Battersea Arts Centre (BAC) extends an invitation to Make/Love this autumn, today announcing an ambitious season of daring and intimate work. At a time when connecting people has never been more important, Make/Love asks how we can re-imagine a future with care and creativity as the guidelines. For ticketed events, booking for BAC members is now open. Booking for the general public will be available from 12 noon on 1 October 2020 via bac.org.uk
Make/Love builds on the work BAC has continued to do to support local and national artists and communities, despite temporarily shutting its doors in March. Acknowledging that everyone has been affected by the global pandemic in different ways, BAC keeps listening and adapting to the changing needs of its audience and neighbours.
BAC will continue to push the boundaries of digital performance, beginning journeys with innovative artists Brian Lobel and Joon Lynn Goh (Sex with Cancer) and Robert Softley-Gale (Come to Bed With Me) on two interactive new works that encourage us to reexamine our relationships with our bodies, and our differing perceptions of what they can do. What If…? A live reality show! follows artists Hunt & Darton, emerging producer Lorra Videv and Hadas Hagos, CEO of local surplus food sharing charity Waste Not Want Not Battersea, as they invite the cameras in to capture an ambitious experiment in co-creation. Talented young artists and activists, from around the world to our locally based BAC Agents, takeover BAC’s digital and social media channels and exclaim We Will Still Breathe in response to the Black Lives Matter movement and global unrest. The event will be co-curated by dramaturg Tunde Adefioye and will include a special preview screening of new documentary short, I Still Breathe (PROJECTSIXTY4 and Modern Films) directed by Alfred George Bailey with creative partners Tavaziva Dance.
BAC will present Live from the Grand Hall; join friends, family and hundreds of other spectators to be swept into BAC’s stunning auditorium and enjoy uplifting comedy and music acts live-streamed throughout the autumn. The entertaining line-up will include musician, novelist and spoken word artist Anthony Joseph, marking the first collaboration with EFG London Jazz Festival; Liverpool’s fearless rock gang The Mysterines presented by The Close Encounter Club and Gigwise; female-led improv troupe Yes Queens; The Friday Show, an expertly curated mixed bill of diverse talent from Berk’s Nest; and a raucous night in with The LOL Word’s Big Online Gayla.
Completing the digital season, BAC presents SESSION: The Documentary, a celebration of the Still House, Steppaz and Empire Sounds collaboration celebrating community, youth and belonging; and the digital premier of movement film Don’t Wait, from Lanre Malaolu and Regé-Jean Page, musically charting a young Black man’s path out of the bindings of grief, to finding a love worth fighting for.
BAC continues to champion diverse artists and new voices, supporting the UK’s first national, digital, Migrants in Theatre Town Hall, to increase the representation of migrant artists in UK theatre. Responding to this period of vulnerability and uncertainty, BAC extends support to freelance artists and creative people in the form of a free, no-strings attached, hour-long 1:1 Creative Surgery with a member of the producing & programming team.
Following the launch in February of BAC as the world’s first Relaxed Venue, a pioneering initiative created with Touretteshero, BAC is committed to removing barriers that disable people. In the Make/Love season, this includes offering captioning, BSL interpretation and audio description where possible, and pre-show information will be made available for every booking. All the events will be made available at affordable prices or for free.
Tarek Iskander, Artistic Director and CEO of Battersea Arts Centre, introduces the season:
“At this moment of worldwide crisis we all need to step up and do our bit. For BAC, we’re focusing on continuing to MAKE artistic work in this time in whatever ways we can. Our response to the pandemic is to keep empowering artists, young people and communities to be creative in this moment of incredible hardship. Together they can help us envision a better future.
This season is also about radiating some LOVE into the world. We must push forward together and use our collective artistic creativity to reimagine our communities in ways that support all of us, not just some, to thrive. And it’s the essential, playful, messy, mischievous kinds of interactions that you’ll find in this season…I believe these are the best ways for us to establish a more just future for everyone.”
