Adventures in the UK Underground: Exit.Ahead
In a scene flirting with detachment, Exit.Ahead insists on commitment, character and emotional risk.
The question of sincerity in art has been amidst conversations with creative friends for a while now. In amongst small, small writerly circles, I felt a sense of pang towards the material I was engaging with, albeit well written, but lacking in emotion. And not every story needs to be this grandiose declaration of human faith in the face of global trials and domestic issues, of course. Yet when the entire line-up was constructed off of this same tone and style of narrative, then yes, this pang was justified. What was missing was an earnest storytelling that didn’t need to pose as ironic or with a staccato tone to insinuate the narrator’s tedium with life at large, reflecting the audience's internal monologue. I applauded anyway, and when finding myself in conversation with the aforementioned writer, would give a surface level compliment to the work. Now I was a participant in the issue I argued against so much, performing niceties that came from a social obligation rather than a heartfelt truth.
My jadedness with a particular corner on the London literary circuit was met with my interviewee and creator of performance night Exit.Ahead, Arcadia Molinas. The night is a counteragent to pre-expressed woes witnessed, offering a stage for writers, performers, and musicians alike to express themselves in accordance with a set theme. We were to meet at the ICA for 4pm to dissect the conception of the night, as well as her goals with the event and. After watching a film and making myself look occupied for two hours, we met for the first time.
The birth of Exit.Ahead came from a sporadic night put on by Arcadia, encouraging everyone to engage with a suggested theme and seeing what spawns out of a singular concept.
I was hosting the launch of my poetry pamphlet, ‘R’, published by Reference Press and I gave all the invited poets and performers the same brief:, ‘it's going to be road themed’. My entire pamphlet was inspired by the letter R, romance and regret featured heavily in all the poems. Everyone really committed to the theme in a way that I think gave a cohesiveness to the night that made it all feel like one narrative, that was incredibly exciting and compelling. It was like being transported into an entire vision with its own rules and aesthetics. When the event ended, I was high off adrenaline for like a week. So, I decided to start an event series after that.
Thus, Exit.Ahead was born. With the notion of a theme working well within the unofficial inaugural event already under her, Arcadia had her premise for the rest of the nights somewhat established.
I thought about making these events that all took place inside one thematic world. And because it had all started with the road, the idea was that it would continue on a road trip, so all the different events would be pitstops on the journey, places that you could see as roadside attractions: the roadside motel, circus, club, chapel, forest..
A circus-themed night promised performances from a magician, spoken word poetry, from a fire breather and an alcoholic elephant making an appearance to top things off. What makes the night work, in this sense, is the commitment from the performers, bringing their personal interpretations onto the stage and contributing towards the night’s intended vision.
The tightrope walker at the circus event, Arnold Chukwu, is one of my favourites of the entire event’s running. He took a bench and put it in the middle of the stage, and walked up and down it, improvising a poem about living on the edge. It was so powerful because it was so imaginative. It took the idea of being a tight-rope walker and transposed it to a different vocabulary. In that sense, I think the audience knows what to expect when faced with a concept like the circus (clowns, freaks, acrobats), but what they are presented with is an exciting, unexpected interpretation of the traditional, canonical rolest
The line-up is curated with intention, Arcadia reaching out to people who she sees fit into the ethos of Exit Ahead. This is something she is looking to challenge, with an open call announced for the forthcoming event, in hopes of ushering in new voices and people who are willing to challenge themselves.
For the past three events, I've reached out to people myself that I thought could speak to that theme interestingly, from what I know of their work and my interactions with it in the past. For this next one, which is set at ‘The Chapel’ I'm doing a call-out for the first time, in the hopes of getting in contact with artists that I’m not familiar with and expanding my network of collaborators. Exit Ahead is a space for people who are wanting to try something new and put themselves out there and experiment with developing a piece that fits within a theme. Performers have gone on to develop full hour-long performances from ideas they developed for the night. That’s what I’m hoping to offer all performers that step on stage at an Exit Ahead show: a space for novelty, risks, where fun meets deep existential questions of what it is to be alive in modern times.
It’s a display of full commitment to the night’s vision from everyone on board. Stepping up as a devoted host allows Arcadia to usher the night’s programme whilst immersing the audience into the theme by getting involved in the night’s antics herself.
My role during the night is host, I'm in character as well. For the circus, I was the ringleader and had a short performance surrounding the pressures of being a circus director, the challenges of setting up camp as an ambulant performer. At the hotel, I was a nutty concierge obsessed with the constant whisper of voices and stories coming behind the doors of ‘Hotel Silencio’ and at the chapel I’ll be a Charon-esque character guiding the audience through the labyrinthic hallways of Heaven and Hell. My role is to guide the audience and set the scene. I see it as my responsibility to establish the verisimilitude of the night, introducing everyone not as themselves, artists, but as the characters they are performing as. It’s fun, it’s camp, it’s all part of the act.
Being the sole founding member of Exit.Ahead comes with its challenges. The night is not a complete act of solitude. With a trusted graphic designer and a musical collaborator, an unofficial team aids Arcadia in visuals and musical expression.
I do have a lot of collaborators, but the final decisions all fall on me, which I find can be really overwhelming at times. Event hosting is not for the weak. Collaborating is my favourite part of putting on these events. From discovering new artists, giving them platforms, to working with my close musician and designer collaborators, the most satisfying bit is seeing how we all get together to shape the vision of the world.I often collaborate with Nicko Mroczkowksi, who I do a lot of poetry gigs and experimental spoken word & music gigs with. He describes his own taste as having a proclivity for “ weird shit” so he’s always up for being fun and whacky. He’s extremely talented at setting the mood, which is a lot of what the success of Exit AHead hinges on and he’s my partner in life too so it makes involving him a lot easier. I have a graphic designer, Sofía Duato, who also has been with me since the beginning of the w
hole journey. She makes the incredible posters and visuals that are projected on the night. She’s a punk, raver, tattoo-artist with a sharp eye for visuals. They both understand the vision a lot and help me, emotionally as well as creatively.
Exit.Ahead is more than just a performance night,. The night has spawned into even opening for the likes of Sorry at their ICA show back in November. Thus, it exists as an opportunity for expression not only for the performers but for Arcadia herself, as an extension of her writing and performance practice.
The ICA show was scary. It was a big crowd and I felt intimidated by standing in front of all those people and showing them this freaky little thing we were doing. Exit Ahead is very experimental, it’s very narrative-based, very thematic so I wanted to make sure the audience was staying with us as much as possible. We weren’t really the traditional band-openers. For me, as a one-off event, away from the themed series, it opens up a lot of possibilities of how to tease out the possibilities at the heart of Exit Ahead, how to take a theme and rework it so in this case it works for three performers, performing simultaneously. At the ICA, it was Nicko, Samra Mayanja and myself, so we took the idea of ‘tête-a-tête’ based loosely off some themes in the Sorry album, and developed a performance for the three of us from that. I can see that element of it develop where I'd love to do a one woman show for example. I’ve learnt a lot about performing from doing every Exit Ahead event.
Whilst finding a home in Reference Point, there’s a future beyond the library venue. Arcadia has her eyes set on one particular venue to host her night of engaging theatrics once again.
One of my big goals for the event series is to take it to as many venues as possible. I would love to have an Exit Ahead at The Theatre ship. I’d really like to do it there because of the theatrical nature of the event, I feel Theatreship mirrors that theatricality as well as being an absurd, silly, beautiful place.
Absurd, silly, and beautiful pretty much summarises what Arcadia has managed to create with Exit.Ahead. In dispelling tale, incidents and successes within the event series, a sort of magic becomes evident. There’s an energy that pushes past the aforementioned insincerity other reading/performance nights hold, whilst Exit.Ahead demands a commitment and truthfulness to what is being performed as well as an earnestness and honesty from its audience. The extended metaphor of the road has still a lot of pit stops to be explored, and for that, it seems that Arcadia is the perfect leader for the future journeys ahead.