition to mass media.
Solo performance by Diamanda Galás one of the great artists of the last forty years. Hers is an emotional expressionism of demonic shrieks, operatic falsettos, glottal clicks and diabolical growls.
Edinburgh. Sinewave manipulating Giant Tank-ette goes head-to-head with Decaer Pinga’s first lady of noise.
The site of the former Abbeyhill Station on the 1903 Leith branch of the Edinburgh and Dalkeith railway, overgrown and leading to as yet un-regenerated ‘wasteland’; taxi’s for 80 people, each instructed to take different routes between locations and; a slice of land concealed behind corporate business park branding off the Wester Approach Rd, apparently of no conceivable use and named ‘Chateaux de Scum’ by those who use it anyway.
The Songspiels take on a mode of musical theatre developed by playwright Bertolt Brecht and composer Kurt Weill in the early twentieth century, presenting political and social concerns through the accessible and (often funny) form of song.
Whether drawing their own fractured, abstract narrative, or re-contextualising, chewing up and spitting out someone else’s, each of the films here take a dramatic arc as their starting point and throw it to the wind.