Artistic Directors of the Future, Battersea Arts Centre and Bush Theatre announce the first details of their spring 2019 programme, curated by UP NEXT Artistic Directors - Saad-Eddine Said and Tarek Iskander at Battersea Arts Centre, and Tobi Kyeremateng and Ruthie Osterman at Bush Theatre. These join the previously announced SUPERBLACKMAN by UP NEXT Artistic Director Lekan Lawal at Battersea Arts Centre in November 2018.
UP NEXT is a takeover initiative designed to catapult visionary culturally diverse artists into leadership roles in the UK’s theatre industry, funded by the Arts Council England Sustained Theatre grant. Since July 2017 five directors have taken up artistic directorship at Battersea Arts Centre and Bush Theatre. They have each responded in widely different ways, exploring themes of identity, representation, community and collaboration.
At Battersea Arts Centre, Saad-Eddine Said curates Homegrown Festival: Occupy (18 March 2019 - 12 April 2019), an invitation for young artists, collectives, entrepreneurs, activists and local communities to occupy BAC over the period that the UK is planned to exit the EU, and present a young perspective on our shared future post-Brexit.
The month will feature interactive and gig theatre, live games, virtual experiences, opera, hip-hop, installations and new shows by Sounds Like Chaos, Conrad Murray and a BAC co-production with Contact Theatre Manchester. Other artists include BAC Phoenix Award winner Amy Leon, dancer and performer Akeim Toussaint Buck and many others. Occupy builds on BAC’s annual Homegrown Festival of young voices and emerging talent, and is produced in association with Tarek Iskander.
Bush Theatre’s UP NEXT cohort present BABYLON (4 - 16 February 2019) – a two-week festival celebrating the contemporary global influences and experiences of Black and Brown people. A central symbol in the lexicon of the diaspora, BABYLON represents corruption and injustice, but also immense cultural creativity from the Black and Brown diasporic community. BABYLON sees the Bush Theatre host a series of music gigs, queer cabaret, live podcast shows and workshops, including modern media disrupters gal-dem leading a talk on London activism and Our Naked Truths running an art therapy workshop for elder women of colour. The Cocoa Butter Club brings a one-off dazzling night of entertainment celebrating spectacular bodies of colour, quintessentially queer cabaret, plus a nipple tassel makin’ and shakin’ workshop followed by their After Dark Dance Party.
Pioneering international event BABYLON: Beyond Borders will feature a simultaneously live-streamed collaboration between four theatres, in four cities across four continents – each theatre deeply rooted in its own community. Artists at Bush Theatre, Harlem Stage (NYC, USA), Pequeno Ato (São Paulo, Brazil) and Market Theatre (Johannesburg, South Africa) will all explore their relationship to Babylon, in relation to land, exile, migration and language.
SUPERBLACKMAN (16 November 2018 – 1 December 2018) by Lekan Lawal follows the journey of Al, a young man who claims he can fly and who makes a graphic novel to break the news to his family and friends. SUPERBLACKMAN sees mythology and pop culture collide in a multi-art form mash up that explores power, representation and whose stories get shared. SUPERBLACKMAN takes place in BAC’s reborn Grand Hall as part of the Phoenix Season.
SUPERBLACKMAN forms the core of Lekan Lawal’s programme of work at BAC, and sits within a project he is developing called PLAY which is focused on wellbeing, the intersection of race and mental health and the role publicly funded buildings play in promoting social cohesion. As part of the process, digital work will co-created with and intergenerational community group, exploring themes and ideas around the show.
UP NEXT responds to the needs of Artistic Directors of the Future members in giving them practical leadership experience across a range of disciplines including artistic direction, producing, programming, fundraising, marketing and production and the opportunity to become part of a network of BAMER leaders going through a similar experience who can share learning and support each other.
SUPERBLACKMAN | Lekan Lawal
16 Nov 2018 –1 Dec 2018
Battersea Arts Centre
Press night: Tue 20 Nov, 7:30pm
Al has a secret. He can fly. To break the news to his family and friends, he’s made a graphic novel and is going to turn it into a blockbuster movie.
Follow Al’s journey as mythology and pop culture collide in a multi-art form mash up that explores power, mental health and representation.
SUPERBLACKMAN forms the core of Lekan Lawal’s programme of work, which is focused on wellbeing, mental health and the role publicly funded buildings play in promoting social cohesion. SUPERBLACKMAN takes place in BAC’s reborn Grand Hall as part of the Phoenix Season and features an intergenerational choir made up of members of the local community.
SUPERBLACKMAN focuses on issues of race and mental health as a framework to interrogate a wider question; how do the fictions that we create, the entertainment we absorb and the history we accept impact on social cohesion and equality
On Fridays and Saturdays SUPERBLACKMAN is followed by SUPERBLACKMAN LATES, an invitation to party into the early hours with artists and DJs, immersed in an audio-visual mixtape inspired by SUPERBLACKMAN.
As part of the process, digital work will co-created with and intergenerational community group, exploring themes and ideas around the show. Information. Information on relaxed performances of SUPERBLACKMAN will be available soon. Relaxed performances mean audience members are free to move about, make noise and come and go during the performance.
The development of SUPERBLACKMAN has been supported by the Wellcome Trust and is being made with input from national and internationally based mental health practitioners exploring these trends, which are consistent across the UK, Europe and America.
BABYLON
4 – 16 Feb 2019
Bush Theatre
BABYLON: Beyond Borders press night: 13 February
BABYLON is two-week festival celebrating the contemporary global influences and experiences of Black and Brown people, from the local influences of Black and Brown people on British culture, through to an international dialogue around contemporary exile across the globe.
BABYLON will feature music gigs, queer cabaret, live podcast shows, workshops, and international event BABYLON: Beyond Borders to be live-streamed across London, New York, Johannesburg and Sao Paolo. Gal-dem, the pioneering online and print magazine produced by women and non-binary people of colour, host a celebratory panel and short film screening around the different types of community grass-roots activism happening across London led by Black and Brown people. Our Naked Truths host bespoke art therapy workshop for female-identifying and non-binary people of colour over the age of 60. The Cocoa Butter Club brings a one-off dazzling night of entertainment celebrating spectacular bodies of colour, quintessentially queer cabaret, plus a nipple tassel makin’ and shakin’ workshop followed by their After Dark Dance Party.
Pioneering international event BABYLON: Beyond Borders will feature a simultaneously live-streamed collaboration between four theatres, in four cities across four continents – each theatre deeply rooted in its own community. Artists at Bush Theatre, Harlem Stage (NYC, USA), Pequeno Ato (São Paulo, Brazil) and Market Theatre (Johannesburg, South Africa) will all explore their relationship to Babylon, in relation to land, exile, migration and language. Ruthie Osterman (Bush Theatre) Sarah Elizabeth Charles (Harlem Stage), Pedro Granato (Pequeno Ato) and Mwenya B. Kabwe (The Market Theatre) will meet online and in person for an intensive week of workshops in London ahead of a performance taking place simultaneously across the four theatres, connected via live stream from 12 to 16 February. Using art as a global language alongside new technologies and live media, BABYLON: Beyond Borders will create both a virtual and emotional space, where dialogues can be initiated, narratives shared and cross-border actions fomented.
Homegrown Festival: Occupy
18 Mar 2019 - 12 Apr 2019
Battersea Arts Centre
Homegrown Festival:Occupy (18 March 2019 - 12 April 2019), curated by Saad-Eddine Said in association with Tarek Iskander is an invitation for young artists, collectives, entrepreneurs, activists and local communities to occupy BAC over the period that the UK is planned to exit the EU, and present a young perspective on our shared future post-Brexit.
Occupy extends Battersea Arts Centre’s annual week-long celebration of young talent to four weeks – giving a bigger platform for people to engage with the building and its history to present work exploring worries, hopes and dreams about our shared future.
The month will feature interactive and gig theatre, live games, virtual experiences, opera, hip-hop, and installations. Acclaimed teenage company Sounds Like Chaos present brand new show WOW EVERYTHING IS AMAZING and Conrad Murray premieres new show Highrise Estate of Mind. The festival will include Looking For Love, a virtual experience by Fanshen; The Mission, a live game by Exit Productions, work by Contact Theatre Manchester, BAC Phoenix Award winner Amy Leon, dancer and performer Akeim Toussaint Buck, Access All Areas, People Film Club, 20 Stories High, Australian company Backbone and many others.
Beyond the artistic programme, Occupy will be an opportunity for communities to come together and rethink our common future through young people’s perspectives.
UP NEXT ARTISTIC DIRECTOR BIOGRAPHIES
Tarek Iskander
Tarek was one of the founders and Associate Artistic Director of the Yard Theatre in Hackney and he was previously Resident Director at the National Theatre Studio. Credits as Director include QUDZ and SHIVER (both at the Yard Theatre and also written by Tarek), MINOTAUR (The Unicorn Theatre) and A WINTER’S TALE (Batumi Drama Theatre/ British Council Georgia). Associate Director credits include THE ICE BREAK (Birmingham Opera Company, dir. Graham Vick) and A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE (Bolton Octagon, dir. David Thacker). Tarek is also currently employed as Interim National Director for Theatre at Arts Council England.
Tobi Kyeremateng
Tobi Kyeremateng is a theatre, festival and live performance producer. She is currently Producer at Apples and Snakes. In 2013, she assisted in producing Ovalhouse Theatre’s site-specific piece ‘The Street’, and joined Battersea Arts Centre as Junior Producer until 2016. She was part of the Old Vic 12 2016 cohort, where she produced Joe White’s play ‘Pagans’,
Tobi is the co-founder of the Black Ticket Project, an initiative that aims to make theatre accessible to Black young people.
Lekan Lawal
Lekan Lawal is currently an Artistic Director (Up Next) at Battersea Arts Centre and Associate Artist at the Hackney Showrooms. He trained at LAMDA (Carne Trust Scholar), and on the Young Vic Directors Programme. He was Resident Director at Derby Theatre 2015-2017 with the Regional Theatre Young Directors’ Scheme (RTYDS) and an Old Vic 12 Director 2016-2017. His production of Betrayal at Derby Theatre won the 2017 Stage Debut Award for Best Director.
Ruthie Osterman
Ruthie Osterman is a theatre director, playwright, performer and drama teacher who graduated from the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama in London and the school of Dramatic Arts in Tel-Aviv. Work includes multiple international collaborations and performances in London, Israel, Poland and India. She is a member of the Lincoln Centre Directors Lab in NYC and was recognised as a promising artist and endorsed for an Exceptional Talented Artist Visa for the UK by the Arts Council of England in 2015.
Saad-Eddine Said
With a background in Documentary filmmaking and participatory art, Saad Eddine Said’s work has always had entrepreneurship, creativity, impact and dialogue at the heart of it. He also was previously the co-artistic director of Terre Sans Frontiere, a charity based in Morocco promoting intercultural dialogues in collaboration with local communities and multidisciplinary artists from all over the world.
