Theology: Glory Be/A Govan of the Mind (2011-2012)
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A new spoken word performance project developed with support from The Arches, National Theatre of Scotland and Cove Park.
Glory Be During a Cove Park writing residency awarded by National Theatre of Scotland, Martin created Glory Be – a Glasgow reinterpretation of the Catholic Order of Mass. This piece aims to localise the language of religion - giving the Word back to people. The structure uses Liturgies, Penitential Rites, Readings and Hymns to create a relevant reworking of a traditional experience and investigates the potential in separating faith from religion. A Govan of the Mind During a residency at the Arches, Martin contextualised his spoken word pieces under the title A Govan of the Mind and has added new work inspired by Lawrence Ferlinghetti's A Coney Island of the Mind. This work aims to explore the Glasgow dialect within performance using Govan as a starting point to question images of and attitudes towards the city while celebrating language, history and people. The piece fuses spoken word, music and storytelling to explore industry closures, familial ties and oral traditions including Scottish Ballads. Intended as a connected performance, both pieces take as their starting point Glasgow people and their language – and how political and religious forces throughout history have claimed language for themselves. Have a listen to Martin's SoundCloud for some recordings. Thanks to Alex Reece and Brian O'Sullivan for recording and Gary McNair for fiming. A Hingmy in the Cafe As part of the Arches Restaurant 'takeovers' (where artists inhabit the restaurant for a month, add to the menu, rewrite the specials, and perform special one-off performances) Martin created a Mad Hingmy where he raed some text, played some Glasgow tunes, sold some stuff in his market (in exchange for audience's favourite Glasgow words and phrases) and created a singalong of Flower of Scotland with new lyrics written by the dining public on the night. See video below. |
