CLAY PROGRAMME
The works featured here are a part of CLAY's own curated programme
Victoria Firth
26/11/21
THE BUTTER PIECE
The Butter Piece
In 2011 Victoria created The Butter Piece from an interest in female sexuality, the ‘invisible’ sexual responses of women and shame. In celebrating these reactions, the piece also considered how the female body is displayed, endurance and how we ‘manage’ our comfort with ourselves by engaging or disengaging with the materiality of our bodies.
The Butter Piece was presented both as a live performed action and a durational work.
Now in 2021, Victoria will reinhabit the piece to see what a difference a decade has made both to her body, the context in which it is viewed and to investigate how you deal with your own archive.
Alongside the performance, audience members will have access to 'Pushing Butter, Victoria's open journal documenting the re-making of the work and contributions from other body inspired artists.
Alicia Radage
QUAKE
22/05/21
Quake
‘Quake' is a performance that touches on queer ecology, joy and vibrations that call for a human rewilding within the ecosystems we inhabit.
In collaboration with milliner Rosanna Gould, ‘Quake’ is both a live and video outcome from an Arts Council England funding grant.
They have been supported by The British Council and Arts Council England and have taught at Universities on Fine Art and Theatre courses. They co-organise Assembly with Jasper Llewellyn, a workshop and residency for Action Artists in Provence, France. They are one half of the collaboration Radage ▽ Hardaker with Ro Hardaker. Radage is currently making work at the intersection of Neurodivergent experience and Shamanic practice.
Matt Rogers
That Matt Rogers Project: (in)CREDIBLE
05/12/19
"This is about being wrong, more specifically it's about me being wrong... All the time.
You are invited to be part of an experiment, that might tell us who is right and who is wrong... or at least outsource some decisions about my life that I'm not equipped to make.
I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass but I'm all out of bubblegum. So what should I do next?"
Matt Rogers is an award-winning performance maker who has been making work that fuses elements of games mechanics and striking visuals in surprising, comedic and thought-provoking ways since 2005. Inspired by John Carpenter's 1988 classic "They Live!" and the field of experimental psychology (in)CREDIBLE marks the beginning of a new and exciting phase in his practice; inviting the audience to shape both the performance and how Matt spends the rest of his life.
WHAT A NIGHTMARE
12/12/19
WHAT A DRAG VS ELECTION NIGHT SPECIAL
SNAP! Boris runs from the cameras
SNAP! Trump tweeted again
SNAP! Farage is back on the telly
SNAP! Corbyn is asleep on the train
SNAP! Election in December
SNAP…. Surely.... not... again!?
Join us at CLAY when poling closes for the love child of Election Night Special & What A Drag: WHAT A NIGHTMARE. Because, well, this is a living nightmare. We'll baton down the hatches and see this night through together with a Performance Party for the end of the world... it just might be! Watch the results pour in with a whisky in one hand and a vodka in the other.
We've teamed up with Leeds Queerdo Legends Love Muscle to give you a party you'd be proud to go out on, with performance interventions to distract us from the dread. BYO Tank Top! Can’t make it in person? This special event will be livestreamed to watch while the results pour in. Don't be alone for this Election Night!
10th Year Anniversary
19/12/19
NEWK'ed
Our scratch platform NEWK is 10 years old so we're blowing it out the water with a whole day of performances from 9 artists. NEWK'ed will celebrate and interrogate this platform as a tool for professional development by hosting a day of experimental performance, alongside a day of relaxed day of talks and discussions about what supportive artist development actually looks like.
Saturday 14th December A day of interventions, durationals, one to ones and staged performances. 2pm: Doors open 2.30pm: Performances start 8pm: Feedback session hosted by Lydia Cottrell 10pm: Close
Performances by: Aleks Wojtulewicz Ellie Harrison Nicole Murmann Sebastian H-W Live Artist Tom Thom Tink Flaherty James Johnson Joseph Funnell
Sunday 15th 12pm - 2.45pm Talks and discussions led by Matt Allen and Joseph Mercier.
Our scratch platform NEWK is 10 years old so we're blowing it out the water with a whole day of performances from 9 artists. NEWK'ed will celebrate and interrogate this platform as a tool for professional development by hosting a day of experimental performance, alongside a day of relaxed day of talks and discussions about what supportive artist development actually looks like.
Saturday 14th December A day of interventions, durationals, one to ones and staged performances. 2pm: Doors open 2.30pm: Performances start 8pm: Feedback session hosted by Lydia Cottrell 10pm: Close
Performances by: Aleks Wojtulewicz Ellie Harrison Nicole Murmann Sebastian H-W Live Artist Tom Thom Tink Flaherty James Johnson Joseph Funnell
Sunday 15th 12pm - 2.45pm Talks and discussions led by Matt Allen and Joseph Mercier.
Our scratch platform NEWK is 10 years old so we're blowing it out the water with a whole day of performances from 9 artists. NEWK'ed will celebrate and interrogate this platform as a tool for professional development by hosting a day of experimental performance, alongside a day of relaxed day of talks and discussions about what supportive artist development actually looks like.
Saturday 14th December A day of interventions, durationals, one to ones and staged performances. 2pm: Doors open 2.30pm: Performances start 8pm: Feedback session hosted by Lydia Cottrell 10pm: Close
Performances by: Aleks Wojtulewicz Ellie Harrison Nicole Murmann Sebastian H-W Live Artist Tom Thom Tink Flaherty James Johnson Joseph Funnell
Sunday 15th 12pm - 2.45pm Talks and discussions led by Matt Allen and Joseph Mercier.
Our scratch platform NEWK is 10 years old so we're blowing it out the water with a whole day of performances from 9 artists. NEWK'ed will celebrate and interrogate this platform as a tool for professional development by hosting a day of experimental performance, alongside a day of relaxed day of talks and discussions about what supportive artist development actually looks like.
Saturday 14th December A day of interventions, durationals, one to ones and staged performances. 2pm: Doors open 2.30pm: Performances start 8pm: Feedback session hosted by Lydia Cottrell 10pm: Close
Performances by: Aleks Wojtulewicz Ellie Harrison Nicole Murmann Sebastian H-W Live Artist Tom Thom Tink Flaherty James Johnson Joseph Funnell
Sunday 15th 12pm - 2.45pm Talks and discussions led by Matt Allen and Joseph Mercier.
Ron Athey
ACEPHALOUS MONSTER
18/10/19
Internationally acclaimed US performance artist Ron Athey presents his new work Acephalous Monster.
Athey rose to international prominence in the 90’s making performance that explored challenging subjects like the relationships between desire, sexuality and traumatic experience and confronted conservative narratives around AIDS, S&M and body autonomy.
His new work Acephalous Monster is inspired in part by the secret society of Acéphale, the 1930s anti-fascist review and magazine published by philosopher Georges Bataille. Using projections, readings, lectures, appropriated text and sound, and by re-imagining cut-up technique pioneer Brion Gysin’s brutalist Pistol Poem as a vocal/percussive choreography, Athey turns to the Acéphale, the eponymous figure of the headless man, a powerful symbol of radical transformation, and attempts to make sense of a current reality where neo-fascism is mutating, creeping, and marching.
Sh!t Theatre
SH!T ACTUALLY
22/11/19
A two-woman 100% faithful, word-by-word* remake of the Christmas film we all hate to love: ‘Love Actually’.A two-woman 100% faithful, word-by-word* remake of the Christmas film we all hate to love: ‘Love Actually’.
‘Love Actually’ is Sh!t Actually.
The ‘rising stars of performance art’ (Telegraph) Rebecca Biscuit and Louise Mothersole take on their hardest roles yet. All the roles. With live songs, queer love stories, and politics questioned by women with actual lines – come shout-along, sing-along, dance-along, cry-along, drink-along to this adults-only celebration of Christmas Actually.
‘Love Actually’ is Sh!t Actually.
Emma Boswood
GHOST SEX
25/10/19
if u like someone nd they dont text u back after u’ve had sex dw cos they must just b a ghost x
Ema Boswood is haunted. Ghost Sexxx is part performance, part transcendental exploration, where Ema uses paranormal techniques in an attempt to reach through to the other side, the ‘other side’ being the people that have ghosted her in the past.
The show takes a comedic look at ‘ghosting’, which means when the person you’re dating simply stops replying to your texts. Ema carries out a seance, tells tragic ghost stories and has a sexorcism, all the while taking a refreshing and ridiculous look at the experience of rejection.
Louise Orsen
OH YES OH NO
This is a show about having sexual fantasies that don’t align with your politics. It’s about trying to understanding what you want, and wondering how the hell to ask for it.
Oh Yes Oh No invites you on a surreal joyride through femme sexuality and violence. Made exclusively with the candid input of those willing to talk openly and honestly about their sex life, including survivors of sexual trauma, Louise is unafraid to ask the difficult questions as she interrogates identity, consent and power play.
Featuring explicit XXX, Barbie’n’Ken role-play, a heady mix of pop culture references, and original sound design by Alicia Jane Turner, the show explores sexuality and who gets to have a say in it. This show is for anyone who has ever struggled to find their sexual voice, or questioned the sexual culture they were brought up in. It asks who gets to speak, who gets to have a voice, and ultimately aims to give a voice back to those who have had their voices and bodies taken from them. How can you re-claim your voice and your body when these things have been stripped from you? And how do you navigate a landscape of hyper-sexuality and increasing sex positivity when the mere act of asking for what you want can be the hardest thing? Oh Yes Oh No dares to speak about a subject which is rarely addressed publicly, especially in the wake of #MeToo.
Steady yourself to rethink desire, and then watch her smash it all to pieces.
04/10/2019
CLAY: Launch Party
CLAY and Friends
21/09/19
CLAY's Launch Party
We are kicking open the doors to CLAY for our first party.
The event is Pay As You Feel (PAYF), all funds go to supporting CLAY.
CLAY and Friends
22/04/22
HOLE AGAIN
We're back (for real this time!) with an audacious night of performance, party and nostalgia for the turn of the Millennium....
You can expect...
😵💫 Cabaret turns from a hole-load of juicy acts
💃 Dancing to all your faves from strictly 1998-2002
🎤 The chance to recreate the best incarnation of the sugarbabes on the mic with some classic CLAY Karaoke
So get your whale tails out and rewatch the first series of big brother, we're gonna Samatha Mumba all night
Featuring Strangeboy, King Little, Vijay Patel and the Glitter Bombers
with SLAP York
11/04/22
DRYHUMP
Impossible Homecoming
What makes us feel at home?
Why do we leave?
How far back do we look to find out?
This is a live 'unboxing' experience for 1-2 curious people. You get to go on the journey, unpacking objects from Howl's home in Taiwan, which has since been gentrified out of existence.
This intimate experience is a multi-sensory story of Howl's life including virtual dialogue with him, explorations of personal artefacts and a journey of your very own.
A powerful story of migration that takes you through a hidden history of southeast asia, while forging new definitions of home and belonging in the wake of a global pandemic.
Howl Yuan
11/04/22
IMPOSSIBLE HOMECOMING
Impossible Homecoming
What makes us feel at home?
Why do we leave?
How far back do we look to find out?
This is a live 'unboxing' experience for 1-2 curious people. You get to go on the journey, unpacking objects from Howl's home in Taiwan, which has since been gentrified out of existence.
This intimate experience is a multi-sensory story of Howl's life including virtual dialogue with him, explorations of personal artefacts and a journey of your very own.
A powerful story of migration that takes you through a hidden history of southeast asia, while forging new definitions of home and belonging in the wake of a global pandemic.
Ray Young
22/04/22
BODIES
We're back (for real this time!) with an audacious night of performance, party and nostalgia for the turn of the Millennium....
You can expect...
😵💫 Cabaret turns from a hole-load of juicy acts
💃 Dancing to all your faves from strictly 1998-2002
🎤 The chance to recreate the best incarnation of the sugarbabes on the mic with some classic CLAY Karaoke
So get your whale tails out and rewatch the first series of big brother, we're gonna Samatha Mumba all night
Featuring Strangeboy, King Little, Vijay Patel and the Glitter Bombers
