MUSIC
WHAT’S HAPPENING?
DAREFest Edinburgh is a one-day event organised by musicians Lou Mclean, above, and Ashley Stein, who met through their involvement in Girl’s Rock School Edinburgh. Having embraced the principles of making noise and taking up space, they aim to pass on their skills through an afternoon of workshops on DIY tour management, issues experienced by women making music and a “feminist pin-badge-making-station” presented by Women’s Aid’s Speaking Out Project. The workshops will be followed by an evening gig featuring Fistymuffs, Lou McLean, Misc Meat and headliners The Violet Kind. Open to all women – those experiencing financial difficulty are advised to ask about reduced rates for the workshops.
Sep 23, Wee Red Bar, Edinburgh, workshops: noon to 4.30pm, ticket prices vary; gig: 7.30pm, £5. Tickets from bit.ly/DAREfest www.facebook.com/DAREFestedinburgh
WHAT’S HAPPENING?
FOLLOWING up his pro-indy recent single No More (Say Yes) is piano man Stephen McLaren, whose album We Used To Go Raving is being launched at Leith Depot on September 23. Named for the somewhat haunting single of the same name, We Used To Go Raving is released on Edinburgh label Errant Media, whose artist Errant Boy will open the night before a set from Brave Little Note, the woman behind Grrrl Trouble, the anti-Trump sonic hex released on the same day as the US presidential inauguration.
Sep 23, Leith Depot, Edinburgh, 7.30pm, £6. www.facebook.com/collarupmusic
THEATRE
WHAT’S HAPPENING?
IT’S Hogmanay in the Glasgow wash house and the washing needs done before the bells. Find out whether they manage it in this 30th-anniversary production of Tony Roper’s The Steamie, which opens at Kirkcaldy’s Adam Smith Theatre on Wednesday (Sep 6) before touring across the country. The cast features River City’s Libby McArthur, above, and Carmen Pieraccini, Steven McNicoll of BBC sketch show Velvet Soup, and Mary McCusker and Fiona Wood reprising their roles from the last production in 2012.
After four nights in Kirkcaldy, The Steamie will tour to Her Majesty’s Theatre, Aberdeen (Sep 11), Dundee Rep Theatre (Sep 18 to 23), Ayr Gaiety (Sep 26 to 30), Eden Court, Inverness (Oct 3 to 7), Macrobert, Stirling (Oct 9 to 14), King’s Theatre, Glasgow (Oct 23 to Nov 4) and King’s Theatre, Edinburgh (Nov 6 to 11). thesteamieplay.com
WHAT’S HAPPENING?
WITH more than 10 million pornographic videos being watched every day in the UK alone, you don’t just wonder how there’s time for all that on top of work, shopping and laundry but what effect it might be having on our well-being, relationships and intimate experiences. Glasgow-based theatre company Wonder Company want to provoke honest discussion on the topic with The Coolidge Effect, a piece devised from interviews with porn advocates, addicts, mental health experts and scientists.
Following dates at Edinburgh’s Traverse (Sep 20 to 22), The Coolidge Effect tours to Glasgow’s Tron Theatre (Sep 27 to 30) and Stirling Macrobert Arts Centre (Oct 20). www.facebook.com/wonderfoolsonline
VISUAL ART
WHAT’S HAPPENING?
MUMBAI-based artist Sahej Rahal presents his first solo exhibition in Scotland this month at the CCA, where he’ll show entirely new works created during a residency at Cove Park in Helensburgh. The exhibition centres on a grimoire, a book of magic spells, and a collection of artefacts from an imagined land called Barricadia. Rahal says “Barricadia emerges, fragmented across borders and histories. It is a temporal, autonomous, organic place.” As well as an artist and curator exhibition tour on September 16 (1pm, free), related events include a Barricadia-curated film programme including Narcissicon (2012) by Kiran Subbaiah, and Rahal’s own Forerunner (2013) on September 19 (6pm, free but ticketed), a screening of Andrei Tarkovsky’s Stalker on October 4 (6pm, free but ticketed) and a reading and discussion event on October 24 (6pm, free but ticketed).
Sep 16 to Oct 29, CCA, Glasgow, free. www.cca-glasgow.com
WHAT’S HAPPENING?
ALSO making a debut solo exhibition in Scotland is Canadian artist Kelly Richardson who presents The Weather Makers, three large-scale video works on show alongside a new print series at the DCA. Using CGI, animation and sound, the videos are a warning from the future from a pillaged planet and also evoke the search for life beyond Earth. Richardson’s vast piece Mariner 9 was created using scenery-generation software employed by the film and gaming industries in combination with technical data from Nasa’s missions to Mars. Accompanying the exhibition’s large-scale video works will be her latest series of prints, titled Pillars of Dawn.
Sep 23 to Nov 26, DCA, Dundee, free. www.dca.org.uk
FESTIVALS
WHAT’S HAPPENING?
RUNNING on Saturday and today is the Rumman Festival – the first instalment of what is hoped to become an annual event celebrating and giving insight into Iraqi culture. The lives of Iraqis living in the diaspora and how they are contributing to the regeneration of their homeland will be explored through live music, workshops, talks and films, including two screenings of On The Banks Of Tigris, above, Marsha Emerman’s uncovering of the almost erased story of Iraqi music (today 3pm, tomorrow 7pm). Coinciding with Eid, the festival hosts a traditional Iraqi Eid brunch at the nearby Project Café tomorrow (11am).
Today, CCA, Glasgow, times and prices vary. Book tickets at 0141 352 4900 www.cca-glasgow.com wearetworivers.com
WHAT’S HAPPENING?
HELD in fifteen non-traditional venues across town, the St Andrew’s Photography Festival runs across September in celebration of a long line of Scottish photographers dating back almost 200 years to the present day. William Henry Fox Talbot’s infamous photographic process patent did not apply to Scotland, which allowed for experiment and adventure with the new medium. Fife and St Andrews were home to many of the early luminaries such as Dr John Adamson, Hugh Lyon Playfair, Alexander Govan, Admiral William Maitland Dougall, Lord Kinnaird and Thomas Rodger. In addition to the exhibitions are related events, talks, historical process demonstrations and workshops.
standrewsphotographyfestival.com
BOOKS & STORIES
WHAT’S HAPPENING?
MOST famous for his supernatural-tinged Charlie Parker thriller series (17 instalments to date), Irish author John Connolly, above, reimagines the life of Stan Laurel, a screen great devoted to the man he knew as Babe and a man, according to Connolly, who “didn’t really exist. He was a fiction.” A study of the tension between commercial demands and artistic integrity, he: A Novel is an alternate look at the man born in Lancashire as Arthur Stanley Jefferson, and born again as Stan Laurel at the Britannia Panopticon in Glasgow, where he made his professional debut age 16.
Following his event at City of Edinburgh Methodist Church on September 11 (7pm, £5, tickets from bit.ly/JohnConnollyEd), it is at the Panopticon where Connolly makes his Glasgow visit the following evening (7.30pm, £4, tickets from Waterstones, Sauchiehall Street). www.johnconnollybooks.com
WHAT’S HAPPENING?
RUNNING from September 6 to October 7 is A Kist in Thyme, an exhibition documenting a collaboration between two primary schools, community elders and storyteller/artist Amanda Edmiston exploring Scottish herbal lore and the power of storytelling. As well as photographs and several hand-written framed pieces chronicling the project and the stories used, the exhibition will feature the Kist itself – a wooden box full of herbal elements, stories and creations made by the children and influenced by the cabinet of curiosities popular in the 16th and 17th centuries.
On September 16 Edmiston hosts an additional event for children age seven to 12 to explore “the place where magical memories, tales and helpful herbs meet” (£6, book at bit.ly/Herbsmagic).
The Scottish Storytelling Centre, Edinburgh, free. www.botanicafabula.co.uk
FILM
WHAT’S HAPPENING?
MARKING its 10th anniversary is Take One Action, the film festival that “celebrates the people and movies that are changing the world”. Taking place at the Filmhouse in Edinburgh and the CCA and GFT in Glasgow between September 13 and 24, the 12 days of films and events include many Q&As with directors and participants, including Black Lives Matter activist Brittany Ferrell who will be at the screenings of Whose Streets? a look at the recent protest movement in Ferguson, Missouri (Sep 22, CCA, Glasgow, 7.30pm and Sep 23, Filmhouse, Edinburgh, 8.30pm).
Other films include Thank You For The Rain (above), Kenyan farmer Kisilu Musya’s documentary on extreme weather (Sep 13, Filmhouse, Edinburgh, 8.30pm and Sep 14, GFT, 8.15pm) and The Worker’s Cup, a look at the migrant workers toiling in slavery-like conditions to prepare Qatar for the 2020 World Cup (Sep 21, CCA, Glasgow, 7.30pm and Sep 22, Filmhouse, Edinburgh, 8.30pm). www.takeoneaction.org.uk
WHAT’S HAPPENING?
ALSO taking place in various venues in both Edinburgh and Glasgow this month is Scalarama, a DIY film festival where classic, rare and locally made films get a public screening. Presented by a range of organisations and individuals who have a passion for movies and the shared experience of film, Scalarama events in Edinburgh include a screening at Leith Depot of Kathleen Hanna documentary The Punk Singer (Sep 6) and a double bill of Il Sorpasso and El Verdugo, overlooked films from early 1960s Italy and Spain, at Summerhall (Sep 29). Events at Glasgow’s CCA include a screening of Guy Maddin’s Cowards Bend The Knee, with a live score written and performed by Ela Orleans (Sep 21) and Bertand Tavernier’s Death Watch, the Glasgow-set 1980 classic starring the late Romy Schneider and Harvey Keitel (Sep 10).
Times and prices vary, see scalarama.com
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