Bella Ciao (‘one fine morning’) English Translation Updated

‘Bella Ciao’ is a beautiful traditional Italian song of resistance and it’s very popular in leftist and anarchist circles, but as far as I can find there’s no translation that’s fully in English. I love Marc Ribot and Tom Waits’s version, which you can watch here (https://youtu.be/YIrkoo1CyKY?si=6QHO-Nsuk_LODm0l), but there’s still a few words from the...

Poetic Responses to: Marina Abramović

Poetic Reponses to Marina Abramović's solo retrospective in the main galleries of the Royal Academy, London

Poetic Response: Hush lil baby… Studio Visit

Artist Shae Myles had an open studio at Kiosk in Glasgow’s Southside last week and I stopped by for a brief chat and a nosy. Wrote this on the back of the event flyer that evening while at the Stag & Thistle Open Mic and then performed it. It’s very surface level first impression, so...

Poetic Review: Skunk without k is Sun

Earlier this year I was fortunate enough to be a scent tester for Louise Ahl's audio-description-integrated experimental three act solo opera 'Skunk without k is Sun'. I was so excited to see (and smell) the full show, as I'd found the experience with Ahl and her team - including scent designer Clara Weale - to...

Response: High Steaks

Written in response to Eloina Haines's performance piece High Steaks, directed by Louise Orwin and featuring Eloina's mother Annie Haines. High Steaks ran for seven days in the Anatomy Lecture Theatre at Summerhall, during the Edinburgh Fringe 2023.

Response: JUPITER RISING x EAF Party

1. Performance. Three pigs in pink babydoll dresses with white lace frill are handling unlabelled plastic bags of MEAT and seasoning. In their plastic pink platform boots they’ve set up a production line and are making sausages. When we arrived we were asked if we were vegan, a bit too late, but the land is...

#EdFringe Review: Bang

Stars: 4/5 Joan Vollmer is bleeding to death, shot in the head by her common law husband as they attempt to re-enact a dangerous party trick. The act of violence is all around us, but also not directly shown. It’s in the name of the show: Bang. It’s in the fragmented, trauma-centred structure. It’s the...

RESPONSE Saoirse Amira Anis: symphony for a fraying body

Emerging from a cave the red creature slowly walks. Horns curled like a ram. Eyes unblinking. The edit jerks with a noise like a… knife being sharpened? A sonic cut. The creature jumps. Jumps. The drier grasses and seaweed and ferns and ivy cling to the… cliff-face? What time of year is this? What height...

The Sound Of Sirens

By Luke ‘Luca’ Cockayne In the dark, ideally with a blindfold on, listen to the sound of sirens for as long as you can. Immediately after, record how you felt. ‘The Sound Of Sirens’ is my proposed new work, presented in the form of an event score above. This instructional approach allows the work to...

Polly Braden: Holding The Baby

Arnolfini, Bristol 19 February to 12 June 2022 So the show’s already been at the Museum of the Home, London. How is the Arnolfini show different? Polly Braden:  When the Arnolfini show opened on Saturday 19 February, there were queues to get into the space. It was jammed all day with people reading the text,...