We are very pleased to help promote The Festival of Ian Smith, a tribute to the late co-founder of Scottish theatre company Mischief La Bas, at the CCA in Glasgow from 31 July to 2 August.

Ian Smith suffered from chronic depression for the last few years of his life and died on 1 August 2014. We are currently working with his widow and company co-founder, Angie Dight, on a Mischief La Bas project for the Scottish Mental Health Arts and Film Festival this October – full details to be announced at our programme launch on 1 September.

The Festival of Ian Smith will mark the first anniversary of his death with a three-day celebration in the whole of the CCA. “He documented his own work throughout his life,” says Angie Dight. “All this material exists because he was proud of what he did. With the festival, I want to show other sufferers that you can honour a person’s life and work regardless of the manner of their death.”

The festival will include a cabaret-style event called Death, curated by Angie, that will weave together live art, music, performance lectures, installation and dark comedy. Hosted by David Hoyle, it will include performances by Mamoru Iriguchi, Pauline Goldsmith, Alan Richardson & Graham Hicks, Harry Wilson, Donna Rutherford, Neil Butler, Chris Biddlecombe & David Trouton, Diane Torr, and the Creative Martyrs. “Western culture doesn’t really acknowledge or celebrate death but I feel that death is not something to shy away from, death is not the end of a person,” says Dight.

Ian Smith had been immersed in performance art for well over a decade before he and Angie created Mischief La Bas in 1992. The company grew to include over 20 performers and a repertoire of 25 street theatre ‘manifestations’, and also attracted many larger commissions – some of the expanded Mischief La Bas team will be performing at Death.

During the festival artefacts from throughout Ian’s career will be on show in various spaces in the CCA – a section of his studio, recreated in the Intermedia Gallery; a display of his many costumes; films themed around his work; and a cinema programme including a new film about Ian directed by his friend and documentary film-maker, Bevis Evans-Teush.

Read more about the Festival of Ian Smith here. 

Read more about Mischief La Bas here.