PROGRAMME FEBRUARY – JUNE 2009

Charity No: 1116008

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Brighton Pier

The Royal Pavilion

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Brighton Station

DIRECTIONS

By Foot: The Basement is a 10minute walk from Brighton train station. After exiting the station, walk through the under path (Trafalgar Street) until you reach Sydney Street, turn right. Sydney Street then meets Kensington Street, you will find us half way down on the left-hand side.

By Bus: Closest bus stop is Kensington Gardens, services No: 21 | 37B | 49E | 78 | 79. For more information please see Brighton & Hove Bus and Coach Company: www.buses.co.uk

By Train: Direct train services from Gatwick Airport, London Street. Pancras International (Eurostar), London Victoria station, Luton Airport and London Bridge. For more train information please see National Rail enquiries: www.nationalrail.co.uk or telephone 08457 484950.

By Car: Brighton is only 45 minutes from the M25 London orbital motorway. From the M25, take the M23/A23 to Brighton & Hove. The coastal route A27 links the city east and west.

Parking: North Laine has three car parks. NCP Trafalgar Street is the cheapest, this is accessed from Whitecross Street or Blackman Street, which are off the North side of Trafalgar Street. There are two other NCP car parks in North Road and Church Street. For more information please see: www.brighton-hove.gov.uk or www.northlaine.co.uk or telephone 01273 292298.

Map by localhoneydesign@hotmail.com

Supported by:

24 Kensington Street

Brighton BN1 4AJ

Telephone: 01273 699 733

Email: info@thebasement.uk.com

www.thebasement.uk.com

We are dedicated to innovative and experimental live art practice and our programme explores new ideas, formats and methods of presentation, to create a dazzling line up of the most interesting local, national and international work.

4MOST is our showcase of new work by leading national and international artists in live art, experimental/performance theatre and site-specific installations.

Foundation is a brand new section of our programme that gives some of Brighton’s leading artists a chance to try out new performance works under development, and for you to get a insight into their working processes.

SupperClub is a jam-packed night of experimental performance curated by our very own Supported Artists. Come along as the most charismatic, nationally emerging live artists share their wares and take over The Basement.

Supported and Associate Artists are a community of practitioners we work with. This is central to the ethos and activity of The Basement. Our Supported Artists are a group of emergent, Brighton based artists, supported by The Basement through an administrative base, venue resources and mentoring support.

Our Associate Artists are a group of established practitioners who are based at the venue or have developed work with us over a number of years.

Supported Artists: Augusto Corrieri, Bryony Henderson, Clara García Fraile, Eva Weaver, Flying Eye, Leonard, Sara Popowa, The Two Wrongies and Victoria Melody

Associated Artists/Practitioners: Katie Etheridge, Lone Twin, Movement 12, Ragroof Theatre and Total Theatre Magazine

We would like to thank the many volunteers and our board members (past and present), as well as our funders and supporters, who have helped us create one of the most exciting new venues in the South East. We could not have done this without their encouragement and support.

We look forward to seeing you

Helen Medland Artistic Director

PS We have a fully Licensed Bar serving speciality regional beers, wine and cider, all sympathetically priced!!

welcomeIt is with huge excitement that we invite you to our second programme of Live Art at The Basement. We’re very proud to show artists from our own backyard alongside artists who have come from around the world, to share their work with our audiences here in Brighton.

4MOST THE STORY OF TEA Date: Sat 7th & 8th FebruaryDoors: 7.30pm Entry Fee: £10 (£8 concessions)

Nightingale Theatre in collaboration with The Basement presents The Story of Tea, a variation on the theme of Three Sisters by A.P. Chekhov.

DAH Teatar’s version of Three Sisters deals with trains and missed opportunities, trains of missing people, lost languages and missing truths. The performance explores the meaning of memory in relation to the truth – especially the harshest truths. A poetic and beautiful interpretation of one of Europe’s masterpieces. Don’t miss this rare opportunity to see DAH in the UK.

Movement 12 presents LIVE LUNCH with CiCi Blumstein Date: Thur 12th FebruaryDoors: 1pm (Lunchtime!)Entry Fee: FREE (bring your lunchbox!)

A series of monthly lunchtime events curated by Movement 12 and co-produced with The Basement. These popular events - a series of happenings - may take the form of a short performance experiment, a talk or discussions based around the interests of a different dance artist and witness something that will intrigue and inspire you.

www.movement12.org

Movement 12 is - a group of independent dance artists based around Brighton curating an international programme of artist-led professional development opportunities for dance artists, movement classes and summer schools with internationally respected performance makers and teachers, space to try out ideas and show work in progress and opportunities to meet, discuss and explore. Movement 12 aims to facilitate an environment in which the focus is on process, exploration and discovery rather than on product.

FEBRUARY

Photo: Bip Mistry

box office: 01273 699733

Dr. David Bramwell and Lady Rachel Blackman present THE TWILIGHT CLUB: St. Valentine’s Delight

Date: Sat 14th February Doors: 8pmTickets: £8 (£6 concessions)

HCooing love-birds, strutting peacocks, broken-hearted poets, and courtly lovers – come celebrate the feast of love as The Twilight Club teams up with Dorothy’s Shoes to create St Valentine’s Delight, a night of heady romance, cheeky games, interactive performance, melodious music, flirtatious dance, and high mischief.

Special guest artist CiCi Blumstein will invite you to step into the carefully calibrated Love Triangle, where the Seamstress of Love awaits to measure the heart and the secret spaces within it, revealing EXACTLY how much love you have…

Elsewhere, be seduced by delightful dances led by the delectable Dorothy’s Shoes, games engineered by the delicious Dr David Bramwell and luscious Lady Rachel Blackman. Hear the very latest cutting edge 78s spun by the Wind-up Brothers.

Movement 12 presents GO Lisa Nelson and Scott Smith

Date: Fri 6th MarchDoors: 7.30pm Entry Fee: £8 (£6 concessions)

A dance piece based on a Tuning Score proposition by Lisa Nelson

Within an improvisational framework, this performance simultaneously explores the choreographic craft and the physical sensation of dancing. Working in the space between the arbitrary and the structured Go creates a dramatic tension for both the performers and the audience. Conflicting desires are played out in time, space, and action.

“The tuning score redefines the dynamics of dance performance. You see a frame-by-frame exposure of images, falling somewhere between sandpainting and filmmaking”. Montreal Gazette

Go is produced in cooperation with Contact Collaborations, Inc. (www.contactcollaborations.com) and with the support of The Basement. Movement 12 are Associate Artists.

MARCHMovement 12 presents LIVE LUNCH with Scott Smith Date: Thur 12th MarchDoors: 1pm (Lunchtime!)Entry Fee: FREE (bring your lunchbox!)

A series of monthly lunchtime events curated by Movement 12 and co-produced with The Basement. These popular events - a series of happenings - may take the form of a short performance experiment, a talk or discussions based around the interests of a different dance artist and witness something that will intrigue and inspire you.

www.movement12.org

Movement 12 is - a group of independent dance artists based around Brighton curating an international programme of artist-led professional development opportunities for dance artists, movement classes and summer schools with internationally respected performance makers and teachers, space to try out ideas and show work in progress and opportunities to meet, discuss and explore. Movement 12 aims to facilitate an environment in which the focus is on process, exploration and discovery rather than on product.

Foundation Dean Gibbons and the Knowledge of Death - A work in progress Silvia Mercuriali and Matt Rudkin

Date: Fri 20th MarchDoors: 7pmEntry Fee: FREE

Ernest Swansong, eminent primatologist from the Zazen-Co Biological Research Facility in Japan, comes to The Basement on his world tour to present the mesmeric abilities of a newly discovered species of ape, The Giant Mountain Bonobo.

A darkly comic work of social-science-fiction based on the claims of evolutionary psychology, this show imagines an irreversible process of rapid environmental change is already underway, that it is too late to avoid catastrophe, and that a powerful few are conspiring to bring about drastic solutions.

The audience are invited to stay behind for a glass of wine and to share their feedback. This project is supported by the Arts Council.

box office: 01273 699733box office: 01273 699733

SUPPER CLUB Date: Sat 21st MarchDoors: 7pm Entry Fee: £7 (£5 concessions)

The Basement’s Supported Artists present a night of art chaos.

See music, film art, performance art, installation art, visual art, invisible art, shit art, good art, explosive art…expect to indulge yourself in a frenzy of art intoxication, expect to pay, expect it all and possibly nothing at all.

Deep underground (and at times through) the streets of Brighton, a core team of The Basement’s artists curate the best of new and experimental arts / live music from the UK.

They plot a Saturday night for you and your friends. But you won’t know what’s on the menu until it’s served…

‘…the combination of something to nibble with a keenly priced bar and some of Brighton’s more interesting culture vultures makes for quite a temptation’ The Brighton Source, December 2008

Dorothy Max Prior (Dorothy’s Shoes) presents THE BASEMENT BORDELLO Date: Sat 28th MarchDoors: 8pmEntry Fee: £8 (£6 concessions)

Dorothy’s Shoes and her Gentlemen Friends, Champagne Charlie and Burlington Bertie, invite you to The Basement Bordello, a ghost-world Palace of Fun in which the boundaries of ‘performer’ and ‘audience’ are disrupted as the space is animated by a cornucopia of live events that honour and usurp the traditions of ‘popular entertainment’.

Enter The Ballroom That Time Forgot and be drawn into the dance. Slip into The Sideshow for flickering films and shadowy performance vignettes. Take time out in Bar Staad to be tempted by Bad Stock Productions’ menu of ‘cabaret noir’ musical interludes and pertinacious puppetry. Magic moments guaranteed.

4MOST THE BUCKET Wevie Stonder Date: Fri 3rd April Doors: 8pmTickets: £6

With gleeful wrongness, absurdist electronic provocateurs Wevie Stonder launch their fourth album, The Bucket on April Fool’s Day from the ragged car boot of their very own Cack records label. In celebration they will be bringing their glorious freakshow to The Basement for their first Brighton gig since 2003. Their legendary live shows mix performance art with game-show razzmatazz, a riot of surreal costumes, manic humour and a blatant disregard for musical propriety.

‘This is exactly the kind of underground, leftfield business that keeps me alive in times of pop shite overload’ Rob Da Bank, BBC Radio 1

Movement 12 presents LIVE LUNCH host to be confirmed Date: Thur 9th AprilDoors: 1pm (Lunchtime!) Entry Fee: FREE (bring your lunchbox!)

A series of monthly lunchtime events curated by Movement 12 and co-produced with The Basement. These popular events - a series of happenings - may take the form of a short performance experiment, a talk or discussions based around the interests of a different dance artist and witness something that will intrigue and inspire you.

www.movement12.org

Movement 12 is - a group of independent dance artists based around Brighton curating an international programme of artist-led professional development opportunities for dance artists, movement classes and summer schools with internationally respected performance makers and teachers, space to try out ideas and show work in progress and opportunities to meet, discuss and explore. Movement 12 aims to facilitate an environment in which the focus is on process, exploration and discovery rather than on product.

APRIL

Photo: Victoria Melody

box office: 01273 699733box office: 01273 699733

4MOST Prune Machine Glitz B.O.R.NDate: Sat 11th April Doors: 8pmTickets: £10 (£8 concessions)

B.O.R.N is Paul Granjon, Davida Hewlett and Thomas Hobson. Prune Machine Glitz is an attempt to defeat contemporary feelings of gloom and doom while embracing a wide range of human activities and feelings. Based on personal experiences, reflections on progress, love, and the challenge of a meaningful life, Prune Machine Glitz is a musically rich, dance activated, thought provoking, multi-layered, technological, heartfelt journey shaped as a cross between a robot demonstration, a psychological experiment and a slightly wobbly cabaret night.

The show combines Paul Granjon’s expertise of hand-made machines and unique approach of the performance lecture format with bright performer Davida Hewlett’s vivid, humorous and slightly paranoid observations and pop ballads. Paul and Davida’s previous collaboration was the Mind Sniffer, a consultation room where volunteers’ psychic abilities were evaluated. Thomas Hobson, a visual artist and skateboarder, brings an energetic dimension, super slick dance moves and fine video graphics skills. All the crew will be singing and dancing.

4MOST NO ENTRY Rosie DennisDate: Fr1 17th April Doors: 7.30pmTickets: £10 (£8 concessions

Colliding dance, performance poetry and theatre, No Entry is an electrifying exploration of the rapacious and demanding nature of the corporate workplace. It draws on themes of greed, exposure and escape to create two very different personas, both trapped in a world of unrelenting deadlines and white noise. Sound and movement collide to create an intensely evocative performance, and a compelling insight into the emotional fragility of the human psyche.

”No Entry is gripping but elusive, dancing gracefully between possible meanings the way Dennis danced gracefully between genres…” The Scotsman

This project was commissioned by The Plateaux Festival and supported by Australia Council for the Arts, University of NSW & University of Sydney.

SUPPER CLUB Date: Sat 18th AprilDoors: 7pm Entry Fee: £7 (£5 concessions)

The Basement’s Supported Artists present a night of art chaos.

See music, film art, performance art, installation art, visual art, invisible art, shit art, good art, explosive art…expect to indulge yourself in a frenzy of art intoxication, expect to pay, expect it all and possibly nothing at all.

Deep underground (and at times through) the streets of Brighton, a core team of The Basement’s artists curate the best of new and experimental arts / live music from the UK.

They plot a Saturday night for you and your friends. But you won’t know what’s on the menu until it’s served…

‘…the combination of something to nibble with a keenly priced bar and some of Brighton’s more interesting culture vultures makes for quite a temptation’ The Brighton Source, December 2008

Dr. David Bramwell and Lady Rachel Blackman present THE TWILIGHT CLUB: Enter the Spirit World

Date: Sat 25th April Doors: 8pm - lateTickets: £8 (£6 concessions)

Step off the street into an intimate candlelit other-world for parlour games, maverick performances, Generation Game-style silliness, sing-songs round the piano and other complicitous adventures as Brighton’s celebrated Twilight Club returns for a second season of high mischief.

Tonight, Dr David Bramwell and Lady Rachel Blackman dare you to step into the spirit world where unseen entities will vie for your soul. Be intoxicated by ghostly melodies and hypnotic psychics. Featuring an eye-opening demonstration of Atter’s Attree’s Chaporgasmatron, the erotic charm of Madame Wazelle and her astounding Cabinet of Spirit Entities, a screening of Toby Amies’ vintage film noir classic ‘the Ghost of Odd Fellow’, spooky music of the dead from the Wind Up Brothers and much more. You can also share your spookiest stories in the Story Forest.

Collaborative entertainment for those of an adventurous spirit! The Twilight Club is a youth Club for Bohemians. Come prepared to participate!

Photo: Jenny Hunt & Holly Darton

box office: 01273 699733box office: 01273 699733

4MOST STAY! Stacy MakishiDate: Fri 29th May Doors: 7.30pm Tickets: £10 (£8 concessions)

A dinner party has had one drink too many and now Elizabeth Taylor lifts the petticoats of a love affair that’s gone to the dogs. Film Noir collides with Pet Rescue in this hilarious examination of co-dependence, malicious domination and the subversion of the natural order.

This highly visual piece draws its inspiration from the paintings of Paula Rego, Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf and Lassie Come Home.

Developed at Lyric Hammersmith

Dorothy Max Prior (Dorothy’s Shoes) presents THE BASEMENT BORDELLO Date: Sat 30th MayDoors: 8pmEntry Fee: £8 (£6 concessions)

Dorothy’s Shoes and her Gentlemen Friends, Champagne Charlie and Burlington Bertie, invite you to The Basement Bordello, a ghost-world Palace of Fun in which the boundaries of ‘performer’ and ‘audience’ are disrupted as the space is animated by a cornucopia of live events that honour and usurp the traditions of ‘popular entertainment’.

Enter The Ballroom That Time Forgot and be drawn into the dance. Slip into The Sideshow for flickering films and shadowy performance vignettes. Take time out in Bar Staad to be tempted by Bad Stock Productions’ menu of ‘cabaret noir’ musical interludes and pertinacious puppetry. Magic moments guaranteed.

MAY4MOST Imagined Monochrome (Massage) 2009

Anish KapoorDate: Sat 2nd - Sun 24th May Doors: 10am - 6pm Tickets: £12 (Booking essential from ticket office:

01273 709709 or www.brightonfestival.org)

Commissioned by Brighton Festival

Designed to give the participant an experience of monochromatic colour

A massage

The experience of colour is imagined

Foundation The Demographic of a Pigeon Fancier - Victoria Melody

Date: Mon 18th – Mon 25th MayDoors: 10am - 6pm dailyEntry Fee: FREE Finale: Mon 25th May, Jubilee Square

(weather permitting) FREE

Victoria Melody is an artist who spent 2008 travelling around the UK living with pigeon fanciers. These videos, performance works and mass liberation of pigeons are from her research into stereotypes, northernness, class and Britain’s disappearing traditions. On the 25th May as a finale the North, West, South and East of England will become linked in a performance. In an installation taking place in The Basement between 18th and 25th May the public will have the opportunity to create a dialogue via pigeon between the locations. Participate by writing a message of your thoughts, opinions, anecdotes, and/or stories on Britain’s vanishing traditions.

www.victoriamelody.co.uk

Victoria Melody is a Basement supported artist. This performance is supported by Arts Council England.

box office: 01273 699733box office: 01273 699733

Dr. David Bramwell and Lady Rachel Blackman present THE TWILIGHT CLUB: The Great Brighton Treasure HuntDate: Sat 13th June Doors: 8pm - lateTickets: £8 (£6 concessions)

Celebrate the return of barmy summer nights as the Twilight Club turn their hands to the age-old tradition of the treasure hunt. Set around the bars and streets of North Laine but using the Basement Club as its heart, The Great Brighton Treasure Hunt, will have you sculpting, collecting, playing, performing, quizzing, problem-solving and ultimately collecting a bunch of new friends.

Tonight your regular hosts, Dr David Bramwell and Lady Rachel Blackman will be joined by the mistress of treasure hunts herself, Denise Gough. Further challenges will be provided by Señor Pete ‘I predict a Pop Quiz’ Fijalkowski hosting a Shooting Stars style quiz in the piano bar, a top secret Two Wrongies challenge for your excitement and a host of other performance treats. Afterwards join us in the Basement for dancing, tapas, wine, song and games deep into the summer night.

Dress Code: for outdoor and indoor activities

Collaborative entertainment for those of an adventurous spirit! Come prepared to participate!

Foundation Cutting the Cord - Flying Eye

Date: Thurs 25th JuneDoors: 7pmEntry Fee: FREE

Where did you come from? Where are you going? Can you recall the exact voice of your mother? Did you ever meet her? Memories that flutter past and silently leave their traces. The feel of dewdrops under your feet running across the lawn, scraping your knee on the concrete border, wobbly train that makes your heart excited...

Cutting the Cord is a promenade performance exploring the sense of what it means to belong. It is a work-in-progress by FLYING EYE developed in association with BAC and The Basement.

JUNE4MOST Reverend Billy and the Gospel Choir of Stop ShoppingDate: Mon 1st June Doors: 7.30pm Tickets: £10 (£8 concessions)

Hallelujah! Your saviour is at hand! Reverend Billy and his magnificent Gospel Choir of Stop Shopping will sing, preach, charm, berate, seduce and rescue you. All in one evening. If you feel we’re suffering from shopping overload, if you’re concerned about a world rife with global advertising, multi national control, global warming, packaging, supermarket domination, TV merchandising and all the rest of rampant free marketeering in a profit driven wicked and dirty world ... then help is at hand my friends. This is your antidote to the devils that plague us. An evening that will delight and charm even the most hardened devotee of the shopping culture. Hallelujah! Rev Billy has been feted (and arrested) in several countries. He lives and preaches in New York City.

‘Elmer Gantry crossed with Michael Moore’ The Wall St Journal

SUPPER CLUB Date: Sat 6th JuneDoors: 7pm Entry Fee: £7 (£5 concessions)

The Basement’s Supported Artists present a night of art chaos.

See music, film art, performance art, installation art, visual art, invisible art, shit art, good art, explosive art…expect to indulge yourself in a frenzy of art intoxication, expect to pay, expect it all and possibly nothing at all.

Deep underground (and at times through) the streets of Brighton, a core team of The Basement’s artists curate the best of new and experimental arts / live music from the UK.

They plot a Saturday night for you and your friends. But you won’t know what’s on the menu until it’s served…

‘…the combination of something to nibble with a keenly priced bar and some of Brighton’s more interesting culture vultures makes for quite a temptation’ The Brighton Source, December 2008

Photo: Julian Hughes

box office: 01273 699733box office: 01273 699733

JUBILEE SQUAREJubilee Street, Brighton, BN1 1GE

The Basement is the event manager of Jubilee Square, Brighton’s newest and most exciting outdoor venue. The space is ideal for a diverse range of cultural activities including Live Art showcases, street theatre, exhibitions, community events, outdoor screenings and music events.

On one side is Jubilee Library influenced by the 19th century Paris libraries of Henri Labrouste and tiled in thousands of dark blue and green hand glazed ceramic tiles, suggesting the ‘mathematical’ tiles on many historic Brighton buildings. The building then stretches round the corner to become Pizza Express.

Built to complement the Library, myhotel Brighton was finished in June 2008. The Architects, RHWL, were keen to create a more solid facade to the square than the glazed library and restaurant.

It is a white-rendered box with regular bays at first and second floor levels, a reference to the local Georgian vernacular. The culmination of these buildings is the creation of a natural amphitheatre with astounding acoustics.

The Basement started programming Jubilee Square at the beginning of 2008. So far we have brought you Blast Theory and BoSI (in partnership with Brighton Festival) along with supporting Festival Fringe events, plus Tea Dances, Urban Playground, Choral Singers and an Astro Turf garden with deckchairs, to name just a few of the happenings. The Basement’s vision for the Square is to bring established and emergent artists to the heart of the City, making it one of the most exciting and innovative Public Spaces.

Situated in the North Laine, Brighton’s Cultural Quarter, Jubilee Square is only a short walk from the train station, the Royal Pavilion, Brighton Dome, Theatre Royal and the seafront.

The Square is 19m x 23m with a footfall of 20-22,000 per day. Jubilee Square is available for hire 7 days per week, license permits activity until 11pm.

For more information on The Basement and Jubilee Square visit the website www.thebasement.uk.com

To utilise Jubilee Square please contact us on info@thebasement.uk.com or call 01273 699733

THE BASEMENT Re-launched in October 2007 after the completion of a redevelopment period, creating four unique spaces under one roof. The Basement spaces (The Space, Pit, Study and Foyer) can be hired exclusively or together. The Basement has a capacity limit for up to 250 people and is available for hire 7 days per week, located in the centre of the North Laine area, only a short walking distance from the train station and the seafront.

For venue hire fees please contact info@thebasement.uk.com or call 01273 699733.

“The Basement is a wonderful, engaging, supportive and creative environment, and a friendly place in which to test the waters and push the performance envelope.”

Liz Aggiss and Charlotte Vincent

“All I want to be saying is, thank you, because you have been wonderful, so I’ll say that now, thank you, thank you, thank you!”

Daniel Kitson

“Just wanted to say how FANTASTIC it has been working in your spaces the last couple of weeks. Everyone had a really great time and we all felt that we were really looked after.”

Charlie Morrisey

“Rehearsing at the Basement was a great experience. Not only were the facilities of a very high standard but the staff were fantastically accommodating and helpful.”

Lone Twin

The Space 7m by 25m, the main body of The Basement. Ideal for devising, rehearsing, production or exhibitions.

The Pit 7m by 6m, an intimate space with a sprung floor and tiered seating for 60. Ideal for presentations, performances and screenings.

The Foyer A café style area with a capacity of 40, ideal for breakfast and lunchtime meetings or networking events.

Roger B

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