Summerhall is proud to announce the upcoming performances in their Edinburgh Festival 2023 programme supported by The Mary Dick Award, The Autopsy Award, and announcing the inaugural winner of Summerhall’s new Rewind Award, as well as our International Awards. Summerhall’s Award bursaries help to support marginalised artists and companies making inventive, challenging and reflective work partake in an Edinburgh Festival run.
Summerhall are delighted to grant The Mary Dick Award to A Spectacle of Herself from genre-defying artist Laura Murphy. A cinematic, acrobatic odyssey through the frontiers of mental health, queerness, rage & the 21st Century space race, A Spectacle of Herself is a critical and cheeky combination of autobiographical lip-sync, video and aerial rope, navigating the personal and political and seeking out new worlds and ways to be seen.The Mary Dick Award offers a supported run as part of Summerhall’s 2023 Fringe programme for a d/Deaf or disabled artist, or d/Deaf or disabled-led company. Alongside the bursary support, acclaimed disabled-led company Birds of Paradise provides mentoring and support to the Award-winner, as well as in-kind financial support to make their show accessible for audiences.
The Autopsy Award helps artists who make boundary-pushing, experimental performance in Scotland undertake a Festival run. This year, Summerhall proudly supports Katrine Turner’s An Alternative Helpline For The End Of The World, inspired from Turner’s experience as an outsourced call handler on the Coronavirus Response Helpline in 2020. Using an algorithm of ‘yes’ or ‘no’ questions, handlers would ‘diagnose’ the problem of the caller. Turner has created her own helpline for future catastrophes, in which audience members book a phone call to the Alternative Helpline for a personal diagnosis. This one-on-one performance will be available to watch live throughout the day as Katrine Turner takes calls in Summerhall’s Old Box Office,with outcome generated from a computer algorithm, giving out a piece of advice for the end of the world.
New in 2023, Summerhall’s Rewind Award is aimed at work that deals with stories of de-colonisation. The award has been aptly named after its foundational recipient, Rewind, from Ephemeral Ensemble. Inspired by testimonies of Latin American refugees and migrants, internationally-acclaimed REWIND remembers those who endured, and those who continue to live under authoritarianism. Uncovering the timeless and universal struggle for social justice through physical theatre, live music and vibrant visuals, REWIND draws from Forensic Anthropology – the first science in history to investigate human rights violations. Audiences are invited to witness the investigation of a crime that slowly reveals Alicia’s identity: a woman who dared to resist.
Two companies from Australia will make their international premieres as part of the Summerhall Festival 2023. Oat Milk & Honey (Winner of the Edinburgh Fringe Award at Adelaide Fringe 2023) is an avant-garde blend of live music and breathtaking acrobatics from MO-KO Piano & Circus. Performed by two of Australia’s leading performing artists – Amanda Lee and Nathan Chettle – Oat Milk & Honey elegantly reflects on the raw human experience of anxiety, providing a sophisticated safe space to laugh, cry, breathe and heal. From Paper Mouth + Wicked Good Productions, the multi-award winning Grief Lighting: A Satire in 78 Slides (Winner of the Melbourne Touring Award at Melbourne Fringe) is a journey through Reddit, film and academia – part theatre, part stand-up andpart PowerPoint presentation. As one conspiracy ridden lecturer desperately attempts to prove a popular Grease fan theory: that Sandy drowns in the opening beach sequence and the rest of the film is her coma fantasy, audiences are dragged into a postmodern world of wigs, jackets and custom animation, exploring ideas of gender, pop culture and obsession.
The full programme launches Thursday 4 May. Tickets on sale from Friday 5 May via summerhall.co.uk