Kunsty

This brand new four-day series at the Southbank Centre celebrates the exciting, original new performance and storytelling being created by British artists whose performances blur the boundaries between dance, live art and cabaret.

Complementing the dazzling shows on stage at the Queen Elizabeth Hall and Purcell Room stages, this special series also includes late-night performances in the ‘KUNSTY Cabaret Lounge’ in the Queen Elizabeth Hall foyer.

Programme highlights include: 

Tink and Abra Flaherty: Gen X Gen Z 

Wed 5 Nov at 7:45pm, Purcell Room

A show about parenting, being parented and the ongoing process of becoming who you are, no matter what your age, with your family as your witness.

Bullyache: WHO HURT YOU?

Wed 5 Nov at, 9pm, Queen Elizabeth Hall

WHO HURT YOU? takes place outside a fading drag stars’ home, where she lives with her two backing dancers, two pianos and continues to perform her Vegas show to anyone who happens to pass by. The work heavily utilises autobiographical material and blurs the lines between character and self, audience and participant.

Sung Im Her: 1 Degree Celsius 

Thu 6 Nov, 7pm, Queen Elizabeth Hall

Featuring seven dancers, 1 Degree Celsius looks at the topic of climate change through an innovative use of music, light, movement and character. Featuring a new musical score created using data collected from rising atmospheric temperatures, and lighting design coordinated to the rising temperature of the earth.

Jenny Moore: Wild Mix 

Thu 6 Nov, 8:15pm, Purcell Room

Rooted in communal singing, kickboxing, and drumming, this immersive musical embodies the daily practices of queer healing. Through a soaring six-part songcycle, multi-layered vocals, intense beats, and poignant storytelling, it asks: what does healing feel like?

Cabrolé!

Thu 6 Nov at 9.30pm & Fri 7 Nov at 10pm, Queen Elizabeth Hall Foyer

A Flamenco-inspired queer cabaret from the mind of artist Patricia Langa. Musical joy by the musicians of the Fin de Fiesta community invites the audience to its feet to dance and enjoy the rhythms of flamenco all together after the show.

Courtney May Robertson: HUNTER

Fri 7 Nov at 7pm, Queen Elizabeth Hall

Inspired by horror, BDSM and melodrama, HUNTER plays with the redemptive process of a classic tragedy, in which a character comes to insight through suffering. But in this tragedy, performer and choreographer Courtney May Robertson performs ‘life-affirming monstrosities’ on herself and her life-size doppelganger made from foam and silicone.

Justin Talplacido Shoulder: ANITO

Fri 7 Nov at 8:45pm & Sat 8 Nov at 2pm, Purcell Room

Enter a future folkloric world of dance-theatre, diasporic club cultures, projections, sound design and elaborate craft reimagining stories and myths for today. Rooted in Sydney’s underground queer and diasporic club scenes, the collective behind ANITO create a ‘queer Filipino future folkloric space of storytelling’ through collective craft, puppetry, dance and experimental electronic music.

Adam Russell-Jones: Release the Hounds

Sat 8 Nov at 8:15pm, Purcell Room

Inspired by the dance marathons of the 1920s and 1930s, Rainald Goetz’s novel RAVE and the 1996 film They Shoot Horses Don't They?, this depiction of dancing through times of crisis is set on the dance floor of the performer's psyche. An abstract representation of dance as an escape from reality, it centres around a dancer who must keep dancing.

Harry Clayton-Wright: Mr Blackpool's Seaside Spectacular

Sat 8 Nov at 9:30pm & 10:30pm, Queen Elizabeth Hall Foyer

An end of the pier show set at the end of the world, bringing stories from the life of a Blackpool entertainer to life in lurid technicolor and garish spectacle. Set in the not-too-distant future against the decimated backdrop of climate collapse or late stage capitalism, four Blackpool performers embed the history of ‘end of the pier’ entertainment, cabaret, variety, drag and dance.