EVOLUTION OF FEARLESSNESS
University of Brighton Gallery from Sat 7th
Digital media artist Lynette Wallworth devises “responsive environments”, immersing visitors in far-off lands in a style which has pervaded New York’s Lincoln Center and the Melbourne International Arts Festival. Here she’s crafted a set of 11 portraits of women living in her native Australia who have survived wars, concentration camps or extreme violence in countries including Afghanistan, Sudan, Iraq and El Salvador. This has resulted in an uplifting installation which chimes with the story of Festival director Aung San Suu Kyi. (LS)
MESOPOTAMIAN DRAMATURGIES
The Old Municipal Market Sat 7th – Sun 29th
Turkey and Iraq split the Middle East region between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, an epicentre of ancient world civilisation which retains huge strategic and symbolic importance as the physical and cultural borderline between East and West. Seeing it as a ‘grey area’ where meaning can shift as dramatically as its volatile weather, former Turner Prize nominee Kutlu Ataman has made a series of artworks and films exploring marginalisation and political and environmental tension in lands where modernism is peeking through. (BM)
10 WAYS TO DIE ON STAGE
The Basement Weds 18th and Thurs 19th
Edward Rapley is one of The Basement’s supported artists, a wiry experimentalist who makes videos of himself standing still on YouTube (top marks for SOURCE research there) and is consumed by the awkwardness of facing an audience one-on-one, bereft of props and shiny lights. The hopes and failures of his life come wrapped in a typically self-emasculating performance, complete with stand-up, fables, dance, live art, clowning, balloons and paddling pools along the bewildering gauntlet between childhood memory and adult loss. (BM)
JOHN CALE
Dome Mon 23rd
The Velvet Underground fella, whose broad Welsh accent still never fails to surprise us, is in town with a concert based around the Brighton Festival’s over-arching themes of exile and home. Taking in selections from his 40-year songwriting career that fit this bill, the evening should include a wide variety of styles from post-classical and avant-gardism to up-tempo modern rock, at which he is still very adept. And he’s eminently more charming than his mate Lou Reed, who’s a proper miserable old bastard. (NC)
JON RONSON
Pavilion Theatre Thurs 26th
One in 100 people are psychopaths, and as journalist Jon Ronson found out when he met the man who invented the official test, there are tell-tale signs. It turns out most of them work in business and politics. Ronson’s previous books saw him hanging out with extremists and New Age wackos, his new one looks at a more dangerous sort of crazy: those in power. With the same disarming tact as Louis Theroux and a keen eye for the absurd, Ronson’s reporting is full of intrigue and humour – even when he’s questioning his own sanity. (BB)
DROLES D’OISEAUX
Victoria Gardens Fri 27th
The crème de la crème of French street theatre producers, the blue men from Marseille will be parading through town on Friday. At 7.30pm Generik Vapeur are marching from Victoria Gardens as part of a surreal Pimp My Ride-style procession to The Level. A train of white cars will be trailed and hung from a giant clothesline before being splattered in a rainbow of colours. You might want to wear painting clothes for this one. (LS)
THE PASSION OF JOAN OF ARC
Dome Sun 29th
Adrian Utley of Portishead and Will Gregory of Goldfrapp have joined forces to create an original live score for this classic 1920s silent film, known for its stultifying and eerie scenes. Accompanied by live percussionists and a choir amongst other musicians, Utley and Gregory weave a glorious, dramatic story alongside the film, amplifying tension and heightening the impact of the scenes. Prepare to be gripped. (JMM)
WORDS BY JESSICA MARSHALL MCHATTIE, NICK COQUET, BEN BAILEY, LYDIA STOCKBRIDGE
