Blood, puke and Foucault

To the Roundhouse last night for Kleinkunst II: The Pleasures of Brutality. This second collaboration between the venue and Central School of Speech and Drama had the thoroughly creditable aim of bringing the performance and academic communities closer together, this time around ideas of disgust, brutality and the grotesque. The results were mixed but intriguing, underlining the importance of the dynamic between cabaret performers and their audience, in this case mostly pensive researchers rather than pissed-up revellers. In the words of Ophelia Bitz – who, with her new band the Tijuana Bibles, delivered a stonking new song about disappointing sex with gorgeous men – "You guys are dry!"

Several performers hit the grotesque and/or brutal nail on the head. It's always a pleasure to see Scottee sicking up in the direction of whatever audience member finds herself unwittingly pinned to him via makeshift tablecloth (see pic) - apologies for head blocking view, though it is Marisa Carnesky's. Carnesky gave a run-down of her recent work highlighting the long history of extreme body-work in European sideshows and carnivals, insisting that whereas some contemporary performers cite exotic ritualistic foundations for their piercings, brandings and the like, "in the Western tradition, it doesn't 'mean' anything." Owen Parry, who as a performer and PhD candidate personified the evening's intended link, delivered a paper on the importance of embracing the essential ridiculousness of performance (it being so ephemeral and all), comparing it the adoption of the term 'queer'. Holding to academic form, he frequently referred to Adam Ant as 'Ant', which was great, and gave a performance involving baby oil, milk, a wet jumper and a ladder that I couldn't make head or tail of. And Marawa, moonlighting from La Clique, hula'ed and discussed her research into Josephine Baker.

Probably the most successful element of the evening was Lucifire's contribution. Her performance with her husband Dave Tusk – nipples pierced and tweaked, blindfolds pinned to faces, blood extracted, shaken with vodka and necked – was not the kind of thing I'm especially partial to. Unlike the camera operator who fainted halfway though, I don't mind it, it just doesn't speak especially loudly to me. But the presentation she delivered afterwards, rivulets of blood caked on either side of her face, was terrific: drawing on 15-odd years of experience, she articulated insightfully but without jargon 'the cathartic process of releasing the inner beast' from outer beauty, the value of the body in the digital age and the consoling fact that "audience adulation is a most effective analgesic".

Impressively curated as the programme was by Central's Jay Stewart and Andrew Lavender, the cabaret night and the symposium didn't always overlap harmoniously – rounding the night off with a timed workshop discussion rather than an invitation to the bar was probably a mistake – but the underlying impulse seems vital. Perhaps next time round a way could be found to improve what Stewart endearingly called "the Foucauldian technology of the space" and encourage academic presentations with elements of performance, or performances showcasing the fruits of research, rather than maintaining a division between the two. Less dry, perhaps.