SPOOL back in time to March 2012 – or, as we could subtitle it, BuzzCut Year One. Rosana Cade and Nick Anderson, then very recent graduates of the Contemporary Performance Practice course (based at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland) have decided on the spur of the moment that what Glasgow’s artistic communities, and their followers, need is a dedicated festival of live performance, installations, film and much else. Neither of them has ever organised a festival before, let alone a five-day event that will, as Cade said at the time, “prove what it’s possible to do with no money.”

That point was so well made that, fast forward to the present time – or, as we could subtitle it, BuzzCut Year Five – and tonight will see the opening of Cade and Anderson’s latest instalment in an fast-growing success story. That original shoe-string has stretched a little, with funding from Creative Scotland and some input from the British Council, but even so it doesn’t represent any kind of feather-bedded safety net.

“Artists don’t apply to be part of BuzzCut for the fat fees,” laughs Anderson, “they apply because they want to get their work out there, seen by their peers and hopefully the public – maybe producers of other festivals. And, I think, because they like the open-ness of how we run things.”

That open-ness begins with the application process itself. “Anyone can apply,” says Cade. “We don’t have quotas based on where an artist’s from, or what kind of work they make, or whether they have a disability. That first year, which we pulled together in under three months, we were amazed to get dozens of applications. This year, it was over 480 – international, national and local. Some artists had been here before and were keen to return, others were totally new to the festival, and to Glasgow. We have artists who have never performed professionally in front of an audience – a London woman who is autistic is among them – but over the years, word has got out that BuzzCut isn’t a commercially-driven organisation. Its whole focus is on supporting the artists, and on making live art and experimental performances free and accessible on as many levels as possible.”

Anderson picks up on that word “free” and explains that, yet again, they’re abiding by their principles of un-ticketed entry to performances, with the invitation to “pay-what-you-can” wrapped up in little yellow envelopes. “Various people have written short provocations on this,” says Anderson. “It’s a way of opening up the debate on how we value our artists, and hopefully, it’s a way of getting people to open up their wallets. That said, no-one should feel they can’t afford to come into the Pearce Institute, go into a show or spend time in the venue afterwards. Pay what you can. The important thing, for the artists, is that their work is seen.”

This year, for the first time ever, some of those artists are from outwith the UK. One of them is Gavin Krastin, an award winning South African performance artist, theatre-maker, choreographer and designer-scenographer whose febrile interest in the politics of transgression and myth-making prompted one critic on the scene to declare that his work “turns the national subconscious inside out like exploding popcorn.”

Another – the self-styled Lechedevirgen Trimegisto (aka Felipe Osornio) – hails from Mexico, bringing with him his Inferno Varieté, in which religious iconography may well rub shoulders with imagery from vintage horror movies under the influence of magic and spiritualism, cabaret and radical body art. Yes, there’s a vast and diverse roster of Scottish and UK artists all descending on Govan for BuzzCut, but how welcome it is that they too will have the chance to see what the concerns and performative dynamic is in other enclaves. It’s a reminder of what interactions and perspectives were lost with the undeserved winding up of New Territories in 2011.

“We couldn’t have done the international work without the British Council covering the costs of long haul flights," says Anderson. “Creative Scotland (CS) gave us £45,000 to stage BuzzCut, but that would have just melted away as soon as return fares to Australia, let alone Sweden or Berlin, had to be paid for. And we are so aware of how, back in Year One, we wouldn’t even have been speaking to these funders. That £45,000 from CS is the total of all the funding we had for the first four years of the festival.

"But even now, those early days approaches are still very much in place. The accommodation we can offer comes courtesy of supporters living in Glasgow, and we still rely on the goodwill and expertise of our volunteers who are all set to roll out the ‘welcome’ mat at the Pearce Institute.” There’s a chuckle, before Anderson adds: “We’ve been saying BuzzCut is the joke that’s gone too far. But it’s our favourite and our best joke. And the real joke is that we take everything about it totally seriously, including the future planning!”

BuzzCut opens at Pearce Institute, Govan today and runs until Sunday.

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