2 night pass (£12/£8 concessions) available only direct from greenroom box office: 0161 615 0500

Part One – Thursday 23 April

A gambol through the woes of contemporary culture, from self-help to winning friends and influencing people.

Help Yourself – Ollie Smith/Phoebe Walsh
Ollie and Phoebe urge you to ‘help yourself out of your hole’: a call to arms and a tongue-in-cheek scurry down the self-help aisles of your local bookshop.

You Tube My Face Book – Robin Sidwell

You Tube My Face Book began life one day when I decided not to join Facebook. What does one do with all this time…Thankfully I discovered Radio 4 Podcasts. Yoga and recycling.

This is a performance about trying to stay connected in a world you increasingly do not understand. It’s about being analogue in a digital world, it’s about embracing alienation. It’s about paper and pencils.

This piece is an attempt to take Radio 4 out of it’s natural home and demonstrate how information can be chopped, shaped and represented into something witty and provocative for the live spectator.

I’m also trying to become a master of Yoga in 3 months.

Marlene Dandy One to One Encounters – Annette Foster (Both evenings, limited capacity)
Allow Marlene to envelop you in her backstage world of black feather fans, tutu’s and lingerie. Marlene the one and only bearded ballerina will perform a circus side show just for you.

Part Two – Friday 24 April

Tonight’s showcase is a fragile and delicate study of human movement and the passing of time; and a not-so fragile foray into the world of Weimar cabaret, fan-dancing and carnival sideshow in a transmuted, transgendered bearded burlesque ballet.

A Trillion Oscillations – Guest artist: Stefanie Sachsenmaier
From the ‘Im-Pressions of An-Other’ series
Neither belonging to Dance nor Theatre, yet influenced by her practice of Tai Chi Chuan Sachsenmaier returns with an exploration in movement depicting the inner unfoldings caused by external events.

Steffi doesn’t draw on any ‘ready’ or formalised movement vocabulary. Instead her movement is self-created and abstract, and highly sensually charged. On an energetic level her movement is informed by her rigorous practice of tai chi chuan.

The work uses light and sound as active parameters which the solo figure engages with, and creates a metaphoric world for an individual life in contemporary society, where certain events are encountered by choice, adaptation or rejection.

Transgressions Part 3: Marlene Dandy – Annette Foster
The third part of a trilogy exploring the recent histories of Drag Queens, Drag Kings and Transgender identities. Marlene Dandy is a bearded ballerina redefining traditional notions of femininity. Part circus sideshow, part burlesque dancer and all performed on ballet pointe.

Over the past eleven years Annette Foster has created multimedia solo performance pieces. The content of her work has grown from an autobiographical view of psychological and emotional life to a more curious mix of feminism, identity and sexuality. As a bisexual woman, in a lesbian civil partnership she has a strong interest in gender, sexuality, and difference, with a strong interest in Queer and Gender theory.

Annette has exhibited her work regionally, nationally and internationally including; Arizona, Washington, Chicago, Colorado, in the USA, Nottingham, Leicester, Hull, Derby, Bristol, Manchester, in the UK, Glasgow and Dieppe, France.

Marlene Dandy One to One Encounters – Annette Foster (Both evenings, limited capacity)
Allow Marlene to envelop you in her backstage world of black feather fans, tutu’s and lingerie. Marlene the one and only bearded ballerina will perform a circus side show just for you.

About Method Lab

Method Lab is one of greenroom and hÅb’s co-produced initiatives for emerging artists.

Artists receive a package of support including a small commission, rehearsal space, mentoring, peer support and access to technical resources in order to present the developed piece at the Method Lab showcase in April. Artists are selected through the emergency platform, and must present work at emergency to be eligible for Method Lab selection.