художник на икониPolarbear was on Channel 4′s Random Acts last week.
Random Acts is a brand new short-form daily arts strand on Channel 4. Over the course of a year, it will showcase 260 specially commissioned three-minute films chosen for their bold and original expressions of creativity.
If you’re interested in spoken word stuff, you could do worse than make sure you’re on Apples & Snakes‘ mailing list.
Punch in collaboration with Apples and Snakes, present Tuned On, a development session for performance poets. The event will take place at mac on 20 November from 4 – 6pm.
Artists confirmed to appear on the panel are Kat Francois, OneNess, El Crisis and Chris Redmond, who will be led by Rob Taylor, discussing the creative business side of spoken word, along with their artistic journey and making a living as spoken word poets, before opening the floor to questions.
This will be a great opportunity to meet other members of the West Midland’s spoken word community, set up collaborations and find out about events and performance opportunities.
Tuned On is free to attend, RSVP to bohdan@applesandsnakes.org.uk
Return is very recommended. Weds and Thurs this week at mac. I’ve just got myself a ticket.
As a bonus, there’s an interview with Polarbear here.
Tweedeleededeedee, Sir Ru Barb and the Green Wolf is being warmed up for a winter tour which will kick off at the Kitchen Garden Cafe in Kings Heath on 13 December.
I think this show last had an airing (in Birmingham at least) in December last year at the Town Hall in it’s musical version (storyteller Paul Murphy is the lead singer of The Destroyers). I’m happy to be corrected on that though. Here’s an animated trailer for that show:
This is a bit different to that though – the show can be presented in musical, storytelling and animated forms. This’ll be the storytelling version. It’s aimed at predominently at youngsters and I gather it’s the sort of storytelling suited to dark and stormy nights, so here’s hoping for bad weather.
Well, hello stranger. I just popped in to say hello and tell you all about An Endless Supply, a zine (if you will) created by some of the movers / shakers / candlestick makers of the Brum arts scene. It’s a monthly, black and white, print-to-order, A4 booklet.
I was invited by the curator of the latest issue, Kate Pennington-Wilson to the launch party held at The Victoria on Thursday. This latest issue is spawned from a piece of micro-fiction from Birmingham-based artist, Edward Wakefield. Titled ‘Midnight Silverfish Around The Hot Freezer’, the narrative continues thru text and illustrations from the following: Simon Baker, Ana Benlloch, Lavep Blucher, Nadia Chalabi, Rhys Coren, Olly Forrester, Caitlin Griffiths, Lewes Herriot, Bethan Hodges, Anthony Johns, Michael Kirkham, Amy Lee, Rosa Middleton, David Miller, and Stuart Tait.
There were 4 live readings, the first, apologies - I missed the title, consisted of two people reading passages simultaneously, which worked well as it encouraged you to think about how we listen (the performance style was loosely based around hypnosis tapes and subliminal messaging). The second, a piece by Olly Forrester really reminded me of old spam emails, with a loose narrative which weaves in and out with no real grounding, which worked well and was reminiscent of The Brother Mcleod‘s animation, Spamland. The other readings were let own a little by the writers need to perform in character, notably Tom Waits.
Being loosely linked with Ikon Gallery has ensured the venue was packed to the rafters and teeming with artistic spirit. This sort of publication is going to become more popular over the next few years as there seems to be a ever-growing popular fetish for physical handmade reading matter.
They are currently looking for submissions of work, be it a drawing, a photograph, a pattern, a piece of writing, a text, etc, etc.
I meant to write this up a while back and was reminded by Polarbear appearing on Radio 3′s The Verb (click here to listen again, he’s on at 11mins) the other night.
I’ve gone on a bit about how good I think Polarbear (Steve Camden to his mum) is and a few weeks back I went to see his show ‘If I Cover My Nose You Can’t See Me’ at the REP (who joint-commissioned it with others). In short (and I’d be prepared to go on at length if you really want) it was brilliant.
After the show everyone was ushered up to the REP’s mezzanine where musical partner Afrosaxon was manning the decks and graphic designer Goonism was sketching characters from the show. We also had a reading from one of Polarbear’s inspirations – a fantastic lady whose name, I’m ashamed to say, I didn’t get.
The photo below might need a bit of explaining. Polarbear works with the West Brom-based Multistory on arts projects with kids, doing all sorts including making these masks (his black eye is make-up from the show, by the way).
Anyway, it was great and if/when he comes back it’d be well worth checking his show out. For that matter, I reckon spoken word in general is a hugely underrated artform. I know there are a few things about but if you know of/organise anything of that ilk around Birmingham then feel free to hit the comments below with detais of your next event.
All photos by Lee Allen of Front Row Photos.
