1028 ceases "trading"

[valentina culpa]

Glasgow experimental and site-specific theatre group 1028 ceases "trading"
on 31 January 2002.  The company has mounted losses of £40,000 (60,000 EURO)
across ten years' activity. It has received minimal public subsidy.

Under director Ken Davidson, between 1993 and 2001, 1028 produced a series
of nine performances from the novel, Finnegans Wake. 1028 was also active in
promoting emerging artists in Scotland and England and helped establish the
FLY Gallery in Glasgow¹s notorious East End in 1997 - co-producing the
initial gallery website with ezppl, London in 1997.

Presentations on the work of 1028 were given to academics and theatre
practitioners in both the United Kingdom and the Netherlands at conferences
in 1994, 1997 and 1998. The company's work has found imitators on the stage,
in print and elsewhere.

1028¹s most recent public work in Glasgow was Œpast Eve and Adam¹s¹ at
TRAMWAY. Œpast Eve and Adam¹s¹ performed with a cast of nine, a chicken, a
horse and a cat in January 2001.

Other performances by the group have included: c20 BYE BYE, a text for
actors, live cameras and live vision mixer, SCALA, 1999; BANG BANG, a one
minute performance, Street Level 1998 (broadcast on RTBF); NITE CO, a
flashing skyscraper, ISEA98; and JONESTOWN, an eight hour monologue,
National Review of Live Art, 1996.

1028 was best known for the award-winning HERE COMES EVERYBODY at TRAMWAY in
1994 (Finnegans Wake, Chapter 2), and the open air work, HILL, above
Castlemilk, Glasgow on Midsummers Night¹s Eve in 1995 (Finnegans Wake, Book
2).

During 2000, 1028 co-produced a British Council London/Moscow Cultural
Exchange Project with the London Foundry and Moscow Dom ‹ taking 35 Russian
artists to London and 50 London artists to Moscow. The Moscow leg saw
members from the company appear on Russian Channel 1 Television alongside
classified UK military documents and a small arsenal of fireworks.

In Glasgow 1028 has produced a number of artists and projects including:
filmmakers, performance artists, multiple media artists, aerialists,
sculptors, painters, designers, public artists and composers. The majority
of these have now left Scotland for elsewhere.

Projects supported by 1028 outside Glasgow have included (1996-2001): Merlin
Theatre Budapest; London organisations: ARTHROB, The Foundry, The Vibe,
Zaoum Theatre; and (1990 - 1995) the Edinburgh Beltane Fire Festival.


                                                    ‹ Valentina Culpa