I first read Philip Ridley’s Moonfleece about six years ago when it was written for NT Connections (then Shell Connections): a youth initiative from the National Theatre. At the time I never would have believed that a few years later I would be seeing the play performed professionally for the first time in East London on its press night and I definitely wouldn’t have believed I would have met the writer himself afterwards!

Moonfleece is set in an East London tower block (like many of Ridley’s plays inspired from the place he grew up) It addresses issues that perhaps are more relevant today than what they were when the play was first written, specifically Nationalism and far right politics.
A time ago people were open about supporting far right parties, skinheads would sell the National Front paper on Brick lanes streets but now the issue is far more taboo and supporters hide behind glossed over propaganda and business suits.

Young people of today are being targeted by the BNP, they pretend that they are something they are not and in some cases they are getting their poisonous message across to people through brainwashing and lies. Through targeting the young and blaming asylum seekers for taking ‘all their jobs, they won a seat in Yorkshire: a place high in unemployment in young people.

Moonfleece is an educational asset of today, a device to show young people that these values are wrong to any decent person and parties like the BNP have motives behind their policies which they are not completely truthful about. I though the actual play was beautifully written, Ridley’s storytelling technique is unique and very recognisable of himself. He has a clever and engaging way of addressing issues that affect young people through performance and he is undoubtedly one of the greatest and most influential playwrights of our time.

Moonfleece is on at Rich Mix in Shoreditch until the 13th of March, before it goes on tour across England. There are also post-show discussions on the issues raised in the play, as well as Ridley’s live poetry cycle ‘Lovesongs for Extinct Creatures’ and a screening of Ridley’s new film ‘Heartless‘. Do try and see it if you can!

This post was written by Sian Ross, our New Writing Liaison.  If you know about something going on, or want us to see some of your work, then email us and we’d be happy to come along.

When you arrive at BAC, one of the first things that strikes you is the impressive stone staircase that leads up to the first floor. Most modern fringe theatres wouldn’t have the money to invest in such an ornate entrance hall, so it got me wondering about the history of the building.

What is now the BAC ( Battersea Arts Centre) was built as Battersea Town Hall, and the grand public areas were lined with modest offices for the administration of a fast growing London borough. Opened in 1893, it was designed by E.W.Mountford, whose other famous London building is the Old Bailey (not quite as fun a place to visit!).

 The Grand Hall was designed for “recreative entertainments of a high class for the people”.  It hosted early silent pictures, astronomy lectures with lantern projections and organ recitals.

The entrance foyer has a mosaic floor decorated with bees, which are said to represent the democracy and industry of the hive, the double B’s of Battersea Borough and possibly the early history of the area as fields of lavender. There’s no trace of any lavender left on Lavender Hill now, but we will be increasing the number of insects in the building during the Festival ( just to warn you). 

Always a radical, Battersea Town Hall witnessed meetings lead by the leading suffragettes, the Pankhurst sisters, and in 1913 the people elected the first black mayor in London. It’s no surprise then that the building continues to be so ground breaking today!

In 1965 Battersea Borough was absorbed into Wandsworth and the building was threatened with demolition. Fortunately a local campaign saved the building, and it became a Grade II* listed community arts centre.  In 1980 Jude Kelly became the first Artistic Director.  The building is still on a journey from Town Hall to 21st Century home for creativity. BAC’s environment continues to evolve, with each new artist who walks into the building and sees potential in the spaces and stories that they hold. 

In 2004, David Jubb took over the reigns as Artistic Director and so far, during his tenure has seen exciting changes at BAC, both in its programming and in the development of the building. BAC pioneered the “Scratch” methodology as part of its “ladder of development” for new work, where performances are shown at various stages of development to an outside audience, whose input and criticism guides the further evolution of the work.

David is one of subsidised theatre’s most respected producers and is a pioneer of ‘creative producing’ in the industry. Creative producing underlines BAC’s artistic philosophy and, as such, has been the basis of creating one of theatre’s most ground-breaking artistic programmes.

Perhaps BAC’s most famous, and successful, recent production was Punchdrunk’s Masque of the Red Death, which took over the entire building for several months, and was a big part of the redevelopment of the building architecturally. Working with renowned architects Haworth Tompkins, the building is gradually being refurbished in response to the artists who work there and also to the artists who will soon be in permanent residence there!

In 2008 David Micklem became Joint Artistic Director with David Jubb, allowing for the building to grow and grow with it’s success. The BAC’s motto, “Not for me, not for you, but for us”, has been carried over from the days of the Town Hall and it’s certainly true. With an incredibly diverse programme (and I’m not just talking about the Accidental Festival!), this is one arts venue you really must visit! So get on the website, and check out what’s on!

John East wrote this intriguing review into the history of the BAC.

Now, I’ve been baptized, confirmed, had confession, been to Latin mass. I even spent my whole education in Catholic establishments from primary school all the way to sixth form. My whole family is Italian- (pretty darn Catholic). However, growing up as a modern teenager in secular Manchester full of distraction, temptation and vice, I have basically lived a a carefree life of sin- (not so darn Catholic). The visit to St Peter’s Basilica doesn’t count- I was on holiday, not pilgrimage.

So, one non-descript week in February, I began my week as a pure, devout Catholic. But wait- what does that even mean? what did I have to do? I couldn’t follow every single rule in Leviticus (besides, that’s more Old Testament and Judaism. Catholics are more New Testament kinda guys)- I only had one week! I decided to follow the simplest, most effective and applicable rules- The Ten Commandments, Seven Deadly Sins, and various themes from the Cathechism (the document outlining modern Catholic beleifs and practices set out by the Papal Office).

So for me, this meant: no doing anything to excess: drinking alcohol, no gambling (bye bye National Lottery), no swearing or blasphemy (OMG), no temptations of any kind and not to think any immoral thoughts. As for the Seven Deadly sins: sloth (no procrastinating, oversleeping, being lazy), lust (bye bye boyfriend- see you in a week), envy (but her shoes are so pretty- i wish i had those shoes), pride(no makeup or straighteners or fashionable clothing that shows off my figure), greed (if i even so much as think about a Krispy Kreme, I’m going to Hell), wrath (imagine having to be calm and collected 24/7!)

 It started off relatively well- I’d taken down all my posters (false idols), and adjusted my appearance accordingly. I’d even bought a cross-necklace to wear at all times to ward off the Devil. I’d prayed morning and night, and by midweek I’d donated money to charity (CAFOD of course- the catholic charity du jour, as well as British Red Cross and Oxfam) and since I’d somehow managed to pick the exact week Lent starts, I’d celebrated Shrove Tuesday, fasted on Ash Wednesday, gone to Mass and recieved my cross of ashes on my forehead (made from last year’s Palm Sunday palm leaves, fact fans).

 What I found most difficult was was trying to remain pure and untempted by all of the immorality in modern media. It really is everywhere. I couldn’t even walk past a shop window without some scantily clad mannequin draped over a SALE sign trying to tempt me into spending money. I think that’s about 6 out of 7 deadly sins covered in that one situation alone!

 In my attempt to avoid all this vice and media corruption, I soon found myself staying home, sat in bed twiddling my (now idle) thumbs listening to Vivaldi (best to avoid song lyrics with immoral suggestions- about 99% of them). It was also hard not to procrastinate and not to covet. There wear distractions everywhere, and I was constantly seeing things I wanted. So I decided to be productive instead!

 It’s suprising how much you can actually get done when you no longer have any immorality in your life- i’d done so much housework, research, essays, errands, application forms and meetings. But what struck me was how easy it is to become a religious extremist. With no other influences allowed in your life other than your religious doctrines, I can easliy see how some people are driven to religious extremism, such as Mormons, or Fundamentalists.

 You have to be really careful how you apply these doctrines to your life. I found it fairly easy, for example, not to blaspheme or swear, but applying some of the more heavyweight or obscure aspects of Catholicism, such as being against homosexuality and abortion, and men not being able to touch anything a mentstruating woman has come into contact with for fear of contamination of her uncleanliness, were just baffling. There was one particular incident when I was on the tube and I couldnt give up my seat to this old man, becuase technically i’d be contaminating him. He looked confused and I had to lie and say I had a bad back myself. By trying to stick to one rule, I’d broken another.

 By the Friday and Saturday, I had managed to settle into the lifestyle and it didn’t feel so forced and unnatural. I enjoyed praying- it seemed like a form of therapy- a way to plan for the day and reflect back on it- very cathartic. I also began to enjoy being selfless and positive and kind. I plan to continue these aspects. I found it interesting on the Sunday though. I was looking for a fitting way to end the week and I chose to go to evening mass at a spectacular Catholic Church- I soon realised how most of the churches in Englad I had assumed to be Catholic were in fact Anglican. Westminster Abbey- not Catholic. St Paul’s Cathedral- not Catholic. Thanks to King Henry VIII and the Reformation, most of the Catholic churches we see today are no older than the 18th Century due to King James II putting Catholicism back into mainstream British acceptance. I found myself in mass at the beautiful London Oratory in Knightsbridge (incorrectly known as Brompton Oratory).

 It was a calming, stunning and ritualistic- all that complicated bowing, kneeling, standing, sitting, praying, genuflecting, antiphoning etc- end to a very inspiring and interesting week into the life of the religion I so often claim to be a part of, and until now I had never really challenged that, and what it meant to me to actually be a Catholic. It is nigh on impossible to be a modern independent woman, and be Catholic, It is possible however, for me to now go to Heaven.

 Amen to that!

This experiment was conducted by Francesca Balchin, our university outreach co-ordinator. How does religion and ritual effect your life? Did you give up something for lent? Please note, although you may be a festival ‘follower’, the Accidental Festival is not an organised religion…yet!

At the moment we are very busy programming(…hence our silence…)and three people in particular have been working non-stop, but things have really started to tick over now, it’s all shaping up nicely like a lovely peach.

 
I’ve been doing a creative apprenticeship in the education department at Aspex (Portsmouth’s beautiful contemporary art gallery- check it out.) This alongside planning our very own extravaganza has been tiring (a LOT of travel- in fact on the day I wrote my last exec log I had travelled around 250 miles from Cardiff to London to Portsmouth) and suffice to say I was ready to hit the hay. I’m getting used to it now though, starting to take it in my stride a bit better.

I’ve found a nice way to pass the time on the train, knitting a blanket for my sister’s soon-to-be-born godchild and watching spring bloom all over the UK (more reluctantly in some places.) Whenever I arrive on destination I am always greeted by a house full of lovely people (be it my Mum, Dad and Brother or my lovely London housemates.) I’m fit to burst with excitement about having a fully programmed festival- thanks to all who applied, we wish we could house you all and given more time and more money, we probably would.
HOLD ON TO YOUR SEATBELTS THOUGH- AF2010 is about to EXPLODE!!!

Is identity, who we feel we are, or is it how people can identify us? Is identity a personal  thing or is it the labels and stereotypes and categories we have to fit in?

When creating art or theatre, do we make a conscious decision to how much of our “personality” we want to ooze out of the piece created? Or do we just make and analyze later and identify traits of ourselves in the work?

 Recently I have started to consider the honesty of the work I create and came the conclusion, that the piece will only truly reflect honesty if it reflects my identity. However, because I’m  not completely sure what my identity is, the fear overwhelms me that if I make work that reflects my identity or what I believe  my identity to be, based on others perceptions; I could stifle the potential of my work.

For example, one could argue  my identity is that of a black girl from Brixton, which to an extent is true. Although these facts can help one identify who I am, I cannot not  say these descriptions foretell or define  who I am.  Would it be right to say that because I’m a black girl from Brixton, that should be the core of all my work? Surely it will make the sphere of my creations limited and the same. But  is straying away from what my identity appears to be a way of denying what I am and seeing the world through false eyes?

So in this complexed state of mind, I realize that MY identity has permission to change or evolve and does not have  to be bound by peoples expectations or ideas of who I am and the work I should produce. I should create work  inspired by elements of me that have been inspired by the things around me or things I feel are important.

If you ever feel pressured to create work that does not reflect your views or  represent you in anyway I’d suggest that you question why you are making this pieces of work or it will be very hard to support it whole heartedly.
Lastly I’d say our identity should not be created by other people, your identity should be fuel to your creativity and vice versa.

This post was written by Margaret Bakosi; Community Outreach Liaison/Fashion and Music Liaison.

Can you identify? Do you feel marginalized or misunderstood? We want everyone to identify with some part of AF2010. We also enjoy the unidentifiable. If you sometimes feel like a Red Square trying to fit through a blue triangle-shaped hole, then come to AF2010. We have rainbow-squishy walls allowing any shape through our doors.

To start off, I’ll just fill you in on what is happening with us this month…

Our team are currently working extremely hard to craft a programme for you for this year’s festival…dates that I’m sure are engrained on your brains by now!…(29th-30th May for those of you who have yet to put them into your diaries!) The programme is due to be released on the week of the 15th of March so keep checking in as there are some cracking things being programmed this year and you will soon have the chance to buy tickets to get involved and join in with the fun!

Along with our programme launch, we will be launching ‘Accidental TV’. This is something that the team have been working on for the past couple of months; collecting and producing a range of stories that we think will interest all of our viewers. Accidental TV is presented by our very own International co-ordinator Peter Reedand our Artistic Director Sian Ni Mhuiri and also fellow Performance Arts first year student Lotty Casey. If you want to see these three in action then keep your eye on the ‘Accidental Television’ link on the left.

Finally, as you will have heard from the comment on the previous blog ‘photograph this’, we have a photography competition coming up soon so get ready to get your artistic eye out because this competition could get your name known! If photography is not your thing however, stay tuned because we have some other great competitions for you to get involved with! You will be hearing more about them later this month.

There’s a lot of work going on right now to make this year’s festival the best so far. Now we’ve made it through winter, spring is arriving with the sun to join, so perhaps it’s time to take a little break and get involved with some other things going on in London this month (of course, we won’t be forgetting the festival!) Perhaps you know of something great happening in London? Or maybe you’re organising an event yourself that you would like us to know about?

Get in touch because I’m sure many of our followers would love to know of anything happening that they could get involved in! You could even write a blog about something that has interested you and email it to our address if you want to get your voice heard. We welcome new voices!

Written by Emily Wilkinson, Head of Marketing.

If you want to write a review, send in a poem, take us on a journey, show us your photos or just get your voice heard then send it in and if cap fits, you’ll see it come up on our blog. Email posts to blogs@accidentalfestival.com

Soon this elusive ‘thing’ we have been calling the Accidental Festival 2010 will have a shape – a strange and beautiful beast is emerging from our pool of applications and I’m pretty much as excited as I was when I busted a move to Jedwards ‘Ice Ice Baby’  in a club for the first time, after having learnt all the lyrics within four days of the singles release.  It was an awesome moment, I really wish you had seen it.

True to my previous blog, programming has been exactly the thing to pick up collective energy levels within the team.  Definitely the most exciting time of the year for me so far – we’ve read so many interesting and inspiring pieces, it’s a pity we didn’t have twice as much money and twice as much space because paring them down is getting more and more difficult every day.  O, to have more resources…

So much to think about and so little I can write!  Owwweee!  How much can I say?  Programming is all around me and all I can think about right now, but I’ve got to watch my blabber-mouth and not let anything interesting slip before we release the final line up.  I can say (slightly tangentially) that reading the applications has been a really humbling experience for me as an artist.  The amazing and innovative ideas that emerging practitioners are developing gives me loads of hope for the future.  Each programming meeting I sit down, read applications and think ‘I kind of want to be involved in that show’ or ‘I’d love to work with these artists’.

Jemima revealing the preliminary Programme.

The process has certainly inspired many ideas for my own creative practice (not in a plagiaristic way – completely wholesomely!) and got me itching for a chance to continue with my own work during the summer and beyond.  The Creative Apprenticeship I’m doing alongside this with 8-technology (performance/art research group) has helped scratch this artistic itch to create and perform again – while I’m rather sleep deprived and stretched to my workload limit at the moment, it’s been really a enjoyable experience alongside the festival.   I’ve been making zen-garden inspired installations, performing de-contextualised tea ceremonies, designing websites and washing feet (?) for four glorious and bewildering weeks now. I’m not giving them a very articulate write up, best to check them out for yourselves …

So I won’t patter on – this is the only festival process insight I can give right now.  Other than this parting comment for next year’s AF team – make sure you don’t miss the very crucial festival research phase of ‘scouting for after party venues’.  You know you’ve got a good job when a Guinness fuelled pub crawl (we had to test the wares at each venue, naturally) is classified as research, as it was last Saturday around Battersea and Clapham. Mmmm.  Good times.

Take care, comrades.

Sian’s post should be making you very excited! As I sit here, uploading this at a festival meeting devoted to our preliminary programme, I am astounded at the work she, Pete and Jemima have done over the past few weeks, not to mention the whole of the artistic department: taking 260 applications and cramming as many as possible in to 4 rooms over 3 days. Golly gosh, my brains are scrambling with excitement!!!

A couple of weeks ago our class finished a photography project which we had been working on independently since Christmas. Our task was to chose a well known self portraiture photographer and to draw inspiration from their works and creat our own piece. We would recreat elements such as their use of light, narrative, location, colour, frame ect. After four weeks of photo shoots and experimentation we wanted to show our work so fare. This resulted in our class creating a scratch exhibition at Central.

All of us entered into this project with different ideas and aspirations and although, for many of us this is not our final product, we came up with some exciting and beautiful images. In the same spirit of our scratch exhibition some of us have decided to open up our work in process to you our festival followers.

Take a look:

My inspiration and motivation for my process throughout the project and the photograph that I displayed came from Anna Gaskell’s photo ‘Untitled #29 (Override) 1997’. I love how Gaskell’s photographs are so tightly cropped and taken from angles that almost seem impossible; the combination of these two aspects really had an impact on me, making the subject of the photograph seem menacing and challenge the imagination.-Emily Wilkinson

"The photographer I chose as my initial inspiration was Arno Raphael Minkkinen. His main body of work has spanned over the past thirty years and is one durational enquiry into reconnecting the human form into a natural landscape. I developed my photographs in an attempt to try and connect my body to my primary urban landscape, Kilburn. I found my body became a bridge, a traverse that could only rupture or abstract my surroundings. I am left still challenging how I connect my life to a world that is at one time solely built to accommodate my body, yet stifles and suppresses it into unnatural lanes and channels." - James Cawson

“This photograph was originally inspired by Ana Mendieta's Imagen du Yagul because I was interested in her relationship with landscape. I wanted to explore the idea of trying to reconnect with an untreated, organic habitat as I feel people grow further away from the body and its natural ability. This image was taken using a long exposure looking over the orange glow of a polluted London at dusk.” - Laetitia Clarke

My photo was inspired by the works of Horst.P.Horst who is a world renowned fashion photographer who began working for vogue in the 1930s. I love the way he uses strong lighting in his work to bring out all the delicate and elegant parts female body .I purposeful chose to not show a face in my work as it takes away any immediate emotion and forces the audience to look closer into the image and hopefully place their own narrative on to the photo. – Phoebe Bozeat.

“My photo was inspired by Cindy Sherman. the fact you have to view it from a low angle looking up means that the woman in the picture is a representation of a fantasy or idol, surrounded by tributes and a shrine. Her strong stance is a reference to all the women in history who have left their mark, whilst the fact that is it airbrushed, represents female vanity and vulnerability. It is wholly in black and white, as a reference to retro photographic techniques, with the only colour being that of the olive skin.” - Francesca Natalie Balchin

As the photography, fine art and film liaison I always get excited about new work by up and coming photography so if you know of any shows ,exhibitions or even just your own work on a blog please do let us know and keep us up to date.

Well done phoebe on filling everyone in on what we’ve been up to. If your into photography, or even if you’ve never tried we have a Photography competition opening shortly so stay tuned.

Joining them in their rehearsals has meant commutes out of London to three regional venues in the south of England. They are all doing different things very well and have, in one way or another, made me excited about small regional venues and what they can offer to communities, artists and audiences alike.

The Point in Eastleigh offers a wide variety of popular performing arts training for the local community whilst developing a unique new creation space equipped with accommodation and living spaces for companies alongside a fantastic airy studio, not only used by high profile companies from elsewhere, but also as a testing ground for local resident artists, who, in the early stages of their careers are given help with producing and rehearsal space, something not many other venues can boast to provide for such young artists.

Greenham Common Arts Centre is housed in the old American military base established during the height of the cold war before being left abandoned. Despite being slightly out of the city, and somewhat difficult for audiences to get to, it seems to be a very inspiring retreat in which artists can come to create work for other places. Only last week was I in a lecture where Helen Paris of live art company Curious was telling us of the site specific piece that the company made there featuring ghostly photos of herself running around the building stark naked, and a mysterious, displaced cowgirl on horse back, riding around the exterior of the grounds as a nod to the American presence long departed.

Finally we come to The Basement in Brighton which is potentially, my favourite of the three. The Basement has created a great atmosphere for people to experience some of the most exciting evenings of performance available in the UK, as well as a great starting point for anyone who has never been to see theatre or live art. The building centres on a hub of a bar which sells cheap drinks and a cosy, friendly atmosphere and from which you can wander off into either of the Basement’s two spaces.

The Basement serves as a great social hub for audiences of theatre, live art and notably music – it seems rare that venues whose main focus is performance, should have such a popular and varied programme of bands. The programme does not try to have too many events, and as a result has a balanced and exciting content.

From scratch nights and more social ‘Supper Club’ evenings for new work to performances by internationally acclaimed artists like Curious, Uninvited Guests and Tim Crouch, their programme has made me want to return to the seaside post rehearsals, to have an ice cream, to put a handkerchief on my balding head and enjoy some shows that, at the moment, can’t even be found in London!

Peter Reed once again hunts down some of the best offerings our country has to offer. And it doesn’t stop there; his performance-sensitive nose is busy sniffing out the best in all things international for AF2010.

About a week ago I was introduced to a thing called Chat Roulette.  It’s a lot like skype only, instead of calling someone you know, you are randomly hooked up to any of the 30,00 other people “playing”.  Here ensues a frantic whizz through different web-cams all over the world. If you get someone you are unhappy with, simply press f9 and it will pick another random camera.

This very simple idea is the brain-child of a 17 year old Russian programmer called Andrey Ternovskiy. He created it so that him and his friends could be randomly paired off with each other. Now thousands of people use this site to make friends, pull pranks, show each other their genitals and more.

The earliest recording of this website, that I could find was in November 09, so this is an extremely new platform. The little advertising on the site pays enough for the running costs, but the creator says:

“Advertising on Chatroulette is kept to a minimum, because there are a lot of sites full of advertisements, which distract you from what you want to do on those sites. I also love minimalism. That’s why I have put only four links on the bottom as advertisements.”

To hear more from the horses mouth come this way!

At the moment this site is getting a lot of blog coverage, some are calling it “the most innovative thing on the web since myspace”.

Having now been on chat roulette several time, it paints a confusing but mesmerising picture of of a digitally connected world. We stare through out camera’s into tiny pockets of the universe, where more often than not, we find other beings staring back. The simple gesture of copying someones facial expression is enough to make you feel as though the planets are aligning. Conversing like this is like Close Encounter of the Third Kind.

Other times you find that all too often you meet an incredibly obscene amount of content; (and I advise anyone who is easily offended to think twice before entering the site) whether it is cleverly superimposed film footage of bestial sex-acts, or a group of guys flipping the bird and shouting sexist, racist, homophobic abuse, or most likely it will be someone masturbating, asking you to “show your tits!”

If you can forgive it these sins, there is much to find inspiration and enjoyment from: I have had amazing conversations with people from all over the world, had a guy draw my portrait, a personal acoustic concert and seen some amazing pranks that make me find new enjoyment and thanks that I live in a world like this. The serendipitous and transient shared moments make the experience feel like a real happening. Could this be pointing to the future of digital performance?

Here are some highlights recently:

Some peeps having a Burka Party

These guy were from Germany and could literally play anything you asked...they did a beautiful rendition of "The Bear Necessities"

I got this girl to make a combined face from both of ours.

what the duck!

This girl from Philadelphia Pennsylvania also shared her face with me.

peek a boo

I'm in Sweeney Todd!

Twilight!

But this is only the beginning. Think back to the first time you went on facebook, or google for that matter. We can barely imagine how this idea will evolve. Will it overtake other social networking sites? What will be the next great prank on here?

Maybe next year’s accidental team will have their own accidental chat: a specifically designated  web space for performance and art to be created and aired to a global audience…?

This blog was written by me, James Cawson, the web designer. I look forward to seeing more exciting performance ideas on chat roulette!