Brighton Festival
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The Brighton Festival is an annual arts festival which takes place in the city of Brighton and Hove in England each May. It was founded in 1966, and is the largest multi-art form festival in England.[1] The 2006 festival organised over 200 events during 23 days which were attended by over 500,000 people.[2]
The festival includes organised processions such as the Children's Parade, outdoor spectaculars often involving pyrotechnics, and a great deal of theatre, music, literature and visual arts in venues throughout the city, some of which are brought into this use exclusively for the festival.
One feature of the festival is the Artists Open House concept, whereby artists and craftspeople literally open up their houses for the public to view or buy their work.
The Brighton Festival Chorus was originally formed in 1968. The Festival regularly commissions new work from companies like DV8 Physical Theatre and Frantic Assembly; 2006's Festival included the world premiere of new work by Stomp's Brighton-based creators, Yes/No Productions. It also encourages cross-fertilisation between different art forms, such as 2006's "Stories In Motion", a collaboration between Chuck Palahniuk, Irvine Welsh and Orbital's Phil Hartnoll; also 2006's "Warp Moves", a collaboration between Random Dance and artists from Warp Records.
The 43rd Brighton Festival in May 2009 (2-24) is headed up for the first time by Chief Executive Andrew Comben and in a new initiative he has appointed internationally celebrated artist Anish Kapoor as the Festival’s first ever Guest Artistic Director. Bringing cohesion and cross-over to the programme through connected themes and ideas, Kapoor will bring 7 pieces to the City including two new commissions specifically for sites in Brighton, alongside a performance programme heralded as being “far more adventurous and exciting and ambitious than ever before… a dazzling line-up which any Festival in the world might envy” telegraph.co.uk 9 March 2009. The role of Guest Artistic Director is unpaid and Anish Kapoor has given generously of his time and energy in realising both the Festival programme and the unique and ambitious way of presenting seven of his works across the city.
The festival is chaired by journalist Polly Toynbee.
[edit] See also
- Brighton Festival Fringe.
- Edinburgh Festival (the UK's largest arts festival).
[edit] References
- ^ Polly Toynbee (May 30, 2006). "The arts of the state could yet prove a political weapon". The Guardian. http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,,1785626,00.html.
- ^ "Brighton Festival homepage". http://www.brightonfestival.org.
[edit] External links
- Brighton Festival – main festival official website.
- Brighton Festival Fringe – fringe festival official website.
- Artists Open Houses – website for separate element of the Brighton Festival.
- Brighton Festival Chorus – website for separate element of the Brighton Festival.
- Same Sky – arts organization, forms part of the Brighton Festival.
- Brighton Festival feature on Brighton information website View Brighton.
- Three Weeks – website Three Weeks, featuring complete guides to both the Brighton Festival and Edinburgh Festival.
