The Official Unofficial Dada Society is the newest addition to the plethora of student societies at the University of Glasgow. It dedicates itself to the promotion of Dadaism, an avant-garde artistic and cultural movement that emerged as a reaction to the First World War, and though the movement only lasted around five years, its legacy prevails. Now, a group of UofG students hope to continue its work, bringing its values of absurdity, rejection of traditional art norms, and appreciation for the bizarre to campus.
Dada President Briony shares all you need to know about how and why you should get involved…
So, how did you decide to start such a niche society?
It was inspired by one of the classes that I did in third year; we covered the Dada movement and one specific theatre piece by the Dadaists stuck with me. It was called Dada on Trial. Basically, they held a mock trial for Maurice Barrés [a French writer and politician infamous for his conservative and nationalist views], but he never came so they put a dummy on trial, and it was just absurd. It descended into chaos: they gave theatrical and bizarre testimonies, wore costumes, sung, and denounced justice as meaningless. I mean… they were all on drugs. It was a group of people who all felt very lost by this senseless war that was happening, and they felt that if life was going to be pointless, so was art.
[Reflecting for a moment, she adds] I think I just thought, if a group of people can start an art movement in a pub… I can make an Instagram.
Where did you find your board? What was the hiring process?
When I first started, I wasn’t even planning on making it SRC official. I just started posting on Instagram, and people started coming out of the woodworks to offer to help out, but I knew all of them already from other theatre societies.
What was the process of pitching the society to the SRC?
It was surprisingly easy to do, we basically pitched it as “we’re not going to cost much money and also, we’re going to raise money for charity”. We showed them there was a demographic for it, we have 202 followers on Instagram now, which considering it’s a bit of a niche is pretty good…
Do you see yourself collaborating with any other societies?
We’d love to collaborate with filmmaking, since theatre is a big part of Dada, but also the Poetry society. We’d love any poets to write for us who maybe have something a bit weirder, who don’t know where to put it. Dada has been some people’s first time engaging with avant-garde theatre, and we hope to make it more palatable to new eyes, drawing people in and getting them to produce avant-garde performances.
To address the elephant in the room, you call yourself the ‘unofficial’ society, so what happened to the official Dada society?
We call ourselves unofficial because part of Dada is the rejection of establishment;, we don’t want to be official. We had to make ourselves official for SRC registration, which I think probably crushes the values of Dada a bit, so we compromised with the ‘unofficial’.’
What are NOT your intentions as a society?
We’re very new so we haven’t condemned absolutely everything yet… [She gives me a look that suggests they absolutely might] but one thing we definitely do not do is seriousness. Our main goal is to create a creative space for unconventional work; art is often quite elitist, so we wanted to create a space that smashes that elitism in avant-garde performance circles.
Can I ask about your motto (official motto: gggghhhhhhssssd) …. what?
[She laughs] We were inspired by Hugo Ball, one of the original Dada artists. He wrote these poems made up of words and sounds that made no sense, and he would perform them dressed up as a bishop. He couldn’t even move in the costume, so someone had to carry him on and off stage.
You recently had your first successful event, Zurich Night. Can you tell me about it?
Actually, it wasn’t our first successful event. We had the Anti-Social event on the 23rd of February, it was a lot of fun. [She proceeds to show me the post advertising the event, it involved staying home, turning the light on and off in your bathroom, and trying not to think about red wine and ketchup.] But Zurich Night was a lot of fun too! It was on the 24th of September at the Alchemy Experiment, we had an open mic night. People put their names into a fez and we picked them out at random, and they had to get up and spontaneously perform. It sold out, and we raised £150 for Northwest Glasgow Foodbank.
Were there any performances that stood out?
Someone gave a monologue they wrote at 16 in the voice of the shrimp from Shark Tale , that was fun. There were loads of random ones, someone even made their performance a singalong, so everyone had to get involved. We encouraged people to make it as weird and as random as possible. We really want to make Dada a space for people to bring their weirdest, most unconventional work.
Dada is all about rebelling from institutional norms, what’s one rule that you’ve broken?
[She takes some time to think about this] Last summer I was at Tesco, and there was a bit of a kerfuffle happening outside, I think there was a football game on, and a man pushed my friend. I turned to the security guard, and I was like, ‘Are you really not going to help?’ and he told me that he was only there to protect the items, he wasn’t getting involved. In all the drama of this I accidentally stole a block of cheese, I forgot to scan it. [This story is an artistic interpretation of a Dada poem, not a true account of events.]
I understand there’s a duck involved in your society; can you tell me about that?
[Briony looks startled, and then frantic] No there’s not…. I don’t know what you mean. I’ve never seen a duck….
Okay… Do you anticipate any welfare concerns associated with your activities?
[Briony recomposes herself] We’re very happy to have Sam on board making sure everyone’s fine; we always have a sober officer on duty as well. Art is emotional, and Dada is unconventional, raw and honest, so sometimes it can teeter over the line and cross it. Performing can be vulnerable, and we want everyone to feel welcome.
If you had to explain Dada to a reader who has no clue, how would you do it without using any words?
[At this point, Briony erupts into an ‘Ahh’, wiggles her fingers at me and then starts clapping quickly.]
I see… If you had to make a playlist for the Dada society, what three songs would go first?
Ballad of a Thin Man – Bob Dylan, which is basically about a man who keeps asking questions, and the more questions he asks, the weirder the world gets.
And then… Always Look on the Bright Side of Life from Monty Python’s Life of Brian, it was banned in multiple countries for blasphemy. The cast get crucified at the end of the film and they just… start singing this song. It was extremely controversial, but so Dada.
[A longer pause before her next response] And then… I don’t know… Yaya by Beyonce. Why is she there? Good question.
As a self-proclaimed theatre society, can we anticipate any performances?
At the moment we just have Zurich night planned for next semester; we’re still trying to find our audience and demographic, and we’re not just theatre but also art, music and poetry. I think we’ll move in the direction of our audience – ; we don’t have a lot of plans, but everything is possible. How people react to it, and how much effort people want to put into it, will decide what we do. I think a concern for me was that some societies have like… over twenty performances a year and, to me, that’s a full-time job. Dada is not going to be like that, it won’t be strict – when I brought the board on, I made sure they knew that.
What is art to you?
I’m writing my diss on how we’re going to enter the neo avant-garde age. When fascism enters the culture, the response – rather than turning to traditional values like the right wing would want – often swings towards the abstract, the odd. It’s like a pendulum. Art is being in constant argument with everything around you, there’s never a time when everyone’s happy, and when you’re not happy and you have something to say, you make good art. Well… not always in practice, but in theory.
I agree…I’m not sure how linked this is but sometimes I think the response to the response is bigger than to the actual problem itself. It reminds me of the environmental activists who’ve thrown soup at art… people have gotten really angry at this, and I understand but also… climate change is going to be much worse than vandalism.
Yeah, I think soup throwing is avant-garde in itself. I think that’s what Dada is all about, because critics would say ‘well, this is ridiculous’ but the point of Dada was that… awful things were happening, a pointless war was happening. Dadaists were saying no, we’re not ridiculous, everything is ridiculous.
How can we get involved?
Follow us on Instagram (@dada_society_glasgow), sign up as a member (membership is free!) – we’d love more members. We’ve got our next social in December: a screening of Monty Python and the Holy Grail. We’ll also have another Zurich Night in semester two as well, we’d love to see more people come!
Author: Kaitlin Willoughby [she/her]
Image credits:
https://www.aklein.vsfd.hoodmuseum.dartmouth.edu/karawane
https://www.vanvaf.com/post/what-is-dadaism-in-the-art-movement
qmunicatemagazine.co.uk 