Brighton Festival 2017 celebrates the Everyday Epic: Highlights and Events
At a political and social moment that feels particularly precarious, Brighton Festival 2017 celebrates what Guest Director Kate Tempest calls the ‘Everyday Epic’ – art that helps us connect to ourselves and others, explores our individual stories and differences, and encourages audiences to take a walk in someone else’s shoes.
Taking on the baton from last year’s Guest Director, the pioneering artist and musician Laurie Anderson, Kate Tempest has brought a formidable passion and energy to the role. She is an extraordinary artist across many forms – recording artist, poet, playwright and novelist – with a unique ability to connect with people of all ages and from all walks of life. Kate is passionate about the power of the arts to bring communities together – vital now more than ever.
A series of outdoor site-specific works will encourage audiences to see the ‘Everyday Epic’ in the landscape of the city and engage with their environment anew, such as For the Birds (6-28 May) an immersive light, sound and kinetic sculpture trail at a woodland location. Storytelling in all its forms is celebrated in a number of events such as The Gabriels (20-27 May), Tony-award-winning playwright Richard Nelson’s extraordinary depiction of one American family, written and set in real time during the turbulent US election year. The power of the arts to activate empathy and pose questions about how we view the ‘other’ is examined through works such as They/Onlar (6-28 May), Ipek Duben’s multi-screen installation which explores the division lines of gender, ethnicity and sexuality in Turkish society; and Collisions (6-28 May), Lynette Wallworth’s thought-provoking Virtual Reality film experience which puts audiences directly into the life-changing moment when indigenous Martu Elder Nyarri Nyarri Morgan a witnessed an atomic test – his first encounter with Western culture.
Reflecting Tempest’s belief that: “The arts should be in our communities, not only on elevated platforms or behind red velvet ropes”, Brighton Festival 2017 sees two new ventures: The Storytelling Army (26-28 May), a dynamic collective of people from all walks of life who will be performing in unexpected locations around the city, and Your Place (13/14, 20/21 May), a diverse line-up of mixed arts programmed in partnership with Brighton People’s Theatre, Festival artists and local residents in the Hangleton and Whitehawk communities. These join regular free, participatory events such as the annual Children’s Parade (6 May), City Reads and Young City Reads; and Weekend Without Walls (13/14 May), two days of free arts in the parks; and a new initiative which encourages audiences to Pay-It-Forward by donating £5 on top of their ticket price which will be match-funded by Brighton Festival to create a £10 Festival ticket voucher for someone unable to afford the opportunity.
We are thrilled to be presenting more work across the city than ever before, and I hope that Brighton Festival 2017 will encourage the whole city to come together to celebrate the creativity in their communities and try something new.
Andrew Comben, Chief Executive,
Brighton Dome & Brighton Festival
