Audiences Fall for Arches Stunts

Hold on to your heart as Action Hero take to the stage for some hi-jinx stunt action at Glasgow’s Arches on Saturday 16 May 2009 for their show Watch Me Fall. The show explores daredevils, our obsession with those who attempt the impossible, the futility of their attempts and their inevitable fall from grace. Drawing on footage of Evel Knievel jumps, interviews with daredevils at Niagara Falls, transcripts from Chuck Yeager’s supersonic flights, the show is presented using the spectacular vernacular of Mexican wrestling matches, human cannonball shows and drag races.

Watch Me Fall is preceded by The Company of Wolves by Katherine Nesbitt. A re-telling of Red Riding Hood, the performance is adapted from Angela Carter’s The Bloody Chamber. The audience is invited to wear a blindfold for any period during the performance.

The Arches is also running a free Action Hero workshop on Saturday 16th May from 11.30am to 3pm. The workshop will focus on stepping outside of your comfort zone and taking risks to move your practice forward. It will ask “what is the thing you always do?” then participants won’t do it. Instead the workshop will focus on doing the things we think we can’t do and we will try to be our own stuntmen. E-mail lj@thearches.co.uk to book a place.

Action Hero is the collaboration of Bristol-based artists Gemma Paintin and James Stenhouse who have been working together since 2005. They aim to create celebratory events that use the audience as the co-creators of the work and are interested in the building temporary communities and ideas that link audiences together and unify them as part of a live event.

– Joseph Pike