Fierce Festival

Fierce Festival is a well-​programmed, well-​organised and produced festival of, essentially, weird performance art.
There’s always plenty of nudity, general randomness, inexplicable happenings and boundary pushing — but that’s the point of the avant-​garde, n’est pas? I’m glad that Birmingham has the Fierce Festival — it kind of flies in the face of the potentially boring, grey, industrial reputation that Birmingham sadly holds. It’s also brave, never dull and occasionally quite outstanding — although mixed among general uncomfortableness. But again, that’s the point of pushing boundaries isn’t it? Art was never supposed to just make us comfortable. So good for Fierce, and long may she continue.

I think Birmingham must be one of the greatest cities in developing some of the most pioneering weirdest festivals in the UK; And Fierce have to be the leaders of this madness. Their combination of live art happens every March/​April for around a week, and they find ways of making daring audience members risk it all, to experience some of the strangest events ever imaginable.
This year seemed to top it all off for me, as I witnessed a bare-​breasted lady dressed as a mermaid eating raw fish and throwing it at the audience, which was highly disturbing and uncomfortable. But of course, that’s exactly what Fierce is all about, they want to see how far they can take their audience.
This year’s line up also included a Holy Mountain Party, which was right up my street. Not only am I a massive fan of the bizarre cult 70s classic The Holy Mountain, I also wanted to see exactly how Fierce would deal with creating live inspiration out of such an obscure movie. With bum painting in one room, and fire walking in another, Fierce certainly did it justice.
So if you’re getting bored of seeing generic shows and feel the need to explore your artistic boundaries, then Fierce is perfect for you.

I like that Fierce exists — I acknowledge that it fills a niche, and that pushing boundaries is *part* of the job of the arts. That said, I’m not entirely sure it’s a festival for me.
A running joke some of my friends and peers share is how long it takes us to walk around Fierce before we’ll encounter any naked female (hairy) genitalia. And each year, without fail, there it is. Flailing in front of us. The warehouse spaces they use add to the dislocation between performer and audience, and whilst some may feel this is the very ethos of ‘fierce’ and explains the title, I wonder how many years you can do similar artschool-​esque performances, claiming it’s pushing boundaries, before you finally try something new?
My knowledge and interests lie much more with visual art than performance, so perhaps I simply don’t «get it». Or maybe next year, there’ll be something that takes my breath away. Time will tell.