Created in Birmingham

• Whatsonstage Midlands
  "the first site purely dedicated to performance in the Midlands, providing a platform for all the talent and flair that takes place here"
• Anne Bennett and Annie Murray at Castle Bromwich Library
  On Thursday 15 May at 10.30am you can listen to two well known local authors Anne Bennett and Annie Murray talking about their different lives and personal experiences of Birmingham.
• Sunday Flea at the Custard Factory
  It's back on Sunday 18 May from 11am to 4pm. The Birmingham Opera Company are having an open day down there with activities too.
• Dave Holland Jazz Ensemble Awards
  Garry Corbett (aka bluejazzbuddha)'s photos from the final of the Dave Holland Jazz Ensemble Award evening, held on 27 April at the Birmingham Conservatoire.
• Robot Vs Dinosaur
  Back at Island Bar on Friday 16 May with Datassette and Lone complementing the DJs. Dress like a robot or dinosaur for reduced entry.
• International Dance Festival Birmingham - events for w/c 12 May
  A selection of events and workshops including a performance by the National Ballet of China and the opportunity for a peek at Ikon Eastside where 'Glass Fragments of Time' is on. There's film action with 'Planet B-Boy' on Saturday.

• OJS Theatre - What’s On May to July 08
  Comedy and theatre listings for the Old Joint Stock Theatre during May to July 2008
• Birmingham Words handover
  The National Academy of Writing/BCU are taking over Birmingham Words from 12 May. Good luck to all involved and I’m looking forward to seeing what the “new and exciting directions” involve.
• International Dance Festival Birmingham - Collective Memory
  Wechtie is doing a fantastically useful collective memory for the IDFB. If you’ve spotted any online coverage then post a link in the comments on his blog.
• Supercool mention Winnie O’Brien
  I like the look of Winnie O’Brien’s work but can’t find any information on her (yet). Props to Supercool for posting this.
• New Ikon Eastside Space
  27 May sees Ikon’s itinerant Eastside programme re-open in a new location on Fazeley Street, Digbeth. It opens with Soi Project, an artists’ collective from Thailand and Japan.
• Woom Gallery in the Jewellery Quarter
  Some interesting things happening here “the common thread being; the venue’s charm, underground edge and our input into aesthetics.. leaving the audience with the feeling of being part of something a bit special”.

I went along to the Animation Forum West Midlands event, Shorts On Walls, on Monday which was most enjoyable. The organisers were certainly pleased with how things went and have said so on their pleasingly blog-ish news page.

Also on that page is the evening’s screening schedule with links to the animators’ profiles. I understand they were trying their best to accept last minute submissions meaning giving out a running order on the night wasn’t possible, so it’s good to see it here.

It also helps me to pick out the films that I particularly enjoyed and give them an extra plug here.

First up, ‘Don’t Touch’ by Louis Hudson from Dice Productions.

The Nickolodeon-style anarchy of Pedro & Frankensheep from the Brothers McLeod was great and has apparently been picked up by CBBC.

A name that cropped up again and again was Natalie Ann Hinchley. She has a credit on Pedro & Frankensheep, her Second Home Productions outfit produced the jaw-dropping ‘The Animal Book’ (only the trailer here but it’s still a treat)

and, although I can’t find a video to embed, go and check out the Light House commissioned ‘Onions’ on Natalie’s website - animated bunnies are always a winner.

I’m at risk of just listing everyone here so I’ll finish with a few quick mentions:

• Although less polished, the video for Nyoto Ndogo’s track Dunia (remix) has a good energy about it and I like the song (presented by Andrew Burchell).
• ‘What If’ by Mat Parker’s Short Animations 4 Education was uncomfortable viewing for the right reasons (trailer only on the site).
• Steven Spencer describes ‘My Brown Friend‘ as a “dark exploration of addiction” which it is.
• Finally, the YouTube embedding has been disabled but I’ll forgive that (just about) to mention ex-BCU MA student Guillaume Weiss’s ‘4:51‘ which I thought was just incredible.

You’ll have to excuse some slightly hectic posting this week and next while I get my head round 300ish new RSS feeds and an inbox stuffed with interesting (and hopefully not yet out of date) emails.

I’ll also introduce myself properly later but for now, here’s a round-up:

• “aCtiVe arts is a steering group, made up of committed residents and local professionals, dedicated to providing quality arts experiences and opportunities for the Castle Vale community of North-East Birmingham”. They have a blog and you are advised to see what they’re doing.

• The next Drop Beats Not Bombs runs from Friday 2 to Monday 5 May (the bank holiday) and tickets are available. That’s at The Rainbow (and the warehouse and arches) in Digbeth. There should be more info on their website but it was having bandwidth issues last I checked.

• The people at the People shop in Kings Heath are having a party with drinks and canapés at their store on Saturday 26th April from 10am until 5:30pm. It’s in aid of Macmillan, there’s a raffle for a luxury goodie bag and visitors can have their photo taken by Emily Quinton. Get all the info here.  **UPDATE** It was a big success with £430 raised on the day.  More events will follow.

• Simon has started a blog called Birmingham Central. He says he’s “been inspired by the recent blogging epidemic sweeping Birmingham and the value of a good blog to share news and information”.

• Speaking of bloggers, the next Birmingham Bloggers meet-up will be on Tuesday 29 April at Rooty Frooty in the Custard Factory. Nick Booth has more info but I refer you also to the Facebook event and the Upcoming page.

News to me here is that the Moselely Folk Festival is a three day event this year, starting at 3pm on the Friday. Other than that it looks to be the usual mix of old school folkie classics, nu-folk (or whatever) and quirky stuff. Nice!

Here’s the lineup and tickets are on sale with a weekend pass at £55.

via RussL

Here’s the “outline design” for the new BIAD campus in Eastside, as revealed on Simon Howes’ Eastside blog.

Millennium Point is in the foreground and the red blob is Curzon St Station. Simon also has a top down map which pleasingly shows how much open space they’re planning to leave, which is nice as I like the amount of green currently there.

A number of you have been contacting me over this appearing on Google:

In short, nothing to worry about, it’s all in hand, just waiting for Google to process the site before removing the warning.

In long, we were running WordPress 2.2 which was vulnerable to hacking and someone hacked it. Nothing major, just a bit of link spam. We’ve upgraded to the more secure WordPress 2.5 and cleared away all the spam so all it right with the world.

The Art of Ideas is three events taking place in Birmingham this week. I’m going to attempt to gather the various online responses in this post. As usual, send me links or add them in the comments.

Ruth Ward has set up an Arts of Ideas blog gathering together all the material associated with the events in one place, including the essays and images. Nice one!

Tuesday: Culture and Identity - The Role of Place in Shaping the Arts

I took notes during the talk. Yes, that was me tapping away in an irritating manner. Sorry.

James Yarker posted his notes on the Stan’s Cafe blog. (Yes, there’s a Stan’s Cafe blog! And it’s very good.)

Catherine O’Flynn’s talk is on the Post website.

Jon Bounds at BiNS was there. He also points us to Euphoria, mentioned by Catherine and celebrating the forgotten bits of Brum. Worth a look.

Twitter:
@RussL: “Reading all this stuff about this talk last night: B’ham is the ultimate post-modern city. It’s strength is its ability (and tendency) to interrupt its own meta-narrative. Or is that too wanky?
@AnthonyJHughes: “Art of ideas - do we really need to discuss/ have discussed our industry as if we weren’t there? Do we need to anylise creativity to death?” and “It’s a bit like a late night review where Tom Paulin and Sarah Dunant discuss why something is funny…..Margaret Street”

Wednesday: Why Should We Care About Creativity in the West Midlands?

I again took notes during the talks. Hope they’re of some use. Of course if the organisers recorded the event and make that public it’d be even better (hint!)

D’Log gives a detailed report.

Stuart Parker wasn’t overly impressed.

Thursday: Future of Sound
This is now taking place at the John Lee Theatre at the Birmingham & Midland Institute, 7:00pm to 10:00pm

Two essays by Matt Price and Catherine O’Flynn are available printed on an absurdly large piece of paper. If these are online anywhere please let me know else I’m going to have to try and scan that bastard.

[Update: It seems like this is coming out of the Visual for Business people]

Fused have transcribed a flyer detailing some interesting events at the Hippodrome next week, which I will proceed to copy verbatim:

Culture & Identity The Role of Place in Shaping the Arts
Tuesday 8th April, 6.30pm‐8pm

Chair: Robert Yates

Speakers: Richard Billingham ‐ Artist, Turner Prize nominee, Catherine O’Flynn ‐ Writer, Costa First Novel Award winner 2007, James Yarker ‐ Director, Stan’s Cafe

Why Should We Care About Creativity In the West Midlands?
Wednesday 9th April, 6.30pm‐8pm

Chair: Robert Yates

Speakers: Soweto Kinch ‐ Musician, MOBO Award winner & Mercury Award nominee, Stuart Murphy ‐ Creative Director, TwoFour / Former Controller BBC3, Matt Price ‐ Writer / Curator, Gavin Wade ‐ Artist, Founder Eastside Projects

‘Future of Sound’ Birmingham Showcase
Thursday 10th April, 6.30pm‐9pm

Including: Sykes, Director Cybersonica Martyn Ware, Modified Toy Orchestra, Soweto Kinch, The Sancho Plan, And local Birmingham artists.

Tickets are free and will be allocated on a first come first served basis. To book please contact Arts Co on 020 7723 0285 / info@arts‐co.com

These look to be rather essential.

All sorted now!

I wouldn’t normally put this sort of thing on the blog but with the Fierce Festival imminent it seems important. Fierce’s email is down for a whole week so if you want to get hold of anyone with a @fierceearth.com address please use fierceearth [at] googlemail [dot] com. That is all.

From willgrant

Photos are posted here from the Birmingham Flickr community. Click on the image for more details.

From abrinsky

Photos are posted here from the Birmingham Flickr community. Click on the image for more details.

A bit of context

Amusing error in the (quite lovely) current MAC program which made me smile:

Which gives me the excuse to remind you that the MAC is closing for 18 months of refurb on April 7th - that’s just over a fortnight away - and they’re going out with a bang with some cool stuff on right now.

Who can you spot? (No pun intended.)

via BiNS

I think this counts as some kind of artwork.

Jon Bounds has an iPhone which picks up WiFi networks as he walks around Birmingham. He’s been making notes of their names and created this piece of digital folk art. Or something. Bigger here or as a poster.

I note he hasn’t been past my flat…

On the plus side we’ll all be able to track the culture articles on the Birmingham Post’s website much easier when their new site launches next week. On the downside that means these links will probably be broken next week. Ah well. Here’s my picks from the last fortnight or so.

A director who lets the play do the talking
Director Paulette Randall talks to Terry Grimley about the social issues underpinning Roy Williams’ new play.

Katherine revives a humble craft technique of old Birmingham
Terry Grimley meets the Barber Institute’s sculptor-in-residence.

Oratory blurs glorious Cathedra sound
Maggie Cotton reviews Ex Cathedra at Birmingham Oratory.

Heard the latest news - Editors are back in town
Jon Perks speaks to Editors frontman Tom Smith.

More reasons to celebrate our talent
Peter Bacon’s Jazz Diary

Nicola keeps to a tough schedule
Only just out of her teens, young violin virtuoso Nicola Benedetti is philosphical about the rigours of a jetsetting career, writes Terry Grimley.

A young composer who takes success in her stride
Birmingham Conservatoire graduate Joanna Lee talks to Christopher Morley about her new commission for the Orchestra of the Swan.

From the ashes of disaster grow the roses of success
Harborne’s Moorpool Players got more than they bargained for when they presented themselves as the Reformation Players and unleashed an evening of dramatic disasters under the heading of Coarse Acting Strikes Back.

Graphiquillan blogs:

The idea for these button badge mock-ups came as a result of a number of experiences since I moved to Birmingham. The theme: the oddities of interpretations of place names in Birmingham derived from typos, spell-check suggestions, mispronunciations and adolescent mischief.

The full set, should you want to turn them into badges yourself, is here.

via BiNS.

Artsfest sent through their newsletter as a Word document. Which was… nice. The thing is, it’s got a shedload of really useful and interesting information that really should be up on their website. So in the interests of public service (and to get myself some quick and easy content) here’s their roundup of what some of the artists who’ve been involved with Artsfest are up to with links added. And then at the end I’ll explain why Artsfest should do this on their site.

Birmingham Printmakers Have Moved
Birmingham Printmakers are pleased to announce their move to brilliant new premises in the heart of Birmingham’s creative quarter. Previously based at Lee Bank Business Centre, you can now find the Printmakers at their new home on 90 Floodgate Street, Digbeth.

An Evening of Russian & British Romance – with proceeds to St Mary’s Hospice & Church
Stella Sims (mezzo-soprano) & Phillip Ypres-Smith (piano/organ) invite you to join them for an evening of exotic Russian & inspiring English songs punctuated by piano solos & atmospheric poetry, with proceeds going to St Mary’s Hospice & St Mary’s Church. The concert will take place on Saturday 8th March, with Russian food served from 6.30pm, and the concert starting at 7.30pm at St Mary’s Church, Bristol Road, Selly Oak, Birmingham, B29. Tickets are priced at £8 (£6 concs) with advanced tickets available by calling 0121 472 1839.

MDCC Theatre Company – New Plays by Local Writers
MDCC Theatre Company warmly invites you to their first production of 2008, ‘Family Snaps’. ‘Family Snaps’ features two new plays, ‘Tidy’ by local writer Martin Drury and ‘Forgive Us Our Trespasses’ by local writer Elizabeth Parkes. Performances take place at Oldbury Rep on 22nd & 23rd February and at MAC Hexagon Theatre on 29th February & 1st March. For more information please visit mdcctheatre.com

Poetry in Wednesbury
On the last Thursday of each month Poetry Wednesbury will be meeting from 7.30pm at their new venue The Old Post Office, Holyhead Road, Wednesbury for poetry readings, open mic, occasional workshops and even a little music! Admission is free and all are welcome to go along and participate or just to watch.

Capoeira Batizado
Capoeira Conviver are pleased to announce their first UK grading ceremony on Saturday 22nd March. Taking place only once a year the Batizado features Capoeira students receiving their belts and a whole day of performances. This promises to be a chance to see some truly amazing martial arts with Capoeira masters from all over the world confirmed to attend. For more information please visit capoeira-conviver.com

International Dance Festival Birmingham
Birmingham is set to secure its position as an international dance capital with the announcement of the inaugural International Dance Festival Birmingham. A joint venture between DanceXchange & Birmingham Hippodrome, the month long festival will take place from 28th April to 24th May 2008. The festival will encompass all styles of dance and express the youthful, diverse and energetic spirit of Birmingham while bringing outstanding dance from across the globe to the city.

Mexicolas
Local indie-esque rock band Mexicolas have just announced their February/March UK tour dates. Due to play Birmingham’s Bar Academy on February 15th (full tour dates available at myspace.com/mexicolas), the band will also be performing as special guests to legendary rockers The Cult on Saturday 23rd February at The Forum in London. The bands debut album X is due for release in February with the tracks Come Clean & Shame being used on EA Games Burn Out 2008 and UEFA Soccer 2008.

computerclub
Local indie band computerclub must have been delighted to see their debut limited edition single ‘Snobs’ sell out in a week. Following this the band are due to record their debut album from February and their second single ‘Electrons and Particles’ will be released on March 16th. Computerclub will tour the UK in March with tour dates available at myspace.com/iheartcc.

James Rea
Since ArtsFest 2007 James has been invited to play live on BBC Radio WM and has been featured in the New Talent section of the BBC website. James first released single ‘So Scene’ is currently at No. 4 in the birminghamusic.com charts. James is due to support Dodgy on a series of dates across the UK during March including March 25th at the Academy 2 in Birmingham.

Band of Brummie Brothers go Stateside
Having been getting widespread airplay in the U.S, brummie brothers UXL have been invited to play at this years Canadian Music Week in Toronto in March. Canada’s largest entertainment festival, this is fantastic news for the band!

Rainbow Voices
Rainbow Voices, Birmingham’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered choir are through to the area finals of Radio 3’s Choir of the Year show at Warwick Arts Centre on 9th March. Rainbow Voices also perform with Edinburgh counterparts the fabulous ‘Loud and Proud’ on Saturday 15th March. Rainbow Voices first CD can be ordered from Pam on 07841 755379 at the price of £10 plus £1 p&p. The choir rehearse from 8.15pm each Tuesday at The Hub, 318 Vicarage Road, Kings Heath, B14 7NH.

Bassoon Day
Birmingham Bassoon Choir will be holding a bassoon day on 24th February for all ages at King Edwards School on Edgbaston Park Road, Birmingham. The bassoon choir will also be performing as part of the Women in Music Festival at Birmingham Town Hall on 1st March.

DanceXchange
On 26th & 27th February from 8pm DanceXchange presents Rubberbandance Group from Québec performing Elastic Perspective, a work investigating human relationships through a marriage of explosive hip hop and subtle contemporary dance styles. Following this, on 13th & 14th March from 8pm, the company presents Maresa von Stockert & Tilted Productions performing Glacier, an emotionally charged work exploring global warming and environmental change. All performances take place at DanceXchange, Birmingham Hippodrome, Thorp Street, Birmingham, B5 4TB with tickets available by calling 0870 730 1234 or visiting dancexchange.org.uk/shows.

3estates Kings Norton
An exhibition of past and present public art projects that have taken place on the 3estates in Kings Norton will be held at The Custard Factory from 27th February to 1st March. Organised by local photographer Rita Fletcher, the exhibition will also feature ‘A Film of 100 Verses for 3estates’ by Ravi Deepres and Gavin Wade.

Birmingham Festival Choral Society is Making History
On Sunday 13th April at 7.30pm in Birmingham Town Hall, BFCS will present Mendelssohn’s Elijah with the English Hayden Orchestra on period instruments. This performance will capture a time in 1846 when the then newly formed BFCS participated in the ‘Elijah’ premier in the Town Hall, and then again in 1847 with Mendelssohn himself conducting. Being hailed by BFCS as the highlight of their 2007/8 concert season, tickets are priced at £6.50, £10, £16.50 & £20.

Open Mic for Women
L.I.M.E – Yelitza & Friends (Ladies Institute for Music & Entertainment) invites all female artists to take control, share their music, and come and be part of this open mic night held once a month at Café One, Five Ways, Birmingham. For more information please visit myspace.com/yelitzauk.

—

Now that’s a fantastic resource right there. Admittedly it’s all over the place but that’s the beauty of it. Artsfest is in the unique position of having contacts in all sorts of areas of the arts in Birmingham from little community groups to organizations with an international profile. Turning this into a resource is such a no-brainer I can’t believe it’s never occurred to me before. The above is pretty much made up of press releases with no critical voice added, which is not an issue. It probably took me an hour to source all the links in using Google. Even allowing for the small number of staff running Artsfest during the rest of the year I think turning this into a blog shouldn’t be too hard. Each morning check through the emails, copy any news items into a new post and add links. This should take about half an hour if that. And bingo, you’ve got a website that has value throughout the year and promotes Artsfest in ways a poster campaign can’t hope to reach.

(I am, of course, available for chats and tea on these issues…)

You probably know Paul Murphy as the poet in the hat who joins The Destroyers on stage to rant about a fascist regime and have an awareness that he’s also a singer / songwriter of some repute and well respected within the city. Or at least that’s where I was regarding him. So it was nice to discover this movie of him talking about the c21Vox project:

I don’t know how old this is or the exact status of the project (though I’m sure someone will elucidate in the comment, hint hint…) but it’s great to hear Paul talk about this work. If proof were needed that he’s a key figure on the scene with a sharp mind and a good heart, this should suffice.

From dan-ish

Photos are posted here from the Birmingham Flickr community. Click on the image for more details.