Gig Review: It wasn't a gig. Worldzero

Jockmcplop

United Kingdom9880 Posts

August 06 2019 22:18 GMT

A couple of weeks ago I went to something that I don't think I'll ever get out of my head. A collaboration between 3 artists - The Seer, UKAEA and IMPATV, Worldzero is a post apocalyptical hellscape performance art piece and its taken this long for me to even come up with the words to describe it.

I didn't take photos because I was too absorbed in what was going on but I'll put a few here from t'internet:

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^^ Yeah this is a hooded person dragging a bag o rocks.

It starts with the audience (about 40 of us) waiting outside a massive refrigeration unit in Salford. We are led in and the room was dark with oddly dressed people standing perfectly still dotted around the room. Someone has mad makeup and spikes sticking out of their body like the Hellraiser guy. Other people are in weird hoods or improvised steampunk gasmask type outfits.

Don't go outside the white lines we are told, and if you're gonna need to shit do it before the performance because we'll only let you leave if you feel uncomfortable (there were staff around just in case).

We are ushered into a very small white circle in the middle of the room and there was weird shit going on all around us. A hooded figure was slowly dragging rocks around the side of the room while steampunk elder type character played the accordion very slowly and sang really beautiful eastern sounding melodies.

Another woman then walks through the crowd chanting something that's hard to catch while ambient music builds.

Then everything goes quiet and there's a huge bang. Apparently the reason we have to stay inside the white lines is that part of this performance involves total darkness and lots of people throwing shit like glass bottles, chains and heavy things against the walls and off platforms.
Terrifying but really exhilarating too.

To one side of the room, there is a display of seethrough curtains with projections giving a ghostly, foggy effect that is just beautiful.
Every time I look around the room the stationary weirdly dressed characters have moved closer to the circle.
There's some electronic music slowly building (courtesy of the amazing UKAEA - all dressed up Mad Max style but scarier) which crescendo's in a session of pure rave with massive live drums played by hellraiser lady. This bit was fucking insane and the audience were mesmerized.

The performance was over an hour long in total and I was completely transported by it. I can't really do it justice with words to be honest but I felt like I needed to share it.

I'm amazed that only a few people will ever see this. I think they only did it twice. Its a rare kind of art that only exists for an hour for a few people and is then gone. But its beautiful that people will go to all that effort just to see something work once or twice and then never do it again.