Lineup Announced for 3rd Annual SURGE Festival

The Arches' project Conflux presents the return of SURGE, Scotland's 3rd annual festival of street arts, physical theatre and circus, bringing to Glasgow a raft of new work from Scottish and international companies and artists. Highlights include an exclusive set of shows from transformational French performer and sculptor Olivier De Sagazan, open air intervention from Australia's notorious tactical street art group pvi collective and aquatic themed street theatre fun for all from Fish Out of Water.

Iain Munro, Director of Creative Development for Creative Scotland, said: "SURGE is sure to be one of the highlights of 2012 the Year of Creative Scotland, bringing an exciting programme of Scottish and international street arts, physical theatre and circus, to the streets of Glasgow. SURGE forms part of Conflux, a four year programme which has established a thriving community of artists and educators in physical performance in Scotland, leaving a lasting legacy from the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games as we step toward Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games"

Conflux Artistic Director Al Seed said: "SURGE, now in its third year, continues to partner with UZ Arts and the Merchant City Festival and gain strength as an exciting city wide festival in its own right. This year we are extremely proud to be able to bring you exclusive performances from highly regarded international acts such as Australia's pvi collective and France's Olivier De Sagazan. Once again, we'll connect with the local community for The People's Tower, create wonderment with street performances such as Fish Out of Water and this year we introduce a new strand, SCOPE, which will provide mentorship to Scottish based emergent physical performers to enable them to finish partially developed creative work and enhance their practices."

As well as events at some of the city's top venues, the festival spills out onto the streets, taking in some unusual and unexpected locations, illuminating the city with theatre and live art over one packed week. The outdoor programme will take place in partnership with the Merchant City Festival and UZ Arts. There will also be a range of workshops and residencies offering high quality developmental and educational opportunities for beginners and emergent artists, as well as established professionals. For more information on education projects and workshops, please see www.conflux.co.uk. The events in full are as follows:

SURGE Festival and Merchant City Festival present The People's Tower from Tuesday 24th – Friday 27th July 2012 10am – 5pm indoors at The Briggait, then Sunday 29th July from noon – 6pm with a finale at 5pm. Free and unticketed. Suitable for all ages. Olivier Grossetête will be constructing a unique cardboard tower of gigantic proportions as part of SURGE and the Merchant City Festival. Schools and community groups will help to build the tower at The Briggait during the week of the festival and on Sunday 29th July 2012 on Brunswick Street. For more information on getting involved contact Conflux on recruitment@conflux.co.uk or 0141 559 4925. Commissioned by Conflux, UZ Arts and Merchant City Festival and part funded by In-situ.

Conflux presents deviator by pvi collective at the SURGE festival at the Arches and Glasgow City Centre from Mon 23rd July – Thursday 26th July 2012 at 5.30pm, 6.30pm and 7.30pm and on Saturday 28th and Sunday 29th July at 3pm, 4pm and 5pm. Prepare for city-wide disruption as Australia's notorious tactical media art group pvi collective take over the streets, one game at a time. Developed on site with a team of local artists, deviator is a darkly playful site-based intervention, blending radically altered versions of children's games with subtle live performance, turning the audience into unwitting interventionists. Having installed the deviator app on your smart phone you take to the streets for 1 hr on foot in the city. As deviator players you are charged with the mission of seeking out hidden audio instructions in the cityscape which encourage you to temporarily transform your city into a playground. Whilst on-route you encounter an elite team of sly mischief makers intent on interrupting the urban fabric. Commissioned by Conflux.

The first of two shows from French performer and sculptor Olivier De Sagazan, solo piece Transfiguration, is on Sat 28th July 2012 from 7.30pm – 8pm at the Arches. Tickets £8/£6 conc. (18+ only). Equally inspired by Francis Bacon and Samuel Beckett, Olivier De Sagazan, uses clay and paint to perform acts of live sculpture in which his own face is the canvas. His work is concerned with deformity, transformation, and the unlocking of creative processes that occurs when one is submerged in earth.

Olivier De Sagazan and Marie Cardinal perform Hybridation on Sunday 29th July 2012 from 7.45pm – 8.15pm at the Arches. Tickets £8/£6 conc. (18+ only). Olivier is joined by Marie Cardinal for Hybridation in which a man and woman enter a dialogue where the ground substitutes language - an exchange of earth and fingerprints.

Conflux presents Ramesh Mayyappan's Skewered Snails in association with Iron-Oxide at Platform, Easterhouse on Thurs 26th and Friday 27th July 2012 from 7pm – 8pm. Skewered Snails is the darkly comic tale of a dysfunctional family: authoritarian father, a mother whose tenderness manifests itself in fascinating and disturbing ways towards her children, twin siblings, a boy and a barbaric girl. Skewered Snails is powerfully told through extensive and imaginative physicality, and the wonderfully idiosyncratic narrative is brought to life by a dynamic ensemble cast. Skewered Snails, an ensemble piece, grew out of Ramesh's solo work Snails & Ketchup which toured successfully in 2011 with sell-out shows in Paris and Singapore before a run at the Edinburgh Fringe as part of the Made in Scotland showcase. It was nominated for a Total Theatre award as well as garnering a cluster of 4 and 5 star reviews.

Also on Fri 27th July 2012 from 8pm – 8.30pm and on Saturday 28th July 2012 from 6.45pm – 7.15pm, Conflux present Invisible Empire – A Work in Progress by Company of Wolves at the Arches. Tickets are free but must be booked via the Arches box office. Invisible Empire delves into what lies behind extreme acts of resistance. Fusing movement, live music, text, and inspired by real life stories such as the Gunpowder Plot, the Oklahoma City Bombing and the Baader Meinhof Gang. Using ensemble physical theatre techniques from Polish Laboratory Theatre, Invisible Empire unearths the impulse to resist and asks why some people leave their normal lives to fight for a cause, and what happens when they do.

The Surge Cabaret Club returns on Friday 27th, Saturday 28th and Sunday 29th July 2012 with performances from 8.30pm – 11pm. The club then runs from 11pm until late at the Arches. Tickets £5 (18+ only). Our attentive waiters will be awaiting your signal. Grab a cocktail, browse our menu of 10-minute intimate performances, and sample treats ranging from the wildly humorous to the seductively dark - the experience will be fantastical, edgy and always surprising. Watch just one, or all twelve of the performances on offer – the choice is yours, and the bar is always open. Included in the Cabaret is Ian Smith's My Hands are Dancing but my Heart is Cold, Alex Rigg as Maitre D' Marquis de Sade, Alasdair Satchel (Mull) presenting a new Treteau Theatre piece, Angie Dight with Three Feet Left, 3 new works created by local artists through the Olivier de Sagazan residency, and Conflux's 7 international residents with their newly devised pieces of intimate theatre.

Fish Out of Water takes place around Glasgow's Merchant City on Saturday 28th July 2012 and Sunday 29th July 2012 from noon – 6pm. Free, unticketed and suitable for all ages. Conflux's large-scale community project Fish Out Of Water will bring up to 50 performers from across Scotland to the streets of Glasgow, to captivate and enthrall. Fish Fandango: spot our shoal of gigantic fish infiltrating the Merchant City, using the streets as their playground. Water Seekers: this enthusiastic bunch has a crucial quest and nothing will stop them. Listen to their fascinating stories and assist them to catch new aquatic species. Aquasense Scientists: discover the latest breakthroughs in the world of science, witness the astounding feats and discoveries of these highly intelligent beings, be prepared to be amazed. And many more species to be discovered.

Launched by Conflux, SCOPE is a new project enabling Scottish-based artists to complete the creation of partially-developed physical work with mentorship from multi-award winning director Ben Harrison (Grid Iron). Artists performing as part of SCOPE include Megrez7, Sita Peraccini and Ali Maloney.

Catch SCOPE show Ratcatcher by Ali Maloney at The Arches on Friday 27th July 2012 and on Sunday 29th July from 6.30pm – 7.15pm. Tickets £5 (18+ only). Ratcatcher is a black panto; a bouffon rumpus through fairytale plaguescapes where obedient consumerism and celebrity worship are the whole of the law. Baroque violence and existential comedy combine in a punk grand guignol for the jilted generations.

Watch the wonder that is Megrez7, Conflux's first associate company, with their show SPIKED on Saturday 28th July 2012 at 12:45 (Corner of Hutcheson St & Garth St) and at 4.45pm at Merchant Square as part of the SCOPE project and on Sunday 29th July 2012 at 1pm (Merchant Square) and 3pm (Corner of Hutcheson St & Garth St). Free, unticketed and suitable for all ages. A memory hidden away for a decade in a box at the back of the mind. Gradually it is revealed by means of acrobatics, percussion, and rhythmical movement, and through finding a true human connection.

Creep into the post-apocalyptic world of a lone, feral creature, starved of both food and friendship in Sita Pieraccini's Bird on Saturday 28th July 2012 from 5.45pm – 6.20pm and on Sunday 29th July from 5.30pm – 6.05pm at the Arches. Tickets £5 (18+ only). With only a patch of soil to call her own, she must be ready to seize every small opportunity that might fly by. Enriched by a detailed and subtle soundscape that is performed live, Bird is a timeless tale of friendship, courage, magic and madness.

Articulation presents Circoscotia, an exciting range of circus performances at The Briggait on Saturday 28th
and Sunday 29th July from 7pm – 9pm as part of SURGE and Merchant City Festival. Free, unticketed and suitable for all. Skills on display will include aerial work, Chinese pole, acrobalance and floor acrobatics. Performances include Ornithology by Strangebird Zirkus, One Way or Another by Suspended Motion and Hope's Last Dance by Danuta Ramos and more to be announced at www.conflux.co.uk

For more information on Conflux and the Surge Festival 2012 visit: www.conflux.co.uk. Follow Conflux on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/confluxscotland and on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/ConfluxScotland.

Tickets for SURGE events at The Arches, including deviator can be bought through The Arches box office: by telephone - 0141 565 1000, online - www.thearches.co.uk or in person - The Arches, 253 Argyle St, Glasgow G2 8DL. The box office is open Mon – Fri 9.30am -8pm, Sat 10am-8pm, Sun closed (or noon -8pm when an event is on). Tickets for Platform events can be purchased from the Platform box office on 0141 276 9696 (option 1) or email info@platform-online.co.uk.