KUNSTY, a new and ambitious performance series, is set to take place at London’s Southbank Centre from 5 to 8 November, offering a distinctive platform for visionary British artists working at the cutting edge of dance, live art, and cabaret. This innovative four-day programme presents a rare opportunity for audiences to immerse themselves in radical new works and boundary-pushing storytelling, all housed under one roof. Special late-night cabaret shows in the KUNSTY Cabaret Lounge, located in the Queen Elizabeth Hall Foyer, further extend the experience into the night.
The line-up features an exciting array of artists including Bullyache, Harry Clayton-Wright, Sung Im Her, and international guest Justin Talplacido Shoulder, whose UK premiere performance promises a potent blend of diasporic club culture, experimental music, puppetry, and dance-theatre rooted in queer Filipino folklore. The series also includes a significant collaboration with Metal & Water, a London-based creative team known for their multidisciplinary approach spanning choreography, fashion, film, live music, and visual arts, contributing a cohesive thread through three of the shows.
KUNSTY stands as a highlight of the Southbank Centre’s Autumn/Winter Performance and Dance programme, reinforcing the venue’s role as a creative engine nurturing artists at all stages of their careers. Mark Ball, the Artistic Director of the Southbank Centre, describes the initiative as a space where turbulent, multisensory performances that meld dance, music, and live art can flourish, reflecting the future evolution of performance.
The programme features a range of provocative and socially engaged works. Bullyache’s WHO HURT YOU? depicts a dystopian reality outside the home of a fading drag star, blending autobiographical material with theatrical confrontations of trauma, memory, and survival through performance. Meanwhile, Tink and Abra Flaherty explore the complex intergenerational dynamics of family, identity, and transformation in ‘Gen X Gen Z’, a show that delves into the fluidity of parental roles and evolving societal perceptions of gender.
Musical immersion and queer healing take centre stage in Jenny Moore’s Wild Mix, an evocative world premiere that uses communal singing, drumming, and an innovative water-filled boxing bag as a sonic instrument to explore what healing feels like within a close-knit queer ensemble. Patricia Langa’s Flamenco-inspired queer cabaret Cabrolé! provides a vibrant celebration of queer identity, historical migration, and cultural fusion, encapsulating joy, rebellion, and communal spirit with compelling dance and music.
Other standout performances include Courtney May Robertson’s HUNTER, a chilling marriage of horror, BDSM, and melodrama that interrogates societal purity and self-destruction with a haunting industrial soundscape, and Harry Clayton-Wright’s Mr Blackpool’s Seaside Spectacular [pictured], a technicolour revival of end-of-pier cabaret, drag, and dance set against a speculative future marked by climate collapse and socio-economic upheaval.
The series also features Sung Im Her’s 1 Degree Celsius, which engages with climate change through contemporary dance, and Wet Mess’s TESTO, a surreal exploration of queer desire and sexuality combining movement with pre-recorded interviews.
Aaron Wright, Head of Performance & Dance at the Southbank Centre, emphasises that KUNSTY is a commitment to platforming avant-garde British creativity, presenting work ‘at the edges’ of genres and fostering a space where radical and uncategorisable art can be discovered and celebrated.
Tickets to KUNSTY are priced from £20.
Source: Noah Wire Services
TOP EVENTS
TOP EVENTS
