Molly and Me, 17 Jul – 10 Aug
This is a collaboration between two artists – Molly Haslund from a fine art background involved in social art practice, live music and conceptual art and Catherine Hoffmann from a theatre and performance background involved in using physical performance, film, live music and text. We have given each other tasks to learn new skills and exchange perspectives on making work.

MOLLY AND ME are interested in exploring the world of work and survival.The expectations of yourself and each other in a world geared to only being a success. What if you are in the wrong place at the wrong time – getting it wrong; struggling, what does that mean, what could that look like?

MOLLY AND ME have come together to write songs, play instruments, collect survival stories, work songs and will be looking at the world of vaudeville and double acts. The humour and tragedy related to how we spend our time and our lives.

Fiona Jardine, 13 Aug -31 Aug

Tim Nunn: Reeling and Writhing, 10 Sep – 1 Oct
Tim Nunn and Reeling & Writhing are developing the blend of text, music and physicality needed for ‘Only the Men’ during the CCA Creative Lab in September (more about the show below. ‘Only the Men’ is a co-production with the CCA , will be premiering at the Drama Na hAlba festival on 18 October and will be touring nationally, including the CCA on 1, 2 and 3 November.

Sanna is the the village on the headland of Ardnamurchan where black volcanic rock meets machair, sea and sand. This exposed landscape  is the setting for Only the Men, the story of a son who returns to the last working croft upon his father’s death.

The future of the man is tied up to the future of the croft he has inherited. He discusses this with Fenella, whilst, while sitting on a wide white beach. Fenella is an annoying and greedy sheep who died five years ago.  To make matters worse worse, she is not his only companion.

With Reeling and Writhing’s Only the Men, is lyrical contemporary Scottish theatre at its best, fusing the musical and the geography of the Scottish coast within a tragi-comedic tale. Composer Eddie McGuire suggests creates the soundscape of Sanna and those who dwell therein, with score for alto flute and ocean drum performed live.            

Only the Men at the graveside - a modern tale of love, loss and a stuffed sheep, in a landscape of raw emotion and no compromise.

Creative Team:
Writer Tim Nunn
Director Katherine Morley
Composer Eddie McGuire
Set Designer Brian Hartley
Lighting Designer Grahame Gardner

Actors: Callum Cuthbertson and James McAnerny
Musician: Katie Punter

Yvonne Cadell, 1 – 13 Oct and 5-16 May
‘Colette’s body was at once excitable and scrupulously submissive to the discipline of writing’.

I am currently writing a new play ‘Colette: The Secret Scenes’ based on the life and writings of the French author and icon Colette.

I will be using the 4 week CCA Residency to explore the idea of Colette’s ‘metaphorical body’; expressive of Colette’s own writing and her own unique sensory relationship with everything around her. Colette was not a political revolutionary and not a feminist although she would describe herself proudly in her final memoir as an erotic militant. Her militancy took the form of a revolt against any normative standards for desire and against all sentimentality in the carnal domain.

I will be working with theatre and movement professionals to create an intimate and humorous theatre piece that utlises text, music, mime and dance to recreate Colette through the use of the five senses.

Claire Duffy, 5 - 10 Nov and 16 Apr - 2 May

Seeing in the Dark
Can the dark ever be anything other than a metaphor in our city? Come and walk with me at night, let’s see if we can find some dark in our city. Or, come in the daytime and talk about memories of the dark. Or if you like, you can come at dusk and listen to a story about a man who couldn’t pack his suitcase.

The sun is about to set and a man (played by a woman called ‘Clare’) is packing. He knows that he needs to leave immediately or he will be killed. But he is interrupted. First he notices the quality of the colour and texture of the sock in his hand, this triggers a memory, which gives him an idea; he makes a connection of the idea, to a memory, to an image, and he makes it into a metaphor. Suddenly he glimpses a flash-fire of beauty and magic in the meanings of all the everyday objects around him and the night falling outside. The vertigo of connectivity overwhelms him, but it passes quickly and he packs one sock. The process begins again, but this time faster and vaster. He packs two, maybe three pairs of odd socks before the door is knocked down.

From the 5th to the 10th of November I will be developing this project in open rehearsal during the day at the CCA, walking with guests after dark, and showing work in progress at dusk on the 8th, 9th and 10th. If you’d like to know more please contact me at clarelduffy@hotmail.com

Clare’s first sole-authored full length play, Crossings was commissioned by Sgript Cymru, won a Pearson award and a year long residency at the West Yorkshire Playhouse where she wrote A Good Man. Crossings was published in March 2005 and toured the UK from March – June. Current works in progress include a new play for 15 young people at West Lothian Youth Theatre, Home Street, a reading of which is currently scheduled for November 2007 at the Traverse Theatre with Stellar Quines. She is also commissioned to co-write in collaboration with Canadian company Imago, Edinburgh based Stellar Quines and the National Theatre of Timisoara (Romania).

Clare co-founded Unlimited Theatre in 1997 with whom she continues to write and perform. (please see HYPERLINK "http://www.unlimited.org.uk" www.unlimited.org.uk) Unlimited’s next show The Moon The Moon will have its first outing at Northern Stage in Newcastle in February 2008. Clare moved to Edinburgh in January 2004 and she is currently working towards a PhD by practice in writing for performance at the University of Glasgow’s Theatre, Film and Television department. She is in receipt of a Scottish Arts Council Writer’s Bursary.

Anthony Schrag, 19 Nov - 14 Dec
My work researches a "body intelligent" – that which is understood phenomenologically before it is understood mentally or intellectually. It relies on the primacy of events before theoretical concerns regarding art and its contexts, and its function is to democratize the art experience, as well to destabilize its norms.    

Which is really just a fancy way to say I'm interested in subverting people's standard physical experience of the world, if only because one does not need a specialist education to understand the experiences of one's own body, allowing a broader cultural access.

I am not interested in being taken seriously

Magnetic North, 7 - 26 Jan
Magnetic North is a theatre company based in Scotland. It was formed in 1999 by theatre and opera director Nicholas Bone to create and develop new work with playwrights and other practitioners. The company's work has been funded by Scottish Arts Council, Glasgow City Council, Awards for All, the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and the Peggy Ramsay Foundation.

We work with actors, playwrights, designers and composers to produce plays that are stylish, articulate and individual.
We place the writer at the centre of the play-making process, whether the play is a new commission or an existing text. We encourage playwrights to experiment with form, structure, content and narrative.

The main focus of the company’s development work is a new initiative called Rough Mix, which is an opportunity for theatre makers to collaborate with other practitioners, try out new ideas and introduce them to an audience.

Raw Exploration, 28 Jan – 8 Feb
RAW EXPLORATION is a collaboration project between Glasgow based visual artist/dancer/choreographer Sari Lievonen, video/filmmaker Alan Paterson, also from Glasgow and Amsterdam based dancer/actor Bennie Bartels. During their CCA Creative Lab residency the artists are exploring ways to bring together multiple video projections and live-performance.

As performers Sari and Bennie both have extensive backgrounds in contemporary dance and physical theatre. Both have also already for years been passionate about Argentine Tango. RAW EXPLORATION begun in February 2007 when the threesome spend a day on the banks of Loch Lomond Alan shooting on video Sari’s and Bennie’s ad-lib performance based on the concept “tango embrace and beyond”. Improvisation is the underlying current and the working medium to be researched in this project, it is the leading investigation into the movement processes whether practiced by the camera or the performers. The other core interests of research lie in the repetitive nature of the movement material, how its multiplication influences the environment and the viewer and how does this relate to live-performance.

Oliver H V Mezger, 11 Feb – 7 Mar
My Research has been into the effect translation has on a parochial source, it stems form remarks made by Patrick Kavanagh on James Joyce and George Moore in an essay “Parochialism and Provincialism”; Kwame Dawes in his book “Natural Mysticism: Towards a New Reggae Aesthetic” and the film work of Margaret Tate. With their collective intentions to deliver material universally, these differing endeavours to communicate on the place of the local and familiar, perhaps proposes an ethic to be had towards subject matter? It is my aim to test and explore my understanding of sound media, through its ability to vary an encounter with a theme. I therefore aim to adapt singing techniques derived form Free Presbyterian English-language Psalmody tradition, or as it is sometimes called Procentor psalm singing. This call and response technique has a strongly rooted place in highland church history but I believe is also a tangible mode for communicating the complex aesthetic that would reflect the example of a contemporary urban social collectivity / community like Sight Hill. The language that is used to describe this place by its residents is the themes that I aim to explore, in order to develop a representation of this local. I will test ideas about church, home and migration via these techniques of collective call and repetition.

Oliver Mezger graduated from the Glasgow School of Art MFA course in 2006

CCA Lab Group: Creative Lab, 12 Mar – 9 Apr
Lab group is a collective of varied emergent Glasgow-based artists. We are of different backgrounds, disciplines, and education - the common dynamic is that we all make work with an element of liveness.

The Lab Group monthly meetings at CCA aim to provide a space for its members to show new work in development and to receive critical feedback and support, assisting the artists in the development of their work and practice.

Early 2008, Lab group will embark on a month-long creative Lab residency together. During this time we plan to form new collaborative relationships, develop individual practice and further our shared language and learning. This will be the first time we have attempted an experiment such as this, it will be exciting to see what happens with such a variety of subjects in our Lab.

Dance House/CCA Creative Labs, 19 May – 13 Jun
Dance House is delighted to initiate an artist exchange with Dancehouse, Dublin in partnership with the CCA, as part of their Creative Lab programme. In the last year the CCA has supported 8 Dance House Creative Lab residencies and 2 Choreographic Development Residencies which have been a great success and hugely welcomed by the Scottish professional dance community. Feedback has indicated that they have provided invaluable space, time & support to develop new work and opportunity for dialogue with other artists. The Creative Labs have focused on the work of Scottish dancers and one was with guest Korean choreographer and dance artist, Moon Sung-Lyon who worked with 4 local dancers & 2 filmakers during her residency.

Over 50 dancers from across Europe applied to take part in the last CDR with Angus Balbernie, which culminated in the performance Meatyard. Meat. Me in February and 10 dancers took part in Dance House’s first CPD programme, a durational all night performance, The Bed which performed to a sell-out audience.

We look forward to a continuing partnership with the CCA in the next year with a further programme of Creative Labs in Spring 2008 and a Choreographic Development Residency in September with the extraordinary Touchdown Dance and in February with Australian choreographer Janis Claxton. We are also currently in discussion with Tanz Haus, Dusseldorf about a future artist exchange. An announcement will be made in September as to which Scottish artist will taking up the reciprocal residency at DanceHouse, Dublin.