The Arches 10 Year Anniversary Party

Deeming Dreaming 30 Years- Post 10

#DeemingDreaming30Years 30 Years of Working, 30 Posts -Day 10

Pictured 10 Year Anniversary Party Performance The Arches Director Katherine Morley

Physical theatre piece performed on a  raised platform in the midst of the club night.  As the picture suggests it was mental and it was brilliant.

I came to Glasgow 11 January 2000 to earn my Masters Degree in Drama (Acting) from the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama (now the Royal Conservatoire).  At the time I thought I would be here a year for my course and then return to Philadelphia to continue working.  In Philly I felt my artistic life had stagnated and looked forward to infusing my life and artistry with a year making work, and studying through the Academy.  What I wasn’t prepared for was the sheer electric force Glasgow had.  Man, Glasgow was thrilling in those days and the Arches was the epicentre.  

Andy Arnold had a bit of brilliance, coupled with luck in his model of working, wherein The Arches Club would host some of the most spectacular club nights globally with thousands flooding in through it’s doors making a sensible enough profit to have a theatre company alongside it.  I think it was this commerical/public model that gave it immense freedom to allow artists, like me, to ‘do stuff’.  It was a place of genuine experimentation because it was and could be informal. 

I was always heightened to the fact that ‘the arts’ largely reached a small amount of people.  I was (and am ironically) increasingly frustrated with the use of working models that only met certain people.  I was also aware of a kind of ‘shutting down’ I noticed societally. Looking back I can see the atomisation of society had seeds to this time, the hyper individualism above all else.  And people not connecting across divides.  But Glasgow, oh Glasgow, you were awesome.  Back then, there was a kind of ‘fuck it’ anything can happen vibe.  

I did a lot under those arches in the start of the millennia.  Then as leadership changed, as priorities changed, things became formalised.  Ironically as more public funding came in, less experimentation ensued, in my opinion.  A professionalism was brought in.  Agendas needed to be met.  Virtue needed to be represented.  And with that the Arches closed. 

Glasgow doesn’t have a patch on those early days.  Nothing lasts forever, but oh how glad I was to be part of that.