Forest Fringe 2010 Part 2: A Festival of Ideas

(Search Party Growing Old With You. Image by Finlay Robertson)

From 5pm every afternoon Forest Fringe will once again have the kind of brilliantly diverse line-up of works-in-progress and unusual performances that people have come to know over the last few years. We’re delighted with this year’s group of artists – some who we’ve worked with before but many others we haven’t, but all of whom make things in a brilliantly unique and fascinating way.

If there’s any theme running through all of this work it is perhaps, like the whole festival, one of reflection. Whether it’s Polarbear reflecting on where he’s from, or Dylan Tighe and Kieran Hurley reflecting on where they’re going, Search Party thinking about growing old together, or Tinned Fingers thinking about falling in love, everyone seems to be looking again at our everyday experience of the world.

Maybe at a time of irresistible globalisation, of epic international crises broadcast on 24 hour news, we need to begin here – by thinking about the politics and the meaning embedded in how we live our own lives day by day; in how we understand our relationship to each other and to the world around us.

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DETAILS

Chip – Glas(s) Performance

Monday 9 & Tuesday 10 August

This is a show about fathers and daughters that stems from the real life experience of Jess Thorpe and Tim Thorpe. ‘Fabulously life-affirming and beautifully-structured’ **** The Scotsman

Journey to the End of the Night – Dylan Tighe

Tuesday 10 – Friday 13 August (with a special show on Sunday 15)

A solo performance based on Dylan Tighe’s personal diary written on the Trans-Mongolian Express from Beijing to Moscow, spanning five time zones and two continents.

Hitch – Kieran Hurley

Monday 9 – Friday 13 August

Kieran Hurley recounts his journey across Europe to the G8 summit protests in this intimate and uplifting one-man show, with live music from Over The Wall.

Two Trillion – Fish & Game

Monday 9 & Tuesday 10 August

There are many creatures in this world, and I am one trillion of them.

Glasgow’s Fish & Game take it right back for this new performance – back to basics, back to nature, and all the way back down to the trillions of cells that make up their bodies – real old skool.

Never Park Your Body in a Wadi (Working Title) – Tom, John & Len Frankland

Wednesday 11, Thursday 12, Monday 16 & Tuesday 17 August

A show created by three generations of the same family about being a man, the twentieth century, fathers and sons and cowboys and indians...

Return – Polarbear

Wedesnday 11 – Friday 13 August

Return tells the story of Noah, a man trying to figure out where he fits. Convinced he had to leave home in order to make his mark, Noah returns to find a world where a lot of things seem the same but nothing actually is.

Doris Day can Fuck Off – Greg McLaren

Monday 16 & Tuesday 17 August

Greg McLaren has been singing in the street. Where he would talk, he has sang. This has resulted in many hilarious encounters. But it has also resulted in a feeling of isolation and rejection. The problem with singing is that it is too heady a means of communication when buying stamps or a bun, or trying to change details with the gas man.

The Last Romance Club (ever) – Tinned Fingers

Monday 16 – Friday 20 August

We are hopeful. We are looking for love. We want to get lucky. We want to serenade you outside your window at night. We want to give you our last rolo. We can't sing but, for you, we'll try.

“I Belong to this Band!” (work-in-progress) – Kings of England and others

Wednesday 18 & Thursday 19 August

“I Belong to This Band!” uses live/performance art to explore folk traditions. We are doing R&D residencies and Scratch showings, making songs and dances, before a Rural Tour of Great Britain 2011/12.

Growing Old With You (work-in-progress) - Search Party

Wednesday 18 – Friday 20 August

Growing Old With You is a life long performance project which attempts to document lived experience in real time. Starting in 2010 and for every 5 (or so) years for the rest of their lives Search Party will create a performance exploring ideas of age, duality and accumulation.

Senior Moments – Kristin Fredricksson (Beady Eye) & Robert Vesty (Box Social)

Friday 20 August

Kristin Fredricksson (Beady Eye) & Rob Vesty (Box Social) spend a week in the run-up to each Senior Moments performance during which they meet & recruit older people. They go to bingo halls, housing estates, community groups, shopping centres and Bridge clubs to enlist up to 40 participants aged 65 and over.

Forest Fringe Microfestivals

Is this country a big place?

Put into context obviously not. It takes three days non stop to drive half way across Canada. And yet you could realistically sleep for almost two of those days and miss virtually nothing bar prairie. Travel from the West Midlands to South Wales in a couple of hours and you’re moving between two different worlds.

We’ve had plenty of time to think about these kind of questions as we’ve roamed up and down the country in the last few months. I’ve learnt new things. I’ve become more outraged by the cost of petrol. I’ve discovered how hard it is to be vegetarian at service stations. I’ve fostered a deep, ingrained mistrust of thetrainline.com.

The result of all of this is that we have a programme of Microfestivals for you – beginning in London in April and ending in Bristol in May.

Each will be a unique weekend of strange events, intimate encounters and performance installations. In each place one ticket will allow you to be a part of everything.

It goes like this:

In London on the 2 & 3 April we’ll be working with our long-time supporters BAC, using a dizzying array of spaces scattered across the beautiful Old Town Hall in Battersea.

In Glasgow on the 16 & 17 April we’ll be with The Arches in their epic subterranean maze of railway arches beneath Central Station.

In Swansea on the 24 & 25 April we’ll be sharing an unusual space with National Theatre Wales’ Assembly programme as part of their month of events in the city.

And Finally in Bristol on the 8 & 9 May we’ll be helping launch the brilliant Mayfest by taking over the whole of Bristol’s legendary Old Vic Theatre, from stages to workshops to backstage corridors and other hidden corners of the building.

In each of these locations we’ll be working with a mix of local companies and Forest Fringe artists from across the country. You’ll be able to see some of the most exciting events that we supported at the Edinburgh Festival last summer, and a collection of brand new pieces, many of which we hope will be journeying to Edinburgh with us this summer.

For each of the individual Microfestivals we’ll be announcing a full line-up of artists closer to the time but already we can tell you that featuring in the programme will be Melanie Wilson, Forced Entertainment’s Tim Etchells, Co-creator of the amazing Home Sweet Home Abigail Conway, the legendary Stoke Newington International Airport, Tinned Fingers, Action Hero, Search Party, Brian Lobel and Emma Benson as well as a host of incredible young artists such as Tania El Khoury, Peter McMaster and Swansea’s Shellshock Theatre. We’re also still programming more events for all the locations so if you’re an artist and you’re interested in being involved leave a comment below or get in touch via our website.

The Microfestivals will also see the launch of the Forest Fringe Travelling Sounds Library, an exciting new collaborative project bringing together a brilliantly diverse range of audio-pieces into an interactive library made from recycled hard back books and mp3 players. But more on this very, very soon…

So that’s it, basically.

Hopefully we’ll be coming somewhere near you. We’re stupidly excited by it all and we hope you will be too. As always, if you’ve got any thoughts or comments or questions – just leave them below and we promise we’ll get back to you.

Otherwise – bring on the spring.