Diane Torr Bursary

By The Work Room & Take Me Somewhere on 03.05.18

We are delighted to announce that the inaugural Diane Torr bursary has been awarded to Eilidh MacAskill & Rosana Cade.

Diane was an influential performance artist from Scotland who died in 2017.  She was a founding member of The Work Room in 2008, and to honour her, we are collaborating with Take Me Somewhere to award an artist bursary in her name.

Diane was a radical performance artist who set her own path and inspired many others to do the same.  Working in dance, drag king performance, installation, film and video, much of her work challenged assumptions about gender.  This bursary is intended to continue this spirit by supporting movement based research & development investigating issues of gender in life.

Eilidh and Rosana are artists based in Glasgow who regularly tour internationally. Eilidh is a creator and performer of multiple live works for both children and adults. Rosana’s work straddles live art and activism, exploring the joy and difficulty of connecting intimately with others. They regularly collaborate making queer feminist performance work for both nightclub and theatrical contexts. They seek to find playful and irreverent ways of testing out the serious business of living in our bodies and navigating gender.

Eilidh and Rosana will use this award to undertake research exploring shifts in their bodies, identities and relationships. As well as receiving the bursary of £2000 to develop their collaborative practice, Eilidh and Rosana will participate in Take Me Somewhere’s Artist Constellation.

Comment from Eilidh & Rosana

“We are honoured to receive this inaugural bursary in Diane Torr’s name. She was a source of inspiration to us as queer performers and we feel there is a clear through-line with some of her drag and gender work and the work we will be making. This project will see us exploring our shifting identities as a couple and as individuals, utilising movement and image where words fail us. We’re excited to be part of both The Work Room and Take Me Somewhere through this project.”

In addition, we have awarded a travel bursary to FRAN.K to undertake a research trip to Amsterdam and Berlin. FRAN.K is a mixed-race performance artist, based in Glasgow and working with movement and visual art in club spaces. The travel bursary will support them to connect with the Dutch Ballroom scene and undertake mentoring with artist Bridge Markland. Together with Diane, Bridge curated the Go Drag festival with Diane in Berlin in 2002.

Applications for the Diane Torr Bursary were considered by a panel involving work room members, Rosanna Irvine and Angie Dight along with LJ Findlay-Walsh and Gillian Garrity from Take Me Somewhere.

 

Image Credit: Theo Seddon

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