Hello everyone!
How are you doing today? There’s a special focus on festivals this week so there’s loads to chose from!
From research I don’t think there’s anything in particular I need to give a heads up for content warnings wise but if there are any do give me a heads up
I hope you enjoy the shows!
Febuary 3rd - 6th
Pay what you can
For more than 10 years, Bâtard Festival has been operating as a platform supporting and presenting emerging artists.
This platform investigates in which ways and from which grounds can upcoming artists “emerge” and it aims to cultivate a bastard spirit of artistic daringness and political reflection.
Between Bâtard 2020 and today, a particular year unfolded. Through its consecutive waves of muting and unmuting the cultural sector, many artists (difficultly) continued to work, think, exist and Bâtard’s team (as all cultural workers) kept on adapting to make sure to still follow and support artistic processes.
Meanwhile, the team tried to approach artists as whistleblowers, listening to their experiences to shape the future of the festival and its economy. And of course, Bâtard took some time to think about how this invisibilized work could be articulated in an exciting and safe manner.
Liveness, togetherness and physicality are at the core of Bâtard’s motivations and identities. But the current times cannot host the publicness that we usually practice and love.
Something remains: the desire for a festival reflecting the present and its complexity, while staying radical and responsible.
On those grounds, we decided to conjugate Bâtard in the present tense by allowing it to leak into other forms of lives.
This edition brings together Bâtard 2021’s artists and team in Beursschouwburg throughout the month of January, without the physical presence of an audience.
This month of internal encounter will be dedicated to video-record and document the works and exchanges of the programmed artists.
These videos and traces will be made available (mostly) on Bâtard website from the 3d to the 6th of February.
Streaming until 7th Febuary
£10
The Reflections of Native Voices Festival is a two-week festival from SAFE HARBORS NYC featuring theatre, music and native dance performances by visionary Indigenous artists from across the country. The festival runs January 25-February 7, 2021 and is presented in partnership with New York Theatre Workshop.
Ram of God by Theodora van der Beek
Streaming until 19th Febuary
£4/6
In the heart of the British countryside, prophet and visionary Ram of God leads his flock in a life of simple devotion. Followers are encouraged to live by the principles of Ram: joy in the everyday, the chasing of pleasure, release of pride, and obedience. The apocalypse, scheduled in the year 2028, lurks in the distance.
With influences from seventies horror to cult documentaries, music videos and cereal adverts, Ram of God is a playful takedown of masculinity and its shadowy cheerleaders and joyfully tackles the new possibilities and limitations of presenting theatre on screen.
Who’s Afraid of Raimunda by Josep Caballero García / Queerpraxis
Streaming now
Free
“Who is Raimunda?” – “First of all, Raimunda is my great-grandmother. She is a woman who, at the end of the 19th century, against the expectations of a rural Spanish society, made business deals with men, could write and read the newspaper. She is a person from my family and she is the allegorical characters of our production. There have been numerous Raimundas from the Middle Ages until today and, in creating our production, we have encountered numerous other historical figures who correspond to her.”
The new production by Josep Caballero García, “Who’s Afraid of Raimunda”, received its world premiere at Kampnagel Hamburg on 22 October 2020 and sets off on the trail of queer iconographies. The work toward the world premiere of “Who’s Afraid of Raimunda” began a year ago with research into a chapter of the medieval history of the Iberian peninsula, a time in which the plurality of cultures and genders was tolerated before the Christians reconquered the peninsula in 1492 and drove the Jews out of Granada. Prior to this, for many centuries, three different cultures and religions lived together: Al-Andalus, Jews and Christians, who formed an extraordinary cultural hybrid together. It was not only cultures that mixed, but sexual practices as well. Numerous texts and poems from the period describe a queer, hedonistic Iberian peninsula as well as the war against the Andalusian and Jewish homosexuality from the time of the Christian reconquering.
Streaming from 2nd Febuary
£10
The film version of Fevered Sleep’s acclaimed theatre piece Brilliant. Set in a dreamlike world full of all kinds of light, Brilliant explores the deep emotions, strange imaginings and secret games that happen as we drift off to sleep.
Imagine it’s bedtime. Imagine it’s time to turn out the light. Imagine the world turning, and the moon shining bright…
Brilliant is set in the magical space between being awake and being asleep, and follows the journey of a girl as she overcomes her fear of the dark. Created especially for 3-5 year olds and their families.
The past few weeks I’ve been volunteering with 0161 Community who run a foodbank in north Manchester. They do great work and are a great bunch. They’re currently fundraising so they can get shipping containers so they can store any food or sanitry donations they recieve. If you ever wanted to give me a thank you for curating this list of shows each week then one way you can do that is chucking a few quid over to 0161. To support them click here. Here’s a photo of the 0161 posing after creating over 100 food parcels for families in Manchester
Thanks again for subscribing and taking the time to read through.
I’m (trying and failing to) not on twitter at the moment so if you want to say hello just respond to this email! A few of you have over the past few weeks and it really cheers me up.
With that in mind, do us a favour and share it with your mates plz.
Hope you have a lovely week and talk soon!
Josh x