Zorras
Encyclopedia
Zorras are a multimedia troupe based in Edinburgh
, Scotland
. They emerged out of the city’s alternative poetry and music scenes in 2008, and perform at some of Edinburgh’s most renowned counterculture locations and events. Zorras are also part of the queer
, transsexual, transgender
, feminist and crip cultural movements. They create artworks that explore issues of language, sexuality, gender, race, class, mental health and ability.
Zorras’ current members are Sandra Alland
, Y Josephine and Ariadna Battich.
Zorras are most known for their live performances, where they often add video to their fusion of music and poetry. Some of Zorras’ most distinguishing elements are the use of sound poetry
, cajon
and megaphones; they also implement guitar, electric bass, singing, ambient percussion, props and bilingual (English-Spanish) storytelling.
In autumn of 2009, ultimatemetal.com said of Zorras: “A very unique mix of poetry, music, stories and just plain weird. The poetry was sharp and funny, the placement effective, the visuals fitting; a rather unforgettable experience.”
and The F Word (magazine) interviews in 2009, the two artists were taken with each other immediately.
The duo’s debut performance as Zorras was in January 2008 at The Golden Hour at Edinburgh’s Forest Cafe
. Following this event, they began to perform widely throughout the city, including at Itsy's Kabarett (Voodoo Rooms), Cocoon Counter Culture Festival, Bongo Club, Roxy Arthouse, Noisy Nights (Traverse Theatre
) and Edinburgh Queer Mutiny
. They often work with Equality Network to give artist talks and performances at various Scottish LGBT
events.
Zorras co-founded the multimedia queer and trans cabaret, Cachín Cachán Cachunga, in 2009, with Ania Urbanowska and Lily. It has run for two years as a monthly and then a quarterly performance event in Edinburgh. Scotland’s The List (magazine) describes it as “Something of a phenomenon”.
Zorras produced a CD in July 2009 (We Apologise For Any Inconvenience), which was highlighted in San Francisco's Curve (magazine)
in their January/February 2010 issue: “…a more experimental take on spoken word performance than your average word-spitter. Zorras deliver their musical stories bilingually, mixing text, sound poetry, percussion, guitar, megaphones, singing and projected visual images. They are still interesting on CD, mixing it up between more musical numbers like the guitar-folk 'Nest' and more radio-dramatized pieces like 'Here's To Wang." I personally love the 'In the Details' spoken interludes, humorous musings on the idiosyncrasies of the Bulgarian language.”
Another U.S. magazine, the on-line AfterEllen.com
, said of them in March 2011: "(Zorras) do a great job of injecting humor into their poetry and are the first spoken-word group to have actually captured my interest."
In 2009 Zorras also began to work with photographer and video artist, Ariadna Battich, who helped to elevate their work to a new level of integrated performance. Battich and Alland create photos and videos for live performances; Battich is particularly adept at stop-motion.
Throughout 2009 and 2010, Zorras’s reputation grew in London
, Manchester
and Glasgow
. Soho Theatre
presented their work as part of a co-production with Oxford Playhouse and Chroma Journal in 2009. Zorras also featured at London’s Bar Wotever, Farrago Poetry, Ladyfest
, GFest – gayWise LGBT Arts Festival and Incite.
Zorras made their debut in Manchester in 2010-11 at Pussy Whipped and Debt Records Presents. In September 2010, Ste McCabe
from Dandelion Radio
said of them: “My favourite Edinburgh music duo, full-stop”.
In Glasgow Zorras have presented work at The Arches (Glasgow)
, Initial Itch (Flatrate Theatre), Words Per Minute and Aye Write!
.
Alland and Josephine have been featured in several literary anthologies in Scotland and Canada
, most notably with Montreal
’s Matrix Magazine and Toronto
’s press press press in 2010.
Albums
Anthologies and Magazines
Edinburgh
Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...
, Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
. They emerged out of the city’s alternative poetry and music scenes in 2008, and perform at some of Edinburgh’s most renowned counterculture locations and events. Zorras are also part of the queer
Queer
Queer is an umbrella term for sexual minorities that are not heterosexual, heteronormative, or gender-binary. In the context of Western identity politics the term also acts as a label setting queer-identifying people apart from discourse, ideologies, and lifestyles that typify mainstream LGBT ...
, transsexual, transgender
Transgender
Transgender is a general term applied to a variety of individuals, behaviors, and groups involving tendencies to vary from culturally conventional gender roles....
, feminist and crip cultural movements. They create artworks that explore issues of language, sexuality, gender, race, class, mental health and ability.
Zorras’ current members are Sandra Alland
Sandra Alland
Sandra Alland is an Edinburgh Scottish-Canadian writer, multimedia artist, small press publisher, performer and activist. She has published two collections of poetry, Proof of a Tongue and Blissful Times...
, Y Josephine and Ariadna Battich.
Zorras are most known for their live performances, where they often add video to their fusion of music and poetry. Some of Zorras’ most distinguishing elements are the use of sound poetry
Sound poetry
Sound poetry is an artistic form bridging between literary and musical composition, in which the phonetic aspects of human speech are foregrounded instead of more conventional semantic and syntactic values; "verse without words"...
, cajon
Cajón
A cajón is a box-shaped percussion instrument originally from Peru, played by slapping the front face with the hands.-Origins and evolution:...
and megaphones; they also implement guitar, electric bass, singing, ambient percussion, props and bilingual (English-Spanish) storytelling.
In autumn of 2009, ultimatemetal.com said of Zorras: “A very unique mix of poetry, music, stories and just plain weird. The poetry was sharp and funny, the placement effective, the visuals fitting; a rather unforgettable experience.”
Background
Sandra Alland and Y Josephine met in November 2007 at Who’s Your Dandy, a queer and trans literary event founded by Alland in Edinburgh and given a 4-star review by The Skinny (magazine) in December 2007. Alland was reading her poetry at the event, and Josephine was singing and playing cajon with the (now-defunct) Contrabajo. According to Diva (magazine)Diva (magazine)
Diva is a leading lesbian magazine in the United Kingdom. It was launched in 1994 by Millivres Prowler Group Ltd., who also produce the Gay Times. The current editor is Jane Czyzselska, who was promoted to the position in 2004. It includes many articles dedicated to lesbian and bisexual social...
and The F Word (magazine) interviews in 2009, the two artists were taken with each other immediately.
The duo’s debut performance as Zorras was in January 2008 at The Golden Hour at Edinburgh’s Forest Cafe
Forest Cafe
The Forest, also referred to as Forest Café, was an independent social centre and arts centre located on Bristo Place, central Edinburgh, Scotland.It was notable for being run by volunteers as a charitable self-sustaining not-for-profit...
. Following this event, they began to perform widely throughout the city, including at Itsy's Kabarett (Voodoo Rooms), Cocoon Counter Culture Festival, Bongo Club, Roxy Arthouse, Noisy Nights (Traverse Theatre
Traverse Theatre
The Traverse Theatre is a theatre in Edinburgh, Scotland. It was founded in 1963.The Traverse Theatre commissions and develops new plays or adaptations from contemporary playwrights. It also presents a large number of productions from visiting companies from across the UK. These include new plays,...
) and Edinburgh Queer Mutiny
Queer Mutiny
Queer Mutiny is an anarchist Queer organization. There are branches in Edinburgh, London, Brighton, Bristol, Cardiff and Leeds in the United Kingdom....
. They often work with Equality Network to give artist talks and performances at various Scottish LGBT
LGBT
LGBT is an initialism that collectively refers to "lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender" people. In use since the 1990s, the term "LGBT" is an adaptation of the initialism "LGB", which itself started replacing the phrase "gay community" beginning in the mid-to-late 1980s, which many within the...
events.
Zorras co-founded the multimedia queer and trans cabaret, Cachín Cachán Cachunga, in 2009, with Ania Urbanowska and Lily. It has run for two years as a monthly and then a quarterly performance event in Edinburgh. Scotland’s The List (magazine) describes it as “Something of a phenomenon”.
Zorras produced a CD in July 2009 (We Apologise For Any Inconvenience), which was highlighted in San Francisco's Curve (magazine)
Curve (magazine)
Curve is a lesbian magazine in the United States. It covers news, politics, social issues, and includes celebrity interviews and stories on entertainment, pop culture, style, travel, and a website that hosts an internet forum focusing on lesbian issues, active since 2000.The magazine was first...
in their January/February 2010 issue: “…a more experimental take on spoken word performance than your average word-spitter. Zorras deliver their musical stories bilingually, mixing text, sound poetry, percussion, guitar, megaphones, singing and projected visual images. They are still interesting on CD, mixing it up between more musical numbers like the guitar-folk 'Nest' and more radio-dramatized pieces like 'Here's To Wang." I personally love the 'In the Details' spoken interludes, humorous musings on the idiosyncrasies of the Bulgarian language.”
Another U.S. magazine, the on-line AfterEllen.com
AfterEllen.com
AfterEllen.com, founded in April 2002, is a website that focuses on the portrayal of lesbian and bisexual women in the media. AfterElton.com, its brother site for gay and bisexual men, was launched in January 2005. The websites were founded by Sarah Warn, who initially served as the editor in...
, said of them in March 2011: "(Zorras) do a great job of injecting humor into their poetry and are the first spoken-word group to have actually captured my interest."
In 2009 Zorras also began to work with photographer and video artist, Ariadna Battich, who helped to elevate their work to a new level of integrated performance. Battich and Alland create photos and videos for live performances; Battich is particularly adept at stop-motion.
Throughout 2009 and 2010, Zorras’s reputation grew in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, Manchester
Manchester
Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...
and Glasgow
Glasgow
Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland and third most populous in the United Kingdom. The city is situated on the River Clyde in the country's west central lowlands...
. Soho Theatre
Soho Theatre
Soho Theatre is a theatre in the eponymous Soho district of the City of Westminster. It presents new works of theatre, together with comedy and cabaret....
presented their work as part of a co-production with Oxford Playhouse and Chroma Journal in 2009. Zorras also featured at London’s Bar Wotever, Farrago Poetry, Ladyfest
Ladyfest
Ladyfest is a community-based, not-for-profit global music and arts festival for female artists that features bands, musical groups, performance artists, authors, spoken word and visual artists, films, lectures, art exhibitions and workshops; it is organized by volunteers. The first ever Ladyfest...
, GFest – gayWise LGBT Arts Festival and Incite.
Zorras made their debut in Manchester in 2010-11 at Pussy Whipped and Debt Records Presents. In September 2010, Ste McCabe
Ste McCabe
Ste McCabe is a British DIY, queercore singer, songwriter and radio DJ. He is currently based in Edinburgh, Scotland, UK.- Career :...
from Dandelion Radio
Dandelion Radio
Dandelion Radio is an internet radio station founded in June 2006 with the aim of pursuing the musical legacy of the popular and influential BBC Radio 1 disk jockey John Peel...
said of them: “My favourite Edinburgh music duo, full-stop”.
In Glasgow Zorras have presented work at The Arches (Glasgow)
The Arches (Glasgow)
The Arches is a bar, arts venue, theatre, live music venue and nightclub in Glasgow, Scotland, which first opened in 1991. It is a not-for-profit organisation...
, Initial Itch (Flatrate Theatre), Words Per Minute and Aye Write!
Aye Write!
Aye Write is a book festival which takes place in Glasgow in late February or early March. As of 2007 it is an annual fixture.-History:The first Aye Write festival was in 2005...
.
Alland and Josephine have been featured in several literary anthologies in Scotland and Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, most notably with Montreal
Montreal
Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...
’s Matrix Magazine and Toronto
Toronto
Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...
’s press press press in 2010.
Works
Performance Works- "Found In Translation" (2009) (Soho Theatre, produced by Oxford Playhouse and Chroma Journal)
Albums
- "We Apologise For Any Inconvenience" (2009) (Minor Assault Records)
Anthologies and Magazines
- "Crisis Book: An Anthology Thing" (2010) (press press press, Toronto)
- "Matrix Magazine: New Feminisms" (2010) (Matrix Magazine online) featuring songs "After Going Out" and "After the Phone Call"
- "Maricón 1" (2009)
- "Maricón 2" (2009)