British Council announces arts programme highlights for January - June 2012
27 January 2012
Graham Sheffield, Director Arts at the British Council, said:
‘The British Council enters 2012 with a strong and inspiring arts agenda alongside many key partners. In the first six months alone, we will launch a major season in China, as well as a celebration of the bicentenary of Charles Dickens in more than 50 countries. Increased investment in the Middle East, North Africa and the Gulf sees a substantial increase in our arts programme in these regions, including a groundbreaking exhibition in Saudi Arabia and a new grants programme for artists from Egypt. Our presence in Russia continues to increase with the opening of a major retrospective of Henry Moore at the Kremlin in February and we have extensive work planned across South and East Asia.
All of this, as well as showcases in fashion, architecture and design, sets us up well for our major involvement in the second half of the year alongside the Olympics. This programme demonstrates the British Council's continuing commitment to the arts as part of its core mission.’
Middle East, the Gulf and North Africa
Our long-term presence in these regions gives us access to people at all levels in society with unique insight to inform the international response to the changes taking place. We are providing opportunities and giving a voice to the new generation of young people who are shaping their countries’ futures.
UK musicians to Sudan
February
As part of an ongoing series of festival development and capacity-building work, the British Council will support UK hip hop artist Ty and Cardiff-based Pen Pastwn taking part in a music event at the National Museum in Khartoum and the National Stadium in Port Sudan. The Port Sudan gig will be the first music event there of its kind for over 30 years.
1927: The Animals and Children took to the Street, United Arab Emirates
February
Theatre company 1927 will visit Dubai for the first time, bringing its innovative mix of performance, cabaret and animation to Dubai Community Theatre and Arts Centre. The performance will be accompanied by workshops and is part of an extensive international tour across Europe and Asia generated by the British Council’s Edinburgh Showcase, a biennial platform of outstanding UK performance, designed to find opportunities for British artists to tour overseas.
Selector Radio, Egypt and Libya
February
The Selector gives people around the world the chance to experience UK music and connects up-and-coming UK artists with new audiences. The show is broadcast in 35 countries around the world, from China to Mexico, Indonesia to Malawi. Recent guests have included Carl Barat, Dels, Jamie Woon, Chemical Brothers and Edwyn Collins. In many of these countries, there are few, if any, commercially available radio programmes with such an innovative and wide-ranging remit.
Middle East delegation to British Dance EditionFebruary
The British Council has invited a delegation of key festival directors and artists from across the Middle East to attend British Dance Edition 2012, the biennial showcase of new British contemporary dance performances, talks and networking events.
Your Stories Film Workshops, Libya, Bahrain
February and March
Working with local media groups, Scottish Documentary Institute is taking an innovative practical filmmaking workshop model to key locations during 2012 in order to introduce emerging local media students to the principles and practice of good documentary story-telling.
Out of Britain, National Museum Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
April
This major exhibition is the first ever contemporary British art exhibition to be shown in Saudi Arabia. Selected by curators from the National Museum, Riyadh, it features works from the British Council Collection, which explore the themes of the British landscape, from the literary Britain of Bill Brandt’s photographs, to the London painted by Humphrey Ocean and David Hepher. Several sculptures, among them a new installation by Conrad Shawcross, will be shown. The exhibition travels to Kuwait after Saudi.
Innovation Seed Fund for Social Change, Egypt
Date TBC
A new fund to support local projects by artists and creative individuals in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya in the wake of the Arab Spring. The fund is administered by the British Council and is designed to help the creative community establish itself following the recent political upheavals. It is also available in South Africa, Nigeria and Kenya.
Abu Dhabi International Book Fair
28 March – 2 April
The British Council will curate a cultural programme for the UK Guest of Honour at Abu Dhabi International Book Fair, in partnership with the Publishers Association and the Reading Agency. The programme will showcase British talent, offer skills development and will involve leading British and Arabic writers and publishing experts.
East Asia
The arts play a vital role in the UK’s relevance to the major emerging powers in the world today. Sharing English, the arts, education and our ways of living is a powerful means of creating opportunities and building trust globally.
China: Musicians’ Residencies – Jamie Woon in Xi’an
From 2 January
As part of a six-week residency programme organised and supported by the British Council and PRS for Music Foundation, singer-songwriter Jamie Woon is travelling to Xi’an, home to the First Emperor's tomb and his terracotta warriors. Jamie will be exploring the local rock scene in Xi’an and sharing his musical ideas via a regular radio programme, performances and recording sessions. The residencies are designed to enable innovative British musicians to explore new musical territory, reach new audiences and write new material in the context of a changing international market. Pianist Matthew Bourne will travel to Xiamen in March.
UK Now, China
From April
UK Now, a major festival of UK arts will be held in China from February to November 2012. The festival, potentially the biggest ever celebration of UK arts held in China, will highlight the best of UK creativity and will include exhibitions, concerts and performances across 17 cities. It is being managed by the British Council in partnership with HSBC and Brunswick, and will also include longer-term collaborative programmes for arts venue managers and technicians and joint initiatives in cultural heritage and creative economy policy. It will be funded by major UK companies including HSBC, Brunswick, Burberry, Diageo, IHG, Jaguar Land Rover, John Swire & Sons Ltd, Prudential and Norton Rose LLP and Standard Chartered Bank, as well as the British Council.
UK Film focus at Beijing and Shanghai International Film Festivals
April and June
A film and live music programme presented by the British Film Institute will link Beijing with London; a programme of visiting films and filmmakers drawn from the 2012 BAFTA nominees will be presented at the Shanghai festival.
Cultural programme for the China 2011 Market Focus at the London Book Fair
16–18 April
The Market Focus initiative is an important opportunity for UK and international publishers to liaise with their foreign counterparts and seek out and capitalise on new business partnerships. The British Council curates the cultural programme around the fair, around London and around the UK, bringing international writers - this year from China - together with their UK peers and audiences.
Everything Forever Now
February – July
This new exhibition will tour East Asia and explore new developments in sustainable design. It features a varied and fantastic range of British designers, including EADS UK, Julia Lohmann, Bill Amberg, Grimshaw Architects & Arup and Bethan Laura Wood.
Russia
The British Council has played a significant role in bringing about a closer relationship with Russia through its cultural work in recent years. Our many activities include: Russia Market Focus at London Book Fair (50 Russian writers to the UK); UK Designers at Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Russia; Antony Gormley at the Hermitage; the 50th anniversary of manned space flight, with the unveiling of a statue to Yuri Gagarin on the Mall and accompanying exhibition; William Blake at the Pushkin Museum; Henry Moore at the Kremlin Museums; the Pre-Raphaelites at the Pushkin Museum (scheduled for 2013) and a major festival celebrating the centenary of Benjamin Britten in 2013.
Henry Moore, Kremlin Museums, Moscow
21 February – 31 April
The work of Henry Moore will be shown in Moscow in collaboration between the British Council, the Henry Moore Foundation and Kremlin Museums. Sculptures and drawings will be included in the first modern art exhibition ever to be shown at the Kremlin Museums.
Reconstruction, Moscow
April
Reconstruction: Cultural Heritage and the Making of Contemporary Fashion features the work of seven leading UK fashion designers Paul Smith, Vivienne Westwood, Hussein Chalayan, Marios Schwab, Peter Jensen, Sophia Kokosalaki and Osman Yousefzada. The exhibition will also tour to Bangladesh and Pakistan.
Brit Lit
Ongoing
As part of our legacy work following the Russia Market Focus at the London Book Fair in 2011, we are bringing British literature to Russian classrooms. Under the scheme, entitled ‘Brit Lit’, specially trained teachers in Russia will use downloadable teaching packs made available by the British Council to teach English to Russian schoolchildren. The teaching materials are based on short stories written by leading British writers.
Study visit for UK Curators to Russia
March
Ten curators of contemporary art, from museums and galleries across the UK, will visit Russia in mid-March to see new Russian galleries, foundations and institutions with a view to forging stronger cultural links between Russia and the UK.
South Asia
We work across the region, including in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.
Homelands: a new exhibition for India, Delhi
Exact date TBC
The British Council has invited Indian curator Latika Gupta to select an exhibition for India drawn from the joint reserves of the British Council and Arts Council Collections. The exhibition will explore how these collections of British art reflect on the British from the perspective of 'an outsider', and will be the first in a series of exhibitions where curators from across the world will be invited to make their own selections of work from these collections, and present them to their domestic audiences. The exhibition is scheduled to tour to Hyderabad, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai.
Karachi Literature Festival, Pakistan
10-12 February
The third edition of this exciting literature festival organised by Oxford University Press was co-founded with the British Council in 2010. This year, we are supporting Hanif Kureishi and Anatol Lieven to take part in the bi-lingual programme, alongside writers from Pakistan and the rest of the world.
Unbox Festival
February
The festival hosts a multidisciplinary line-up of designers, entrepreneurs, thinkers and enthusiasts, exploring the challenges of contemporary India through creative collaboration and digital innovation. An immersive field trip will also take place involving Indian creative design participants and a UK delegation of design entrepreneurs, social activists and creative practitioners, who will be attending as part of the Young Creative Entrepreneur programme in India.
Americas
Our work builds strong links between people in the UK and people in the places that matter most to the UK.
Transform, an important programme of events and exchanges with Brazil will be announced later in 2012
Hay Festival, Cartagena
26–29 January
As part of our global partnership, the British Council and Hay Festival present a programme with British writers Ben Okri, Andrew Davies, Tiffany Murray and Jon Gower who will take part in readings, discussions and workshops in Bogota and at the Hay Festival in Cartagena
Festival Selector Screenings
14–16 January
As part of its promotion of UK films and filmmakers to wide international audiences, British Council Film has a growing relationship with the world’s major film festivals. In January, the first of these – Tribeca – will join the British Council in London to attend a three-day programme of new UK film screenings. They’ll be followed during the year by the selectors from Cannes (Director’s Fortnight), Karlovy Vary, Locarno, Toronto, Busan, Sundance, Sofia and Rotterdam in a programme that will be partnered by the BFI for the first time.
Mexico focus on UK film
1–10 March
British Council Film is working with Guadalajara International Film Festival, Mexico, to stage a high profile country focus on the UK over ten days; Mike Leigh will attend the festival to collect the international award, present Another Year at its opening gala and front a ten-film retrospective. The festival will also screen a programme of more than 20 contemporary UK films and a shorter Derek Jarman celebration, while a large number of UK industry guests – including The Script Factory’s Lucy Scher and producer Tanya Seghatchian, as well as Young Creative Entrepreneur award winners – will travel to the festival to present workshops and panel sessions. A satellite programme of UK highlights at the festival will follow in Mexico City.
Global
Dickens 2012, worldwide
Ongoing
Spanning more than 50 countries, the British Council’s programme for Dickens 2012 includes film screenings, art exhibitions, public readings, immersive theatre, educational events and creative workshops. The programme engages audiences overseas, both with Charles Dickens and with the best of contemporary British creative talent. One of the highlights will be The Berlin Literature Seminar (in partnership with Bertelsmann) on 26-28 January, where writers, including Claire Tomalin, David Nicholls, Louise Doughty, Toby Litt, Denise Mina and Philip Hensher, will attempt to answer the question ‘What Would Dickens Write Today?’ A further highlight will be a collaboration between immersive theatre company Punchdrunk and Arcola Theatre, inspired by their recent community production The Uncommercial Traveller and showing in Karachi in February.
BAFTA on tour
From March
British Council Film is newly appointed as BAFTA’s cultural partner, a relationship that will begin following the awards in February, with a series of touring programmes designed to allow international audiences access to BAFTA-recognised films and filmmakers.
Hay Festivals
Ongoing
Hay Festivals and the British Council launched a global partnership at the Hay-on-Wye Festival in May 2010 and work together to bring UK authors and thinkers to a global audience. This year, festivals will take place in Kenya, Wales, India, Hungary, Bangladesh and Spain amongst others.
Unlimited International
Ongoing
The largest ever celebration of disability arts will profile and develop the creative talents and ambitions of disabled and deaf artists and challenge traditional perceptions of disability as part of the London 2012 Festival. The British Council will support five international collaborations being developed between disabled artists in the UK and other countries, including South Africa and Brazil.
Rivers of Music
Ongoing
River of Music will welcome the world to London with a spectacular weekend of free music from across the 205 Olympic and Paralympic nations, presented at iconic sites along the River Thames on 21 and 22 July 2012. The British Council is supporting collaborations between UK musicians and musicians from the five continents and, working closely with the live music producers, Serious, will bring musicians to the UK in the Summer of 2012 to perform at BT River of Music. River of Music is produced by Serious, and supported by the Olympic Lottery Distributor and Arts Council England. It is part of the London 2012 Festival.
Europe
Our arts team works with the best of British creative talent to develop innovative, high-quality events and collaborations that link artists and cultural institutions across Europe.
International Fashion Showcase, London Fashion Week
February
Presenting work from around the world on the theme of ‘Emerging Talent’, London embassies, cultural institutes and commercial officers exhibit the work of up-and-coming designers from their country in parallel with London Fashion Week.
Norwich Showcase
March
Over five days, hosted in venues across Norwich and on the campus of University of East Anglia, delegates from twenty countries working in literature, publishing and festival programming will encounter forty of the freshest voices in contemporary writing in the UK, along with a selection of dynamic UK literature organisations. Together, they will explore new ways of collaborating and sharing best practice in literature development.
British Council Film Collection Launch
3 May
A digital archive of more than 100 newly digitised films will be made available to the public and launched with a live event at BFI Southbank. The films are from the British Council’s film archive, which dates back to 1934, and provide fascinating snapshots of the UK’s cultural, sporting, industrial and political heritage.
Young Creative Entrepreneur Publishing Awards
10-18 April
The winners will visit the UK to bridge connections for future commercial and collaborative work. The programme includes curated group meetings, professional development training and the opportunity to attend London Book Fair. Winners this year represent a wide range of countries: China, Colombia, India, Mexico, Russia, Syria, Turkey and the UAE.
World Shakespeare Festival
23 April – November
We are supporting collaborations with UK and international arts organisations such as a modern-day Tunisian production of Macbeth, adapted from and inspired by the events of the Arab Spring, as well as others from Brazil, Iraq, Mexico and Russia and productions in Afghanistan and South Sudan as part of Globe to Globe. The festival is a celebration of Shakespeare as a playwright with global significance. It is produced by the Royal Shakespeare Company in an unprecedented collaboration with leading UK and international arts organisations, and Globe to Globe, a major international programme produced by Shakespeare’s Globe.
World Stages
13 April – 23 June
This unprecedented collaboration between eight producing venues in London and twelve UK and international co-producers is inspired by the cosmopolitan diversity of London. The countries from which the productions draw their inspiration include – as well as the UK – India, China, France, South Africa, Germany, Estonia, Brazil, Cuba, Nigeria, Israel/Palestine and the USA. Plays are: Wild Swans (Jung Chang), Three Kingdoms (Simon Stephens), Babel (Bill Mitchell), The Suit (Peter Brook and Marie-Hélène Estienne after the original story by Can Themba), The Beloved (Amir Nizar Zuabi) and Wah! Wah! Girls (Tanika Gupta).
International Architecture & Design Showcase 2012, London
21 June – 23 September
More than 30 embassies and cultural institutes in London will host a series of exhibitions, installations, events and major debates as the capital plays host to a unique festival of international architecture atmosphere and character of each participating country. Run in partnership with the London Festival of Architecture and the London Design Festival, the showcase is part of the London 2012 Festival, the culmination of the Cultural Olympiad.
For more information please contact Alex Bratt, British Council Press Office +44 (0)207 389 4872 or by email alex.bratt@britishcouncil.org
