Programme for BRIGHTON FESTIVAL 2021 revealed
Brighton Festival, which will have a split online and socially distanced presence this year, has announced its programme of events.
The programme will feature 94 events, performances and installations and will run online from 1 May, and then socially distanced in-person from 17-31 May. If the government does not allow socially distanced audiences by 17 May, the contingency plan is for live streams to continue for the whole festival.
The theme of ‘care’ will run throughout the pieces, with projects by Jane Horrocks, poet Lemn Sissay, lighting designer Paule Constable and cabaret artist Le Gateau Chocolat among those to feature.
Constable joins forces with director Neil Bartlett and Sound Designer Chris Shutt to create an immersive theatrical piece called Tenebrae: Lessons Learnt In Darkness, which will run from sunrise to sunset over one day at Brighton’s Theatre Royal.
Horrocks brings a collaboration with her musician daughter Molly Vivian with Yolks and Aliens; three films reflecting on Horrocks’ role as a mother and her relationship with her own mother who had Alzheimer’s disease. Joining the project are artist Francesca Levi and designer Camilla Clarke.
Poet Sissay has been given the honour of being the festival’s guest director and launched the programme online with Chief Executive, Andrew Comben. Sissay presents his own project, Tell Me Something About Family, which invites the public and other artists to share personal family memories.
The programme will also feature comedians Josie Long and Mark Watson, renowned author Jacqueline Wilson and poet Michael Rosen, along with classical artists Roderick Williams, pianist Paul Lewis, Jessie Montgomery and Isata Kanneh-Mason. There will also be shows from cabaret artist Le Gateau Chocolat, folk musician Eliza Carthy and Welsh musician Gwenno.
Other projects include a reinterpretation of B.S. Johnson’s novel House Mother Normal, which sees a series of nine monologues presented online by director Tim Crouch.
There will also be a world premiere of This Body is so Impermanent, a film by director Peter Sellars as a response to Covid-19 and based on the Buddhist text, the Vimalakirti Sutra.
For more information head to the Brighton Festival website here.