Photo credit: Julie Hrncirova
BUZZCUT Double Thrills x Dance International Glasgow
Harald Beharie + Pik Kei Wong
7PM - 10PM | 20th // 21st // 22nd MAY 2025 | sliding-scale-ticketed
@ Centre for Contemporary Arts*
350 Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow, G2 3JD
* Collect your tickets & begin the night at the CCA. After the first performance there will be a short walk to The Vic for the second performance. This is a 1 minute walk up a steep hill, there will be audience support staff who are happy to assist.
Access: Highly visual, does not contain text.
Content Notes: The performance contains nudity and explores themes of homophobia.
18+
£9 / 12 / 18 / 23 / 28
BUZZCUT teams up with Dance International Glasgow 2025 for a special edition of Double Thrills!
Harald Beharie - Batty Bwoy
Batty Bwoy is a solo which doesn’t start with a question, or a critique, but from a place of play and desire, entangled in violence and charming cruelty.
Through a reappropriation of the Jamaican term ‘Batty Bwoy’ (literally, butt boy), slang for a queer person, the work twists and turns the myths of the black queer body unfolding vulnerable possibilities in an interplay of consciousness and naivety. Scrutinizing the absurdity of a queer monstrosity, Batty Bwoy articulates through the porosity of bodies and languages, their mouths swallowing and regurgitating the corporal fictions projected onto their skins.
In an odyssey of droning prog-rock, Batty Bwoy attacks and embraces sedimented narratives around the fear of the queer body as a perverse and deviant figure. The expression "Batty Bwoy" is used to evoke an ambivalent creature that exists in the threshold of the precarious body, liberated power, joy, and batty energy! The work has found inspiration in mythologies, disgusting stereotypes, feelings, and fantasies of the queer body and identities, homophobic dancehall lyrics, 70s Giallo films from Italy, resilient queens, and the queer voices in Norway and Jamaica that have visited and taken part in the process.
Credit: Tale Hendnes
Pik Kei Wong - Bird Watching
Fresh from its 5-star triumph at Edinburgh Fringe, this mesmerising solo piece opens with a striking image: a blood-red dress suspended upside-down, obscuring the dancer's face. As the performance unfolds, audiences are compelled to confront their own perceptions of the female form. The piece artfully navigates the complex interplay of desire, cultural norms, and female empowerment, transforming initial discomfort into a profound appreciation of the body's power and presence.
Credit: William Muirhead
Credit: William Muirhead
Artist Bios
Harald Beharie (he/they) is a Norwegian-Jamaican performer and choreographer based in Oslo, Norway. Harald's choreographic practice are collaborative voyages, navigating through realms of ambiguity and phantasm, punctuated by themes of construction and deconstruction, hope and uncertainty, disinterest and emotional intensity. They hold a special interest for the DIY and vulnerability of being in the unknown. In a quest to dissect established corporeal and bodily narratives their work celebrates a spectrum of embodiment ”ranging from the pathetic to the ecstatic, the collapsing to the exuberant, the faltering to the tenacious while fostering a deliberate naivety and queer playfulness. Haralds focus is being with local people, local ideas, and developing ideas with and within the community.
In 2023 Batty Bwoy won the Hedda prize for best dance production.
Pik Kei Wong is a freelance dance creator based in Glasgow, and a member of The Work Room. Having previously worked in the Hong Kong dance scene for 14 years, her move to Scotland in 2023 occurred at a turning point in her creative career amidst the changing socio-political context in Hong Kong. Pik Kei’s work has always explored contentious social issues. Her solo work Bird-Watching explores gender and desire through challenging stereotypical perspectives. The work received an outstanding award in 2018 in Hong Kong and 5 stars (Fringebiscuit) at the 2023 Edinburgh Fringe (Summerhall). As a performer, Pik Kei’s practice is built on strong technical training, particularly in butoh and Tai Chi. She applies mindfulness practices to explore her work beyond physical movements.Her dance footprint covers Iceland, Italy, Spain, Sweden, Austria, Australia, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Malaysia, Singapore and Mainland China. Her latest invitation is from Duke Arts (Duke University, USA), where she will perform her work and teach dance workshops in October 2024.
Credits and Support
Harald Beharie - Batty Bowy
Choreography/Performance: Harald Beharie, Artistic collaborators/sculpture: Karoline Bakken Lund and Veronica Bruce, Composer: Ring van Möbius, Sound designer: Jassem Hindi, Outside eye: Hooman Sharifi, Inés Belli, Producer: Mariana Suikkanen Gomes, Distribution: Damien Valette
Supported by: Kulturrådet, Fond for lyd og bilde, FFUK, Sandnes Municipality, Oslo Municipality, TOU, and the Norwegian Foreign Ministry.
Pik Kei Wong - Bird Watching
Choreographer and Performers: Pik Kei Wong, Composer: Fiona Lee（Premiere）Jasper Fung, Lighting designer: SunFoolLau, Costume designer: Luise Yau, Installation Frame designer: William Muirhead