QUEENS RD
RICHMOND PL
ROBERT ST
GLOUCESTER RD
KENSINGTON ST
SYDNEY ST
TRAFALGAR ST
PA RA DE
The Royal Pavilion
OLD STEINE
Set in the heart of Brighton’s North Laines, The Basement has several atmospheric spaces under one roof. With a total capacity of over 250, The Basement is a unique setting in which to experience performance. All spaces can also be hired out for events. The venue offers:
WEST ST
PA VI
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NORTH ST
GRAND PARADE
JUBILEE ST NEW RD
CHURCH ST
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REGENT ST
NORTH RD
Designed and produced by MINT (01273) 261166
Brighton Station
GRAND JUNCTION RD
• 3 unique, flexible spaces • Full theatrical sound and lighting • Technical support • A fully licenced bar serving speciality regional beers, wine and cider • Bespoke catering from The Secret Restaurant • Friendly and professional front of house support
24 Kensington Street Brighton Pier Brighton BN1 4AJ Telephone: 01273 699 733 Email: info@thebasement.uk.com www.thebasement.uk.com
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PROGRAMME OCTOBER – DECEMBER 2011
Supported by: Charity No: 1116008
OCTOBER
These are exciting times for performance in the UK with a bumper crop of independent-minded young artists coming into bloom making high-quality, innovative, intelligent and accessible work. The Basement is passionate about nurturing this new generation of artists: Our Supported Artists Programme provides a two-year development course for eight of the country’s most promising companies, while our new residency programme gives artists from across the UK and Europe time, space and resources to make new performances. The cream of this crop take centre stage in The Basement’s autumn programme. Bryony Kimmings and Little Bulb bring a witty, engaging and accessible approach to innovative performance. A series of double bills will pair up two short, snappy performances by up-and-coming artists from the UK and Europe. Meanwhile, the unique and truly amazing Stacy Makishi returns from international duties to present her new performance The Making of Bull - The True Story . Mix in coproductions with Rolemop Arts for Black History Month and South East Dance, regular favourites Supper Club, Scratch! and Are You Sitting Comfortably? and you have a heady cocktail of innovation and intrigue. Cover image: Vick Ryder
Helen Medland Artistic Director
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DOUBLE BILL: TWO GREAT SHOWS IN ONE NIGHT
White Rabbit presents:
Date: Fri 7th October Doors: 7:30pm Tickets: £8 (£6 concessions)
ARE YOU SITTING COMFORTABLY? BEAUTY
Colliding two short, snappy performances of the freshest new work from the UK and Europe, this double bill explores how performance allows whole worlds to be conjured in the minds of audiences.
SPOKEN WORD
welcome
PERFORMANCE
Date: Tues 4th October Doors: 7.30pm Tickets: £6 (£4 concessions) Mirror, mirror on the wall… who is the fairest of them all? Find out at White Rabbit’s evening of short stories inspired by Beauty. Put on your gladrags for a chance to win our Bearded Beauty Competition, or come as you are and enjoy FREE cakes, exquisite visuals and gorgeous music, plus teapot cocktails from the bar. “Comic…haunting…offbeat…unexpected… an enchanted night.” Total Theatre
FOLEY
BLACK
Jo Bannon
Mette Edvardsen (Norway)
Part performance demonstration, part thriller, this new work begins with a fascination with foley; the archaic, tender and hand-made technique of making sound effects for film.
Black is a solo performance about invisible objects and how to make them appear. Through words and movements a world becomes visible. With subtlety and wit, Mette Edvardsen plays in the gap between thought and experience.
Bannon explores this very particular art form where the chase scene, the sex scene and the bit where the door is kicked off its hinges can all be conjured with party poppers, bits of wood and lots of vegetables.
www.metteedvardsen.be
www.jobannon.co.uk
BOOK ONLINE AT WWW.THEBASEMENT.UK.COM
PERFORMANCE
PERFORMANCE
OPERATION GREENFIELD
SCRATCH!
Little Bulb Theatre
Date: Thurs 13th October Doors: 7.30pm Tickets: FREE!
Date: Thurs 20th October Doors: 7.30pm Tickets: £8 (£6 concessions)
The Basement’s Scratch! events, presenting short excerpts from brand new performances, have proved hugely popular with audiences keen to flex their critical muscles and help artists develop new work. Scratch! is a fantastic opportunity to see innovative contemporary performance in the making. The event is free and all are welcome to come and give their own opinions through the chaired discussions. If you are interested in presenting works-in-progress contact info@thebasement.uk.com
“Recklessly talented...insanely brave” **** Lyn Gardner, The Guardian Operation Greenfield – an exploration of music, faith and friendship. Somewhere in middle England four unlikely teenagers are preparing for judgement day with ladders, Elvis and Forest Fruits squash – Stokely’s annual talent competition is nigh. With a stage full of instruments and an eclectic mix of recorded music, Little Bulb Theatre capture the confusing, awkward and beautifully naïve time of adolescence, when the once simple beliefs you held dear need re-adjusting to face the complexities of adulthood.
PERFORMANCE Testing Grounds presents:
AROUND THE DAY IN EIGHTY WORLDS (Mexico/UK) Date: Sat 15th October Doors: 7.00pm Tickets: £7 (£5 concessions)
PERFORMANCE Plenty Productions and Rolemop Arts present:
SNAKES AND LADDERS
Testing Grounds, in partnership with The Basement and La Periferia, Mexico, presents a unique new Live Art event.
Date: Sat 22nd October Doors: 7.30pm Tickets: £5
Artists Andres Galeano, Richard Dedominici and Greg McLaren will perform at The Basement. Debora Carnavali Ramirez, Omar Gongura Guzman, Omar Rosiles will perform at La Periferia. An exciting new collaboration between 2 organisations 2 venues in 2 continents, hosting 6 new performances, all connecting and interacting via live video stream. Testing Grounds will begin to unlock the immense possibilities of technology to transcends borders, create global performance and provide a myriad of opportunities for artists and audiences to engage.
Presented in association with Brighton and Hove Black History month this bold and powerful new comic drama about hair, identity and the testing of family loyalties is inspired by stories and memories collected for the Brighton-based Positive Hair Day (PHD) project. Also featuring special guest appearances from acclaimed performance poet Zena Edwards and a bespoke composition from ground breaking composer Shirley J. Thompson, the first British woman to have composed and conducted a symphony for 30 years and the first Black woman ever to do so.
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PERFORMANCE
60 MINUTES OF OPPORTUNISM Ivana Muller (Croatia)
PERFORMANCE
Date: Wed 26th October Doors: 7.30pm Tickets: £8 (£6 concessions)
DOUBLE BILL: TWO GREAT SHOWS IN ONE NIGHT
After injury lead to the unfortunate cancellation of 60 Minutes of Opportunism in April we are delighted to announce Ivana Muller’s return to our programme. In this new solo, the artist dances on a thin line between comedy, philosophy and poetry. Who is this person on stage? A terrorist ready to explode? A lost tourist? A nomadic contemporary artist?
Colliding two short, snappy performances of the freshest new work from the UK and Europe, this double bill explores the disconcerting worlds of imagination that can open up between performance and animation.
One of Europe’s most innovative choreographers and performers, Ivana Muller offers an exhilarating performance inviting the audience to share its questions about the roles we adopt and how we are perceived. PERFORMANCE Supper Club and White Night present:
NOVEMBER Date: Fri 4th November Doors: 7.30pm Tickets: £8 (£6 concessions)
PROJECTOR/CONJECTOR Mamoru Iriguchi Projector/Conjector is a multimedia ‘dance’ piece with two characters. Boy is called Projector because a video projector’s attached to his head. Girl’s name is Conjector. A TV’s attached to her head. Boy meets girl on screen. They dance through screens. Moved by the moving images they produce, the two meet and fall in love. Loosely yet faithfully based on Swan Lake. “Charmingly dead-pan, witty and inventive.” Donald Hutera
HEAVEN & HELL Date: Saturday 29th October Doors: 7pm – 3am Tickets: FREE The heavenly garden of perpetual bliss or a fiery pit of endless torment: where will you spend eternity? Place your soul on the scales of judgement and enjoy a free taster session of each. Angels and devils will be on hand to guide you through a series of intimate encounters, moral tests and secret confessionals. All saints and sinners welcome… Will you taste the forbidden fruit? “The most enjoyable spectacle of all was to be found at The Basement, an industrial subterranean space where… audience members became the performers” The Guardian
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CONFERENCE OF STRANGE Pattern Fight Performance Conference of Strange is a psychedelic fusion of live art, left-field humour and hand drawn animation inspired by Donna Haraway’s Cyborg Manifesto. Pattern Fight Performance devise highly visual, funny and politically charged performance that explore women’s role in the technologically driven 21st Century. “Original and truly hilarious” Threeweeks magazine 2011 *****
BOOK ONLINE AT WWW.THEBASEMENT.UK.COM
PERFORMANCE
MUSIC
THE MAKING OF BULL: THE TRUE STORY
Brighthelmstone Productions present:
Stacy Makishi
RICHARD BUCKNER
Date: Fri 11th November Doors: 7.30pm Tickets: £8 (£6 concessions)
Date: Sunday 13th November Door: 7.30pm Tickets: £9.00 advance (£10.00 on the door) Available from Resident, Rounder, Union Music Store (Lewes) and www.wegottickets.com.
The Basement is delighted to welcome back the phenomenal and endlessly inventive Stacy Makishi, a truly unique voice in contemporary performance. The Making of Bull: The True Story is inspired by the Coen brothers’ film Fargo. It is about what’s real and what’s fake. It’s also about how we make art and how our art makes us. Disorientating and uplifting, this uncanny tale revolves around a kidnap, an unrequited love, a lost ransom and a woman frozen in the snow. Makishi presents a powerful fusion of physical theatre, music, film and text. The stage is a battleground between truth and lies; what’s spoken and what’s omitted; what’s fiction and what is documentary. “Funny yet incisive… a truly amazing performance.” The Independent “Her performance takes us past the borders that separate the comedic and the tragic… full of energy, intimacy and vitality.” LibrePensadores Produced by Artsadmin
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“The Richard Buckner vibe, that’s a big influence for me… totally heartbreaking and beautiful and heavy” Justin Vernon, Bon Iver
The outstanding American troubadour Richard Buckner returns to Brighton after an eight year hiatus. Richard is touring his outstanding new album Our Blood, acclaimed by Uncut for its austere beauty. Richard’s stunning back catalogue and intense live performances have profoundly influenced a generation of American musicians. SPOKEN WORD
White Rabbit presents:
ARE YOU SITTING COMFORTABLY? TRICKS Date: Tues 15th November Doors: 7.30pm Tickets: £6 (£4 concessions) “Comic…haunting…offbeat…unexpected… an enchanted night.” Total Theatre
Treat yourself to an evening of original short stories inspired by Tricks brought to you by the inimitable White Rabbit. You’ll be hoodwinked and hoaxed by stories of scammers and swindlers, hucksters and hustlers. Will you be drawn in by the FREE cakes, seductive visuals and teapot cocktails as you enter their topsyturvy tearoom. PERFORMANCE
SCRATCH! Date: Thurs 17th November Doors: 7.30pm Tickets: FREE!
If you are interested in presenting works-in-progress at Scratch! contact info@thebasement.uk.com
The Basement’s Scratch! events have proved hugely popular with audiences keen to flex their critical muscles and help artists develop new work. Scratch! is a fantastic opportunity to see innovative contemporary performance in the making. The event is free and all are welcome to come and give their own opinions through the chaired discussions.
BOOK ONLINE AT WWW.THEBASEMENT.UK.COM
PERFORMANCE
THE OH FUCK MOMENT
7 DAY DRUNK
Hannah Jane Walker and Chris Thorpe
Bryony Kimmings
Date: Sat 19th November Doors: 6.00pm & 9.00pm Tickets: £8 (£6 concessions). Limited capacity, early booking essential.
Date: Wed 30th November Doors: 7:30pm Tickets: £8 (£6 concessions)
You just fucked up. Now what? Sometimes, fuck-ups are so massive, there’s no way back. Poet Hannah Jane Walker and Fringe First winner Chris Thorpe examine the poetic guts of mistakes in a bundle of words and strip lighting. Fucking up is the truest, funniest, most terrifying moment you can experience. You will make a mistake, maybe you’ll learn from it. The Oh Fuck Moment is a conversation around a desk for brave souls to hold their hands up and admit they fucked up, or for people to laugh at us because we did. Produced by Emily Coleman.
Bryony Kimmings is NOT an alcoholic. But she has always had a rocky relationship with booze. It seems the dark stuff is intrinsically linked to her confidence as an artist, equally to blame for her most inspired and hideous creations.
PERFORMANCE
DOUBLE BILL: TWO GREAT SHOWS IN ONE NIGHT Date: Fri 25th November Doors: 7.30pm Tickets: £8 (£6 concessions)
PERFORMANCE
Colliding two short, snappy performances of the freshest new work from the UK and Europe, this double bill explores the trials and tribulations of adolescence and the painful forging of identity.
IT’S OK, ITS ONLY TEMPORARY Jenna Watt It’s Spring, It’s 1993, It’s Grebe Park, Inverness, It’s 4pm, It’s you and me, It’s us against them, It’s a risk, It’s OK. It’s Ok, It’s Only Temporary is based on a true event where, in childhood, Jenna was the victim of an act of violence carried out by her peers. It was an accident, a moment where play took a naive but deliberate step into something more serious.
UNTO US A CHILD IS BORN Rachel Mars An intimate, funny and moving performance piece about thinking that you are a boy, realising that you are a girl and working out what you are going to do about it. Playing in the spaces between masculine and feminine, theatre and performance art, the show is about the moment when identities are fixed and choices closed down (and Dirty Dancing). www.rachelmars.org
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DECEMBER PERFORMANCE
From Jackson Pollock to Amy Winehouse, Oscar Wilde to Charlie Sheen, everyone’s on the bottle, but why? From the Total Theatre Award-winning creator of Sex Idiot comes a hilarious and moving new one-woman show investigating the historical links between artists and mind enhancing drugs. Performed sober. “A bold, brassy yet sobering show with lots of bottle” The Guardian
SUPPER CLUB Date: Sat 3rd December Doors: 7.30pm Tickets: £8 (£6 concessions) Its back, refreshed and revitalised, serving up a tasty concoction of performances, interventions, installations, video art and left-field music. Taking place throughout all The Basement’s atmospheric spaces, Supper Club returns to bring you a dose of the unexpected. With some of the most exciting artists from across the UK and Europe, Supper Club is a night not to be missed. Grab a drink and a tasty bite to eat at the bar then let the night unfold. Curated and hosted by The Basement’s Supported Artists, they plot a Saturday night for you and your friends, but you won’t know what’s on the menu until it’s served. More tequila and cherries than meat and two veg.
BOOK ONLINE AT WWW.THEBASEMENT.UK.COM
DANCE
SPOKEN WORD
South East Dance and The Basement present:
White Rabbit presents:
AT ONCE TWICE / AT-ANY-MOMENT-SOMETHING–ELSE
ARE YOU SITTING COMFORTABLY? BEASTS
Date: Thurs 8th December Doors: 7.30pm Tickets: £10 (£8 concessions)
A mixed bill that sees three male performers, including Brighton-based Theo Clinkard, interpret the work of female choreographers.
AT ONCE TWICE Christopher House (Toronto) and Joe Moran (London) in an unusual double-bill of two unique performance adaptations of by Deborah Hay’s At Once.
AT-ANY-MOMENT-SOMETHING–ELSE A solo for Theo Clinkard which explores the territory where events, scale and time take on incongruous dreamlike qualities. Choreographed by Laïla Diallo. The performance will be followed by a post show discussion chaired by Charlotte Vincent.
Date: Tues 13th December Doors: 7.30pm Tickets: £6 (£4 concessions) Calling all divine and dastardly creatures! A special night of fiendish storytelling from White Rabbit. Featuring monsters, bogeymen, brutes and ogres. FREE fingerfood and mutant treats, plus a chance to win a prize in our Revolting Raffle. Accompanied by demonic visuals and a spine-chilling playlist, plus blood curdling cocktails from the bar. Happy Christmas, you devils! “Comic… haunting... an enchanted night.” Total Theatre
PERFORMANCE
PERFORMANCE
CRUISING FOR ART
SCRATCH!
Date: Sat 10th Dec Doors: 7.30pm Tickets: £8 (£6 concessions)
Date: Thurs 15th December Doors: 7.30pm Tickets: FREE!
Your bandana is your ticket to Cruising for Art, a series of one-on-one interactions by some of the country’s leading performers. If you see someone with a matching bandana, eye contact, a smile, or your wink may start a wild journey, a tender moment or an intimate conversation. Wink at someone who is not one of the performers and, who knows, you may still make meaningful contact with a stranger?
The Basement’s Scratch! events, presenting short excerpts from brand new performances, have proved hugely popular with audiences keen to flex their critical muscles and help artists develop new work. Scratch! is a fantastic opportunity to see innovative contemporary performance in the making. The event is free and all are welcome to come and give their own opinions through the chaired discussions. If you are interested in presenting works-in-progress contact info@thebasement.uk.com
Curated by Brian Lobel. Cruising for Art was created for the V&A Museum in London in 2009. www.blobelwarming.com/cruise.html “a mischevious living installation” The Guardian
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SUPPORTED ARTISTS The Basement supports some of the UK’s most outstanding early-career artists nurturing new creations and sustainable careers with a national and international profile.
Made In China make visceral shows at the junction of playwriting and live art, often including excessive amounts of flour, ketchup and champagne. Made In China were in Edinburgh this Summer performing We Hope That You’re Happy (Why Would We Lie?) and sharing their new show Talk Like Someone From Where You’re From Talks as part of BAC’s Take Out programme in Edinburgh. www.madeinchinatheatre.com
Rachel Henson creates expedition kits for physical landscapes in the form of flick books, which act as navigation tools to guide your way through your surroundings and blur the line between the real and the imagined landscape. Rachel has been developing a Flickers National Trust Commission at Box Hill, and is preparing a new flick book experience for Brighton to be presented at White Night. www.rachelhenson.com Victoria Melody performed Northern Soul to a sell out audience at The Basement as part of Brighton Festival this year, receiving a 5 star review for her debut show. She will tour the piece next spring. Victoria is developing her new show, chronicling the world of dog showing, as she tries to get her dog, Major Tom into Crufts. www.victoriamelody.co.uk
Me and The Machine were featured as part of the British Council Showcase in Edinburgh Sylvia Rimat is a performance maker from Germany. Her work revolves around the process of remembering, personal histories, lived places, risk and how we orientate ourselves. Sylvia has been developing a new site specific project, Imagine Us which takes her practice out of the theatre and into public spaces. www.sylviarimat.blogspot.com/
non zero one returned to Forest Fringe in Edinburgh this year, after the successful debut of The Time Out at Latitude Festival. The show is a conversation between live narrators and 12 potential team mates mixing live sound, projection, secret doors and a treadmill. The Time Out received 4 stars from The Telegraph and the collective were featured as New Act of The Day by Lyn Gardner in The Guardian. www.nonzeroone.com Brian Lobel spent his summer performing the world’s most brutal game of Facebook friendship maintenance, PURGE, in which members of the public chose who to keep and who to delete. This autumn, Brian will be celebrating the 10 year anniversary of his cancer diagnosis with a special performance of BALL & Other Funny Stories About Cancer, and performing London, Manchester, and Kuopio, Finland. www.blobelwarming.com
Edward Rapley mixes theatre, live art and dance. His speciality is playful solo works in which joy and pain are never far apart. Edward performed 10 Ways To Die On Stage at The Basement as part of Brighton Festival 2011. He is currently on sabbatical from The Basement undertaking a six month work placement at the prestigious Ecole Philippe Gaulier in France. www.edwardrapley.co.uk
this summer with When We Meet Again (Introduced As Friends). They have also been developing a new work called The Door Project which is a site-responsive video installation hidden on the back side of locked doors. www.meandthemachine.co.uk
RESIDENCY PROGRAMME A new programme of residencies, piloted this summer, has supported the creation of new works by artists from across the UK. To find out more about residency opportunities, please email info@thebasement.uk.com Pattern Fight Performance (Sarah Ruff and Ed Currie): London-based company Pattern Fight Performance spent two weeks developing Conference of the Strange, a new work premiered at this years Edinburgh Fringe, where it received 5-star reviews. Bootworks Theatre (James Baker, Robert Daniels and Andy Roberts): Associate Artists of Chichester University, Bootworks spent two weeks, developing material and rehearsing their new performance Predator, a DIY reconstruction of the cheesy 1980s action classic. At the end of this period the company presented a fantastic scratch version of the show. Keep an eye out for the finished performance next year! Alex Bradley & Charles Poulet: Bristol and London-based sound artists and digital experimenters have produced numerous large scale installations and digital performances across the globe. The duo took the opportunity of working in The Basement to strip their practice back to the basics of improvised performance and the effects of sound in space. Mamoru Iriguchi: Rapidly building a reputation for his deadpan, imaginative and slightly disturbing performances featuring beautifully odd digital animations, Mamoru has been developing his new performance Painkillers at The Basement, working with ArtsAdmin’s Nikki Tomlinson. Rolemop Arts: Based in Brighton and London Rolemop Arts spent two weeks at The Basement developing a new sitespecific promenade performance entitled Broken Loops. The finished piece will be presented in a working mens’ club.