Located in the newly renovated pub, Woodland Creatures’,
Bark is a captivating programme, thanks to Lottie Kixx’s visionary curation.
Located in the Leith area, a well-known artist hub, the basement performance space has been transformed specifically for the Fringe, its green walls and low velvet-red ceiling cornered with tree-like rope sculptures inspired by Knight's latest work, The Enchanted Forest. The intimate room has a fairy-tale feel, albeit with a Grimm aura.
Knight premiered the Bark programme in collaboration with local artists Harry Giles and Sara Zaltash. They created stunning suspended sculptures using their naked bodies, combining rope bondage with spoken word to mesh ideas of strength, pleasure and sexuality. This is the thematic core for Bark.
Blind Tiger on Sunday 3rd August was a quieter evening of spoken word and music, amusingly compered by Miss Annabel Sings. Emerging poet Hannah Fyfe described the pain of love while Rachel McCrum reminisced on Edinburgh Fringe relationships and others in poems replete with wry observations and dismay. Harry Giles was outstanding, delivering his visual sound poems on farming (the one about the carrot was distinctly unique!) with humour, consciously avoiding any mention of the referendum or Scottish-isms. Given his intention to continue to collaborate with Knight and his strong views on environmental issues he is one artist to follow. Equally, Rebecca Green is an excellent performer; her prose-like observations on the absurdities of Google searches were unique and very funny. Singer songwriter Gavin Mee (Irish) and Lake Montgomery, a folk blues storytelling singer-songwriter from Paris, Texas made absurd observations on life, love, mosquitoes and beans in separate performances. It was a lovely way to conclude the evening.
Bark is a captivating programme, thanks to Lottie Kixx’s visionary curation. Located away from the central area it is a hidden attraction with a different vibe. The following week offers physical dance, theatre, séance, dark cabaret and queer dance parties. Why not see some opera, circus or vaudeville during the weeks to follow? Like Blind Tiger these should be excellent performances: surprising and exciting, and most certainly dark and immersive.
