Michael Harding (b.1985) is a London dramatist with a background in hardcore underground music and anthropology. He is making a musical called Removal Men about a security officer from an immigration removal centre who has his life transformed through taking part in therapeutic art workshops after a riot. The musical is set to live house and techno. Below this post you will find a test shot, filmed last November with Jonah Brody of Super Best Friends Club.
For his residency at Anatum’s Abode, Michael is inviting specialists in musical theatre, dramaturgy, radical politics and electronic music to sit down for interviews and improvisation sessions. The purpose is to find out what kind of dramatic expression works over a backdrop of house music – particular rhythms of speech, melodies, lyrics and passages of dialogue. At the same time, he is developing the story – the encounter between a musician and a security officer in a maximum security I.R.C.
On Thursday 15th January, Michael will share some of this research with an audience at Anatum’s, starting at 19.00.