Noticeboard NewsGossipOpinion
Good health
This year’s Scottish Mental Health Arts and Film Festival goes from strength to strength with a brave and varied bill Words: Anna Millar
S inger Karine Polwart is just one of the many names putting her name – and voice – behind this year’s Scottish Mental Health Arts and Film Festival. Now in its third year, the festival explores mental health in its broadest sense with almost 200 events taking place in over 100 settings around Scotland.
‘Even if you take away the important message behind it, it’s just an incredible thing to be involved in with people from all sorts of backgrounds,’ says Polwart. ‘It encourages collaboration between different musicians and writers and makes a really strong artistic statement without appearing in any way preachy.’
This year’s festival boasts everything from music gigs and dance performances, to theatre, literature, film screenings and song-writing workshops. Polwart believes the festival’s steady rise in establishing itself has only added to its credibility. ‘It’s grown into something really impressive and that’s to its credit. Some things start big and then sort of combust.
But they’ve been very careful to build from the ground up, and so there’s nothing without real merit in the programme. ‘More than that it’s just great value for
money at a fiver for some of the tickets.’
This year’s festival puts relationships and mental health in the spotlight, exploring gender and sexuality, language, bereavement, personal and public lives, under-represented groups and community connectedness. Highlights include Emma Pollock who performs alongside Polwart, as well as the Fifty Cents for Your Soul film season based on Marilyn Monroe’s famous quote. Other top picks include the NTS’s House of Bernarda Alba, The Trick is to Keep Writing, Scottish Women Speak and Mummy Said the F Word. Participation and well-being also take centre stage with over 40 workshops including comedy, creative writing and song-writing workshops, plus film- making courses for young people. ■ mentalhealthfestival.dreamhosters.com
FINAL FLING ■ Deacon Blue, Idlewild, King Creosote, Hue & Cry, The View, The Vaselines, Tommy Reilly, James Grant and Kevin McDermott are just a few of the clutch of names announced to play at the Homecoming Live gig taking place at the Glasgow SECC on Sat 28 Nov as part of the Homecoming St Andrew’s Day weekend. The gig forms part of the finale programme for the year of Homecoming celebrations. Tickets can be booked from www.gigsinscotland.com/homecominglive
8 THE LIST 10–24 Sep 2009
Visit www.list.co.uk for daily arts & entertainment news
BRIEFS THE TRAVERSE Theatre have launched their new season, which begins on Wed 16 Sep with the world premiere of Bright Black from Vox Motus and continues through to Christmas when Traverse Theatre Company team up with Visible Fictions to produce new children's show, Zorro by Davey Anderson. Other highlights include The Dark Things directed by Dominic Hill.
INDIE ROCKERS Ash have announced details of a special UK tour where they play towns in alphbetical order, from Aldershot to Zennor. The Scottish dates are Dundee, East Grange and Falkirk on 23 to 25 Oct.
GOMA ART American artist Dani Marti is the subject of an open letter written to the leaders of Glasgow City Council after they refused to show three pieces of his work for being too sexually explicit. They were created as part of GoMA’s sh[OUT] exhibition and explored the lives of HIV+ people. Marti claims the GCC are ‘compromising freedom of speech’. It is hoped Marti’s work will be shown at Tramway in Nov.
DANCING TO A NEW TUNE ■ The Scottish Government has announced £343,863 Expo funding Edinburgh’s Hogmanay to create and premiere for the first time its own show – Off Kilter. The project will promote Scottish dance and music, both contemporary and traditional to an international audience. The production will premiere new works from choreographers Mark Morris and Scottish Ballet's Ashley Page. There will also be commissioned works from Frank McConnell and Scottish Dance Theatre artistic director Janet Smith, with music from Martyn Bennett to Calvin Harris.
A SHOWCASE is to be held of the 10 finalists of The Burnsong International Song Contest in the Scottish Parliament on St Andrews Day, as part of the finale celebrations for Scotland’s Year of Homecoming. The finalists will perform their winning songs. See www.burn song.org for more.