SparkFest 2021 Brochure

10 MAY - 19 JUNE 2021

Welcome to Welcome to SparkFest This is an invitation to celebrate the creative work from students, alumni, partners and our collaborators across the School of Music and Performing Arts at Bath Spa University, produced by the School’s own production company Bath Spa Productions in partnership with Bath Festivals.

It’s been a challenging year, for each and everyone of us and in many different ways, but when you need hope, new ideas, joy, reflection, purpose or just a big belly laugh! ...then our Artists step up and that’s what SparkFest is about, and here are 6 weeks of it.

This year we are embracing familiar and new spaces to perform, whether that is The Egg, or Mozilla Hubs, Echoes or Widcombe Social Club, the Ustinov or YouTube, Zoom or Holburne Museum Gardens and of course our own beautiful Amphitheatre at Newton Park Campus. We are offering live and digital experiences throughout the festival, we invite you to watch our performances, participate in our workshops and debate in our panel events.

We make it with our talent, our passion, skill and determination, but most of all we make it for you. Please come and join us.

How to book Visit www.bathspalive.com for all details.

These shows will be available to view on demand (no booking required) from their published released date and time.

These shows will be shown on Youtube premiere, booking will be required and a link will be sent to you.

These shows will be only shown once.

Help empower and support our young Sparkfest performers and creatives to forge forward in their professional careers. See page 33 for more details.

These shows will be live events, booking for these shows is essential and please book groups in permitted bubbles.

Go to the show on www.bathspalive.com and download the event link.

@sparkfest_bath @bathspalive @sparkfestbath

SparkFest & Bath Spa Productions SparkFest is the largest and most ambitious project produced by Bath Spa Productions throughout the year. It’s guiding principle is to champion the work of all the artists who participate in the festival. However SparkFest offers more than a stage to showcase work, through our 2021 programme we are offering: Artist Support Our NewSparks initiative runs throughout the festival. This fundraising platform asks for your donation to support the creatives of the future and their work.

Watch out for our links throughout the festival.

Artist Development Our range of workshops offer you everything from mindfulness, working on digital gaming platforms to finding your authentic voice. Also make sure you catch our scratch night, platforming new developing work. See our website for full details.

Artist Perspectives We have invited our associate producers, industry partners and collaborators to programme a range of talks that explore and champion the voices and visions of the artist that will rebuild and reshape our creative industry. From the early career to the established professional we are looking to the future together.

See www.sparkfest.co.uk for full details of this programme

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10 MAY - 19 JUNE 10AM FREE

Bath Mindfulness Trail Bath Mindfulness Trail is an intimate sensory experience that will take you on a journey to reconnect with your senses, nature and the present moment through simple audio guided mindfulness exercises. Specially designed soundscapes will accompany your walk.

You will need to bring your smartphone with access to data and a set of headphones.

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10 MAY - 16 JUNE 10AM FREE (BOOKING REQUIRED) MOZILLA HUBS

Haydn Space Opera A performance inside a notebook, fragments of score, the sounds of the rehearsal studio, coffee on loop. Welcome to HAYDN SPACE OPERA, a piece which uses composition and performance creation as its materials. Taking place in browser-based online virtual reality, your exploration of the spaces of the piece creates your own unique mix of sounds including scraps of conversation, experiments and performances by Bastard Assignments. What will you find inside the composer’s notebook?

10 MAY 12PM FREE

Misha’s Micro-Operas Misha’s Micro-Operas are miniature voice and video works that embrace a landscape of glassy skyscrapers, speeding highways, urban rivers, and blooming wildflowers. Singer and composer Misha Penton has been creating a collection of micro-operas over the past year and her works speak to the fleeting and beautiful moments in our everyday lives.

11 MAY 10AM FREE

INTERACTIVE WEBSITE 11 MAY 12PM FREE

12 MAY 10AM FREE

Freak Show

Queer Spaces

Rhyfel

Freak shows are not all bright and shiny, like The Greatest Showman might make it look.

In this short feature, we wish to show you what the freak show experience was like for the performers. Here at Runt of the Litter, we have created our puppets based on physical and mental deformities that we have, and what is seen as normal today, would’ve put us in a freak show itself.

We ask you to watch the freaks and see their emotions, experiences, etc. We also want you to question your own definition of ‘freak’ and to feel that there is no shame in being different.

Queer Spaces is a digital theatre piece about spaces we inhabit and queerness.

Do you like crying selfies? Fun music? Overwhelming visual collages? Explore the different virtual rooms filled with poetry, music, animations and an overall sense of both loneliness and love.

Your name is unknown.

Your deed is immortal.

In the last days of the war, a war-torn soldier tries to outrun his past and survive the present - but will his future be haunted forever?

BOOK AT WWW.BATHSPALIVE.COM

A short film by Aaron May.

Recommended 12+

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13 MAY 10AM FREE

14 MAY 10AM FREE

Eternally Chained Unconsciously Conscious Our piece is an exploration of survivors’ guilt and mental health illnesses related to post traumatic stress disorder.

We have been inspired by the true events of the 1972 plane crash in Argentina, where the survivors were forced into cannibalism to survive. Our puppets will follow similar events demonstrating the deterioration in their mental state during and following the event. The piece is aimed at anyone who is interested in knowing more about PTSD, survivors’ guilt, Wendigo psychosis and imposter syndrome.

Recommend 15+

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Let’s address the elephant in the room.

We all get inside our heads sometimes, and those voices love to chat. So let’s give them the platform they really desire. A bickering old married couple’s worth of little you’s running operations, talking you through every thought, feeling, ambition, memory and action. This pairing, going by the names of Optimism and Pessimism, will be your guides on a geolocated audio experience around the city of Bath.

So, shoes on, headphones in.

Let’s have a chat.

14 MAY 6PM | 24 MAY 7PM | 11 JUNE 8PM £3

Me ‘Ansum “What if we’re not reading it wrong? We’re just queer.”

Meet Saff and Bella - two students who seem to have some sort of chemistry.

But how can you tell if she’s flirting with you or just being friendly?

Following their success at Norwich Fringe Festival, Blonde Boss Theatre Co. presents a story about ladies, love and life in Somerset.

14 MAY 7PM | 24 MAY 8PM | 10 JUNE 8PM £6.50

Superspreader: Sex in Lockdown ‘Since national lockdowns confined the world to their homes, navigating the dating scene has been changed dramatically. We have interviewed a series of people, committed to experiencing close human contact, in a world requiring a 2metre distance. Join us, as we watch 6 individuals negotiate romance within a global pandemic.’

BOOK AT WWW.BATHSPALIVE.COM

15 MAY 10AM FREE

A Magician Named Curly Coming from a long line of magicians the pressure is on as Curly enters the local talent show to perform the greatest magic trick known to man.

Suitable for all the family Let’s Be Frank Productions presents this one-man short film comedy that tells the story of A Magician Named Curly.

16 MAY 10AM | 23 MAY 10AM £5 (£3 BSU STUDENT) BOOKING REQUIRED FOR LINK

Othello A Shakespearean Social Media Scavenger Hunt Watch first hand as influencers lose their power and puppeteers are unmasked in Othello Online. Who is the real influencer? We’ve taken Shakespeare’s story of love, jealousy, and deceit and put it on all your favourite social media platforms. Get your invite into the world of Othello Online and piece together the ongoing drama in the weeks to come as the scavenger hunt unfolds across Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Snapchat. Who will show their true colours first? Will you discover when loyalties are broken?

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13 | 14 | 15 MAY 8PM FREE (BOOKING REQUIRED)

Third Space Third Space 2021 is the annual Bath Spa Dance degree shows. This year’s programme includes 20 new live performances, presentations and short dance films. Art offers a powerful way for us to use our imaginations to be able to explore, question and re-present the world around us. This year’s emerging artists have worked in extraordinary circumstances in order to be able to demonstrate the creative potential of dance. We hope you enjoy the work.

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15 MAY 7PM | 16 MAY 2PM £8 (BSU STUDENT £6)

Mother Tongue “And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech.”

Six god-like beings sit on high, reading us their greatest work, as two groups of people unwittingly race towards a downfall of their own creation. Combining the epic and sci-fi, comedy and poetry, Mother Tongue is an atmospheric reimagining of the origin story of Babel.

Bath Spa Productions and The Wardrobe Ensemble present: Mother Tongue; an epic story of human connection, communication and aspiring above your station. In this devised show the company combines the silly and the sublime, the celestial and pedestrian in a cautionary tale about pushing moral boundaries and playing God. Mother Tongue will be streamed as live for a completely online audience. Book your ticket now to watch this thought provoking piece staged in The Forum Bath’s very own beautiful Art Deco auditorium.

BOOK AT WWW.BATHSPALIVE.COM

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17 MAY 10AM FREE

Manic Melissa.2009 arrives to her spoken word set to see her ex-partners in the audience.

How awkward. Manic is a solo performance piece about bad sex featuring poetry, puppets and of course Grey’s Anatomy.

17 MAY 6PM | 27 MAY 7PM | 8 JUNE 7PM £5 (BSU STUDENT £3)

Sugar, Honey, Ice, Tea Sugar, Honey, Ice, Tea is a collection of monologues from differing perspectives of those dealing with domestic abuse. It is a brutally honest depiction of small snippets of life, real life. Sugar, Honey, Ice, Tea is a collage of emotions collated from friends and family, hoping to show how normal it is and how abnormal covering it up should be.

20% of ticket proceeds from this show will be going to the charity Refuge (www.refuge. org.uk) This charity supports victims in finding refuge against domestic violence in the UK.

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17 MAY 7PM FREE

Acting Showcase 1 The first in a series of short films created by our graduating acting students. The final year students have been tasked with exploring the collaborative process of making a new performance piece, either from an existing text or an entirely new work.

18 MAY 10AM FREE

18 MAY 6PM | 4 JUNE 7PM £3

Home Sweet

The Seven Stages of Women

Is home really where the heart is?

Home Sweet is a short film that looks into the symbiotic relationships that we have with our living spaces. The past 12 months have seen a huge increase in the amount of time we have spent with and in our homes. Will this period make us increasingly content in and dependent on our own space? Will we desire time apart?

Will we eventually seek out the freedoms we’ve learned not to miss?

BOOK AT WWW.BATHSPALIVE.COM

This work follows the journey of a woman from birth, through happy childhood years and teenage anxiety, to leaving home and becoming independent.

There are seven songs with each a particular character – for example, babyhood has its lullaby, childhood a polka, and retirement is a tango. It is written for Narrator, Two Singers, Flute, Clarinet and Viola.

18 MAY SPOT THEM THROUGH THE FESTIVAL FREE

The Travellers The Travellers have arrived!

Meet them at one of our live events. A street theatre experience presented by The Last Hurrah Theatre Company.

In the future, Bath has changed. Dazzled by the light, the Travellers have emerged from the vortex into a strange world - their past - our present.

Come and chat to The Travellers to see crazed, cobbled-together costumes, hear strange stories, and listen to wondrous tales of Old and New.

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18 MAY 7:30PM WIDCOMBE SOCIAL CLUB £5 (BSU STUDENTS £3)

Make it Worse A deliciously chaotic comedy sketch show ensemble.

Make it Worse! Bath Spa’s seven Comedy graduates invite you to the first sketch show in Bath since the lockdown. With a fly on the wall experience of what truly happens behind the curtain in a sketch show. Because when seven comedy graduates with conflicting personalities are tasked with putting together a show it all goes wrong. So what can they do? Make it Worse!

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19 MAY 10AM FREE

BSU Student Union Music Society The Music Society at Bath Spa University is a collaborative group of individuals who love music. Despite the fact we haven’t been able to rehearse in person due to the coronavirus pandemic, we have worked together digitally over the last few months to create a music video/style cover. Here we present a cover of ‘Dark Necessities’ by the Red Hot Chilli Peppers; performed, arranged and edited by our society members.

19 MAY 12PM WIDCOMBE SOCIAL CLUB £25 (£20 CONCESSIONS)

Authentic Voice and Making Solo Work (workshop) Join David Glass for a half day intensive workshop on developing a solo theatre practice. Participants will explore aspects of the imagery, narratives, physical, spoken language and theatre language so that students and educators will get a chance to explore and reflect on his research around the themes of birth, grief, madness and show business.

Booking details on website

19 MAY 6PM | 6 JUNE 7PM | 15 JUNE 7PM £5 (£3 BSU STUDENTS)

Aunt Flo’s School for Girls Have you done your homework?

Aunt Flo’s School for Girls is an exemplary online sketch show, with a vast curriculum covering Hysterical History, Biology: Myths and Medical fact, Theatre studiesspecialising in Period drama, English Cliterature: a rare exploration into female pleasure, Modern Languages for Men: how to appropriately speak to women and Art and Design: understanding and appreciating the female form.

BOOK AT WWW.BATHSPALIVE.COM

19 MAY 7:30PM WIDCOMBE SOCIAL CLUB £5

20 MAY 10AM FREE

Honeycomb Groove

The Monstrous Feminine

Mazaratee and Shooga Bloom reopen the season of live concerts with an evening of back to back headlined performances. Shooga Bloom are a contemporary female fronted R&B band dishing out sweet soul music, with lyrics promoting equality, truth and power. Their music joins Jacob Collier and Celeste with unexpected melodies and strong grooves. Mazaratee “amazes for the energy he is able to release” - MTV. He draws inspiration from the world of rock ’n’ roll and glamour which manifests through an electrifying flare in style, a result of his mix between Prince, Lenny Kravitz and Elvis.

This performance is an explorative piece using puppets to highlight the monstrosity that people see in women and question why this is happening. It explores the stigmas women face every day in society and asks why natural occurrences are perceived as monstrous.

Our monsters play into the stigmas and face up to the stereotypes they have to live with.

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20 MAY 7:30PM WIDCOMBE SOCIAL CLUB £8 - £6 CONCESSION | £5 BSU STUDENT

Silence Directors are either arseholes or pains in the arse and Wilson Speculum is both.

He’s also the most talented, brilliant and successful Avant Garde Theatre Director to have ever graced the planet but now Speculum’s days are numbered.

21 MAY 10AM FREE

Submersed Submersed is screendance that reflects on the possible future scenarios of sea level rises. A visually exciting, poignant work that explores the idea of becoming submersed - as many communities now and in the future face this due to climate change.

22 MAY 6:30PM HOLBURNE (OUTSIDE) £5 (BSU STUDENT £3)

Nhair Conny can’t get her garden to grow. She’s tried everything, but all that’s there is soil. And honestly? It’s starting to piss her off. Couple that with a struggling career, a less-thanthrilling sex life, and being a small, broke, chubby girl in her twenties, and Conny’s having a pretty sh*t time.

Oh. And she’s also really hairy.

Conny Hancock and Greedy Pig Theatre Company join forces for a hilarious, empowering and brutally honest ode to self-love in this R&D of ‘Nhair’, coming to Sparkfest 2021.

The performance will be followed by a Q&A.

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22 MAY 10AM FREE

22 MAY 10AM FREE

Musical Theatre Time Travel

A Moving Grove

Ever wondered about the journey of how Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals inspired the creation of shows such as Hamilton and Les Misérables? This performance will be a display of all things Musical Theatre and how the art form has progressed from the 1960’s all the way to today! It has something for everyone whether you enjoy classical or modern musical theatre, you’ll have a chance to learn about the context of each show featured…

BOOK AT WWW.BATHSPALIVE.COM

Mischief in the Woods What’s going on in Bath’s historic Victoria Park?

Characters have escaped from two Shakespeare plays. Is this a dream of midsummer with witches - or a Scottish nightmare with a donkeyheaded man? Or both?

Does the wood move?

Or will it move you?

Explore and enjoy the mystery …

New Bristol-based company Fire & Air Theatre invites you to follow this geolocated audio trail on your smartphone or tablet, via the Echoes app.

22 MAY 2PM | 23 MAY 2PM HOLBURNE (OUTSIDE) FREE

Lazy on the Lawn Join us on the back lawn of the majestic Holburne Museum and soak up a feat of musical and performance treats. From mellow Jazz to moving cello concertos which will entertain the garden visitors. SparkFest provides an afternoon of free music and performance in what was once the pleasure gardens of Bath, sit back, relax and let the vibes flow over you.

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23 MAY 6:30PM HOLBURNE (OUTSIDE) £6 | £5

Painting by Numbers Three incompetent painters - Isaac, Piotr and Damien - challenge each other to create a masterpiece, with the winner having their method of painting declared the best.

But soon, cracks start to show, and paint begins to spill. In their efforts to win (through ANY means necessary), they will tear their work, the stage, and each other apart... with disastrous (and hilarious) consequences.

Prepare yourself for exhilarating paint fights, riotous dance routines and unforgettable high stakes LIVE painting!

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31 MAY 7PM FREE

Acting Showcase 2 The second evening of short films created by our graduating acting students. The final year students have been tasked with exploring the collaborative process of making a new performance piece, either from an existing text or an entirely new work.

1 JUNE 10AM FREE MOZILLA HUBS

Echoes Echoes - a 4D audio exhibition - an eclectic programme of five stylistic pieces including electronic lofi, ambient orchestral and dark Jazz, taking place in an online specialised environment. Accompanied by a selection of vibrant visuals, complementing the sounds you hear and enhancing the multi-sensory experience.

28 MAY 7:30 | 29 MAY 1PM USTINOV £3

Club Supreme The ULTIMATE roadshow, a group of “exceptional” people, demonstrating the untapped POTENTIAL that we all have to reach the kind of PERFECTION we desire: body, mind and lifestyle all operating at optimum levels.

Through the generous support of the WORSHIPFUL MASTER and their team of PERSONAL ASSISTANTS begin to explore CLUB SUPREME’S PERSONAL ENHANCEMENT PROGRAMME and develop a sense of YOUR POTENTIAL and the chance to become the club’s next CITIZEN, living full time in the CLUB SUPREME luxury caravan.

Club Supreme is the brainchild of Ramshacklicious, brought to life collaboratively with Bath Spa Productions, Natural Theatre Company and with support from Nordland Visual Theatre. Ramshacklicious creates high quality, subversive, contemporary theatrical experiences. Blending live music, physical theatre, clowning, story telling, puppetry and innovative design to take unsuspecting audiences on anarchic journeys into the unexpected! www.club-supreme.com Booking at www.theatreroyal.org.uk BOOK AT WWW.BATHSPALIVE.COM

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1 | 2 | 3 | 4 JUNE 12PM FREE MOZILLA HUBS BOOKING REQUIRED FOR LINK

Odyssey ‘Odyssey’ aims to provide audience members an opportunity to virtually explore sound in Mozilla Hubs. Each piece manipulates the online format to provide a different and contrasting experience for the audience - from open world gaming inspired VR, to virtual nature walks, to simulated multimedia exhibitions.

This is a 4 day event, to book each day visit the website.

1 | 2 | 3 JUNE 7PM KOMEDIA £6 LIVE | £3 STREAMING

Sound Out Festival Sound Out Festival will showcase the best emerging talent the South-West has to offer. This year we’re working in collaboration with SparkFest to bring you an event you don’t want to miss.

The shows will take place at Komedia- one of the city’s most prestigious venues. We will be following the latest Covid-19 guidelines and performances will also be available through a ticketed live stream.

Presented by Bath Spa Commercial music.

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2 JUNE 8PM FREE

Plus and Minus New pieces by MA composers conceived for remote performance. Working with Plus Minus Ensemble, the composers developed approaches that explore the desynchronisation of online video calls, making pieces where the alignment of sounds is flexible. The pieces were recorded online, and are presented here performed by Plus Minus’s lineup of viola, piano and percussion. .

3 JUNE 8PM FREE (BOOKING REQUIRED)

(re)locations A Performance Promenade in the grounds of Newton Park. Since February, second year composers and dancers have been collaborating on new site-specific pieces that draw on the changing conditions as we move out of lockdown.

A series of small and larger group pieces explore the way changes of context affect the way we work and interact. Starting online and moving through studio development before exploring sites around the Newton Park campus, the composers and dancers have relocated their ideas to take into account the varying conditions afforded by different spaces. The pieces presented here were filmed during a live event and edited for online viewing.

BOOK AT WWW.BATHSPALIVE.COM

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3 JUNE 6PM FREE

Postgraduate Composers Showcase An exciting collection of new works by a group of Bath Spa’s Postgraduate Composers.

The programme showcases an array of musical styles and explorations, from a range of instrumentation. Presented live by a collective of the composers themselves, the assortment of musical works will be communicated through a combination of live instruments and digital media.

Seeking to exhibit a wide variety of themes or inspirations such as nostalgia, folk tradition, light & shadow and dawn chorus, this showcase will give an insight into the individual sounds of each composer.

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4 | 5 JUNE 7PM HOLBURNE (OUTSIDE) £8 (£8 BSU STUDENTS)

4 JUNE 8PM ZOOM £5

Songs at Twilight

COVID Monologues

Come relax and join us for a summer evening, grab your blanket or seat, bring your picnic and kick off your shoes to experience an enjoyable evening of opera, operetta and musical theatre sung by our all female cast.

A perfect summertime musical treat with a programme of great pieces from opera, operetta and musical theatre, accompanied by a live orchestra.

The COVID Monologues were created in the spring of 2020 as a way for writers and actors to come together and create while the world slowed to a crawl. We wanted to see snapshots of this moment, a mix of personal experience and fictional wonder. Here at SparkFest we are sharing some of our favourites from the original series and some created in our Writers Space workshop.

This performance will be followed by a Q&A.

5 JUNE 2PM WIDCOMBE SOCIAL CLUB FILM SCREENING

5 JUNE 6PM WIDCOMBE SOCIAL CLUB £7 | £5 CONCESSIONS

Mirage

The Neat Freak

Mirage uses the languages of Indian Classical and contemporary dance to tell stories about the subtle discrimination that women still face in a society which endorses “Equal Rights For All”.

Checking and rechecking the door locks; rattling, pulling, unlocking, re-locking, over and over again each night before I feel safe enough to shut out the light. Arranging and rearranging my books from shortest to tallest, tallest to shortest, from ABC to 123 — try again 50 times more — it just isn’t right, do it once more before all human life ceases to exist.

The suppression and mockery of women has been so casual, that it has ceased to offend us anymore. However, we cannot afford to ignore the darkest hypocrisy of all: The goddess they worshipped and the infant they murdered were both women.

BOOK AT WWW.BATHSPALIVE.COM

5 JUNE 3PM | 5PM NEWTON PARK CAMPUS AMPHITHEATRE FREE - BOOKING REQUIRED

Grounds for Adventure Expect to be delighted and surprised by Bath Spa dancers who worked with award winning Lila Dance Company over an adventurous week to create this original site specific performance in the beautiful grounds of Bath Spa University.

OCD is not an adjective.

Inspired by classic Greek tragedies, The Neat Freak follows one woman’s story, exploring what happens when the thoughts in her head take centre stage.

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5 JUNE 8:30PM WIDCOMBE SOCIAL CLUB £6 | £5

INTERACTIVE EXHIBITION 6 JUNE 2PM WIDCOMBE SOCIAL CLUB FREE (BOOKING REQUIRED)

Last Wednesday’s Incandescent Work Shirt This is the story of one man’s pointless job. His life seems to have no impact on the world, and, with a breakdown looming, he’s starting to lose the plot. (And his hairline).

What begins as a series of subtle acts of rebellion soon turns into a hysterical disregard for the job at hand - not that his boss seems to have noticed. The latest comedy from Dumb Found Theatre features big suits, loud ties and riotous dance routines.

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Incandescent manifests as a visceral piece of audiovisual poetry. Lustrous planes of white-hot light are inflected by seismic sound reverberations, culminating in a spectacle that is delicate, elusive and striking. This piece, made exclusively for Sparkfest 2021, is a psycho-spiritual tonic for the soul following a year of downtrodden hope and malnourished wonder in our collective spirits.

6 JUNE 3PM HOLBURNE (OUTSIDE) FREE

The Wave The ship, Wave Goodbye to Your Sanity, has been lost at sea for weeks, or perhaps it is years? Crewed by three buffoonish, broken, musical playing sailors, they need your help on a journey of incredible highs and sudden lows as they battle against the stormy seas. Brought alive through sea shanty, drums, guitars, harpsichords, and song. An adventure for all the family, as we sail over madness and wave goodbye to our sanity.

Come join us aboard our ship, climb the rigging, have water-fights, throw colour bombs, light flares, stamp the floor, sing your heart out and let the mayhem be unleashed!

Funded by Arts Council England.

6 JUNE 6PM WIDCOMBE SOCIAL CLUB FREE (BOOKING REQUIRED) LIVE FILM SCREENING

Tales From the Cold Tales From the Cold is a collection of three short stories exploring the consequences of our planet’s rapidly warming climate across its furthest flung corners. Told in meticulous detail using the ancient art of shadow puppetry, Tales from the cold is a visual feast full of adventure, mystery, excitement, life and death.

In association with the Last Hurrah Theatre Company, Umbra Penumbra invites you to immerse yourself in a world of light and shade and to ponder what our future looks like.

BOOK AT WWW.BATHSPALIVE.COM

6 JUNE 9PM WIDCOMBE SOCIAL CLUB £6 | £5

7 JUNE 6PM WIDCOMBE SOCIAL CLUB £6 | £5

Rock Bottom

Herb Sits Alone

Bottom has spent his life pushing the people closest to him away, so it makes sense for him to perform a socially distanced show.

Combining the masterful wit and language of Shakespeare with fast-paced, sensitive new-writing, Charlie Day has created a production which has something for everyone.

Bottom has been left to put a play on all by himself. Watch as he battles his demons, all in an effort to...make you like him. Mental Health is a very prominent issue in the world today, especially with everything people are going through.

Herb sits alone, trying to find an answer to a question – a question as vast as the ocean itself. With plenty of help from Dil, and some interruptions from Set, they find themselves navigating the absurdity of this question by being fish. Plural!

A short piece of absurd theatre, which may leave you asking some questions of your own, Herb Sits Alone is a playful journey of self-reflection and enlightenment.

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7 JUNE 9PM WIDCOMBE SOCIAL CLUB £6 | £5

12 JUNE 7PM WIDCOMBE SOCIAL CLUB £3

12 JUNE 3PM | 5PM NEWTON PARK CAMPUS FREE - BOOKING REQUIRED

Cat and her Whittington

Blast!

Kapow Presents: Dancescapes

This is not a pantomime; there’ll be no singing, dames, or cheesy punchlines. This is the story of people who tried to thrive, but exist in a bleak world, where to live is to barely survive.

You’ve heard of Dick Whittington, of rags to riches fame, but his success was not his own to claim. This is Cat’s story- a tale for our century- asking if those who have nothing, can someday something be.

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ProducerWorks presents an explosion of brand new performances on this theatreLab scratch night.

We have given theatre makers space to explore their creative ideas and a platform for their voice to be heard. This evening of original work in all stages of development promises to be an exciting and dynamic event as we watch the creatives of the future break new ground. www.producerworks.org

Please join Bath Spa University dancers for an outside performance in the stunning grounds of Newton Park Campus. The dancers have spent an intensive week with Kapow Circus Dance Theatre to make a brand new site specific work that celebrates the end of their first year at university.'

12 JUNE 7PM | 13 JUNE 2PM £8 (BSU STUDENT £6)

14 JUNE 9PM FREE

Love & Information

Acting Showcase 3

Someone sneezes. Someone can’t get a signal. Someone shares a secret. Someone won’t answer the door.

Someone gets fired by email. Someone’s not ready to talk. Someone is her brother’s mother. Someone hates irrational numbers. Someone told the police. Someone got a message from the traffic light. Someone’s never felt like this before...

Join us for the third evening of short films created by our graduating acting students.

The final year students have been tasked with exploring the collaborative process of of making a new performance piece, either from an existing text or an entirely new work.

Caryl Churchill’s Love and Information creates a kaleidoscope of 57 micro-plays, featuring over 100 characters exploring the breadth of human experience and our shared hunger for connection in an increasingly digitized and disconnected world.

Bath Spa Productions presents this online performance in an empty Rondo Theatre telling this tale of isolation, loneliness but above all hope for the future.

BOOK AT WWW.BATHSPALIVE.COM

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18 JUNE 7PM | 19 JUNE 2PM £8 (£6 BSU STUDENT)

The Middle-Class Gentleman by Molière All the gear no idea - In Moliére’s classic farce, Monsieur Jourdain is desperately chasing the one thing money can’t buy; class. He has cash, he has pomposity and delusions of grandeur, but he has no clue he is being taken advantage of by everyone from his tailor to the matchmaker. The production updates some of the elements whilst remaining true to the heart of Moliére’s comic masterpiece.

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19 JUNE 4PM | 7PM | 20 JUNE 4PM | 7PM £8 (BSU STUDENT £6)

As You Like It

By William Shakespeare The magical forest of Arden is the play’s famous setting, where a gallery of eccentric characters comes together to find love, fortune, redemption...and themselves. Banished from the court by her deceitful and treacherous uncle, Rosalind disguises herself as a boy, not knowing that the man she loves, also on the run, is behind the next tree. Shakespeare’s enticing tale of mistaken identity, heartfelt romance, and the endearing fumbles and foibles of love.

BOOK AT WWW.BATHSPALIVE.COM

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Three summer music showcases of students from Bath Spa Music.

Join us at lunchtime in an open-air space somewhere in Bath to enjoy the haunting sounds of our gamelan players – sending Indonesian inspired sounds across Bath.

CHECK WEBSITE FOR EXACT TIME AND VENUE FREE From 7:30pm - 9:30pm take in the splendid art deco environment of The Forum where our music students will present a selection from their classical repertoire.

BOOKING VIA THE FORUM £8 | £6 | BSU STUDENT FREE 10:00-11:30pm Celebrate the end of this gala day in Komedia with a relaxing drink and our jazz students to see the day out in this iconic Bath venue.

BOOKING VIA KOMEDIA £5

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DIARY Performance

Date

Time

Bath Mindfulness Trail

10/5 | 19/6

10AM

Haydn Space Opera

10/5 - 16/6

10AM

Misha’s Micro-Operas

10/5

12PM

Freak Show

11/5

10AM

11/5

12PM

Rhyfel

12/5

10AM

Eternally Chained

13/5

10AM

Third Space

13 - 15/5

7PM

Unconsciously Conscious

14/5

10AM

Me ‘Ansum

14/5 | 24/5 | 11/6

6PM | 7PM

Superspreader: Sex in Lockdown

14/5 | 24/5 | 10/6

7PM | 8PM

A Magician Named Curly

15/5

10AM

16/5 | 23/5

10AM

Mother Tongue

15/5 | 16/5

7PM | 2PM

Manic

17/5

10AM

Sugar, Honey, Ice, Tea

17/5 | 27/5 | 8/6

6PM | 7PM

Acting Showcase 1

17/5

7PM

Home Sweet

18/5

10AM

The Seven Stages of Women

18/5 | 4/6

6PM | 7PM

MAY

Queer Spaces

Othello

BOOK AT WWW.BATHSPALIVE.COM

INTERACTIVE WEBSITE

SOCIAL MEDIA

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Performance

Date

Time

The Travellers

18/5

THROUGHOUT

18/5

7:30PM

19/5

10AM

19/5

12PM

19/5 | 6/6 | 15/6

6PM | 7PM

19/5

7:30PM

20/5

10AM

20/5

7:30PM

21/5

10AM

22/5

6:30PM

Musical Theatre Time Travel

22/5

10AM

A Moving Grove

22/5

10AM

Make It Worse

WSC

BSU Student Union Music Society Authentic Voice and Making Solo Work (workshop)

WSC

Aunt Flo’s School for Girls Honeycomb Groove

WSC

MAY

The Monstrous Feminine Silence

WSC

Submersed Nhair

HM

Lazy on the Lawn

HM

22/5 | 23/5

2PM

Painting by Numbers

HM

23/5

6:30PM

31/5

7PM

28/5 | 29/5

7:30PM | 1PM

Echoes

1/6

10AM

Odyssey

1-4/6

12PM

1 - 3/6

7PM

Plus and Minus

2/6

8PM

(re)locations

3/6

8PM

Postgraduate Composers Showcase

3/6

6PM

4 - 5/6

7PM

Acting Showcase 2 Club Supreme

JUNE

Sound Out Festival

Songs at Twilight 30

UT

K

HM

Performance

Date

Time

ZOOM

4/6

8PM

Mirage

WSC

5/6

2PM

The Neat Freak

WSC

5/6

6PM

NP

5/6

3PM | 5PM

Last Wednesdays Work Shirt

WSC

5/6

8:30PM

Incandescent

WSC

6/6

2PM

HM

6/6

3PM

Tales From the Cold

WSC

6/6

6PM

Rock Bottom

WSC

6/6

9PM

Herb Sits Alone

WSC

7/6

6PM

Cat and her Whittington

WSC

7/6

9PM

Blast!

WSC

12/6

7PM

NP

12/6

3PM | 5PM

Acting Showcase 3

14/6

7PM

Love and Information

12/6 | 13/6

7PM | 2PM

The Middle-Class Gentleman by Molière

18/6 - 19/6

7PM | 2PM

As You Like It

19/6 - 20/6

4PM | 7PM

17/6

ALL DAY

COVID Monologues

Grounds for Adventure

JUNE

The Wave

Kapow presents: Dancescapes

VARIOUS

Triple Concert

LOCATION KEY WSC Widcombe Social Club UT

Ustinov Theatre

HM

Holburne Museum

K

Komedia

NP

Newton Park Campus

See next page for venue details

ONLINE EVENT KEY View on demand (no booking required) Youtube premiere, booking required.

Downloadable event link.

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VENUES

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Newton Park Campus (Amphitheatre) Bath Spa University Newton Park Newton St Loe Bath BA2 9BN

Ustinov Theatre / The Egg Saw Close Bath BA1 1ET Tickets: www.theatreroyal.org 01225 448844

By car Take the Newton Park entrance on the A39, 100m from the Globe roundabout junction (where the A39 (Wells) meets the A4).

By bus Catch the U5 from Bath Bus Station directly to campus.

Widcome Social Club Widcombe Hill Bath BA2 6AA

Holburne Museum Great Pulteney Street, Bath BA2 4DB

Komedia 22-23 Westgate Street, Bath BA1 1EP

NewSparks is an exciting new funding initiative that we are running alongside our SparkFest festival of live and digital performance this spring.

Money raised by the fund will be available to graduating Bath Spa students and alumni who have participated in SparkFest. Now more than ever these young creatives need our support. Your donation can make a huge difference in a young performer’s future and will help ensure that their creative voice is heard. This is important not just for them as artists but as a way forward for them to contribute in rebuilding the creative industries in the UK. We are inviting you to invest in the creatives of tomorrow by donating to NewSparks. To make a donation visit: newsparks.bathspa.ac.uk

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