The British Theatre Guide: Burst at BAC

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Dateline: 20th March, 2005

Burst at BAC

On 30 April, BAC launches Burst, a fresh new festival of experimental music theatre. Burst takes over from the highly successful BAC Opera, giving a new name to a festival with some new aims. It will test the boundaries of music, noise and sound in theatre, bursting pre-conceptions about what music theatre can be.

Shorter than BAC Opera, but with as many shows, Burst will literally be bursting at the seams. Like an explosion, it will happen quickly, creating energy and excitement with its form-breaking line-up:

Burst launches on 30 April with a night of aural delights. Berlin-based plan b present Bed Full of Songs, a durational piece involving a couple in a bed trying to sing as many songs as they can remember. Jake Oldershaw presents An Intimate History, a ten minute choose-your-own-musical-adventure for an audience of one.

Full Festival Listing

plan b
Bed Full of Songs
Sat 30 April, 6.00pm - 11.00pm approx.
Free – just turn up
A couple in a bed try to sing as many songs as they can remember. The title and artist are scribbled down on the duvet cover. The couple can call it a night when one side of the duvet cover is full of song titles. In this intimate and spontaneous durational piece plan b invite you to chip in, sing along or simply hang out and watch. Come and go as you like.

Jake Oldershaw
An Intimate History
Sat 30 April, Tue 3, Wed 4, Thu 5, Fri 6, Tue 10, Wed 11, Fri 13, Sat 14 May.
6.00pm - 7.45pm and 9.30pm - 10.30pm. Lasts 10 minutes.
Free – just book through BAC’s Box Office (on launch night, just turn up)
Pick your own show from a menu, enter a room alone and enjoy ten minutes with your very own crooner. This is Russian roulette, musical style. Following his success at OctoberFest 2004, Jake Oldershaw returns to BAC with his show for one audience member at a time. Written by Craig Stephens and Jake Oldershaw, Composed and played live by Derek Nisbet

Scratch Night
Sat 30, 8.00pm, Pay What You Can
Short bursts of the newest ideas. Your feedback will help these artists hit the right notes. Book in advance to avoid disappointment.

Chat Music
The Creation of the Violin
Sun 1, Tue 3 - Wed 4 May
9.00pm · Sun 7.00pm
£5 · £3
(scratch)
In Transylvania, a girl does a deal with the Devil and makes a violin out of her family to win a lover. In Scotland a fiddler fashions a violin from a dead girl’s bones and a string maker’s workshop is set up next to a slaughterhouse to ensure the freshest ingredients. Using physical theatre, dance and music Joe Townsend explores the passions behind the creation of the violin.

Cellorhythmics and Gecko
Raising Cellatina
Tue 3 - Wed 4 May, 8.00pm
£10 · £6
Cellorhythmics burst the cello out of its classical confines. Gecko ignite the stage with their gravity defying physicality. Imagine a blast of live music by Cellorhythmics, combining blues, progressive rock, jazz and 70’s pop. Next, add a dynamic physical interpretation by Gecko and you have got a combination guaranteed to raise the roof.

Madestrange
Midsummer
Tue 3 - Thu 5 May, 7.30pm
£5 · £3
(scratch)
A new multimedia opera of love and betrayal from the writers of Black and Blue (BAC Opera 04). One midwinter day, on the eve of her wedding, Rosemary slips into a coma. George and Candy argue at her bedside. In her dreams Rosemary dances on a midsummer night…and is warned of George’s secret. Past lives. Past wives… "Benjamin Britten for the Chemical Brothers generation", Time Out.

Blind Summit
Low Life
Thu 5 - Fri 6 May, 8.00pm
£5 · £3
(scratch)
A man dances a love duet with a beer glass, an old actress drinks to forget, while Bud attempts an impossible mission... Inspired by the drunken poems and short stories of Charles Bukowski, puppetry innovators Blind Summit Theatre introduce ‘under the table puppetry’ with their new show. Touching, poetic and funny, Low Life will mesmerise you with its wit and visual magic.

Subterfuge
Bad Look Boudoir
Saturday 7 May
Doors from 6.00pm, until 1.30am, last entry at 11pm
£10 · £6
Feel adventurous. Feel exhausted. Ask for tissues. Feel debased! Twisted and beautiful noises emanate from Bad Look Boudoir hosted by Subterfuge! The polysexual punk-rock cabaret celebrates its first year of excess with a special performance at BAC. For listings of all the individual acts for this event go to www.punkvert.tv. Will contain nudity, swearing and men from Texas. Over 18’s only.

Lois Weaver
What Tammy Needs To Know
Thu 5 - Fri 6 May (post show discussion Thu 5 May), 9.00pm
£5 · £3
(scratch)
A trailer-trash crash-course on art and tupperware by ex-heterosexual, ex-famous country and western singer turned lesbian performance artist, Tammy WhyNot. Incorporating autobiographical text, original music and audience interaction, the piece asks "What is the difference between country music and performance art?" Music by Paul Clark (Clod Ensemble).

Deer Park
years, years
Sun 8 May, 6.00pm
£10 · £6
A sense of time passing, of journey, of rhythm, of memory, of desire, of times to come. After the sell-out success of see you swoon (OctoberFest 04), Deer Park returns to BAC with this contemplation on heritage and destiny - a journey into the woods with all necessary attempts at (dis)orientation. Somewhere between dance and theatre Deer Park creates situations in which ideas, emotions, narratives, landscapes flow and circulate.

BAC
Names of the Dead
Tue 10 - Wed 11 May, 8.00pm
£10 · £5
This is a musical memorial to all those killed in Iraq. Some of their names are known, many are not. And the numbers are still climbing. Composed by Stephen McNeff (Matins for the Virgin of Guadalupe, Passions), performed by soprano Adey Grummet (The Shout, Jerry Springer – The Opera) and The Duke Quartet. Commissioned by and developed at BAC. Produced by Fuel.

Melanie Wilson
Simple Girl
Tue 10 - Thu 12 May, 9.00pm
£10 · £6
A ‘simple girl’ shares some erratic and sordid recollections… Flitting between macabre tales and unseemly confessions, this simple girl accompanies herself with a soundtrack of pertinent noise and low-level cheek. Manners, stories and sounds become increasingly unpredictable, disobedient and audacious before an audience that are at once adjudicators, confidantes and playmates.

Lone Twin
Sledge Hammer Songs – A Bother in Twenty-One Dramas
Fri 13 - Sat 14 May, 8.00pm
£10 · £6
Drawing on the social practices of crop growing, Morris dancing, CD burning, cloud taming, and Justin Timberlake(ing), this piece works to exhaust and evaporate the performers’ bodies, turning sweat into steam to return to the skies above. This is the London premiere of Lone Twin’s last piece in the internationally acclaimed series The Days of the Sledge Hammer Have Gone. "Deceptively artless and freewheeling, absorbing and amusing." Irish Times. This performance starts outside.

Lone Twin
Walk With Me Walk With Me Will Somebody Please Walk With Me
Saturday 14 May, 4.30pm
£5 · £3
Lone Twin also present a performative lecture. The lecture draws on the company’s recurring use of walking in their practice and acts as an introduction to the duo's last seven years of international performance making.

Johnothan Pram
On/Off
Tue 10 - Wed11 May, 7.30pm
£10 · £6
There has been a fateful power cut, planet Earth has stopped turning and Johnothan Pram has been left on the dark side of the planet. Stubbornly persisting with a lifestyle gone bankrupt, Pram goes to extreme lengths trying to carry on as usual. A dark dose of humour and strong physicality, On/Off is the third Johnothan Pram story in a series of work from Ben Faulks. Ben’s band Akute Couch will be playing in the café bar after the show on Tue 10 at 9pm.

SharpWire
Saccades and Fixations
Thu 12 - Sat 14 May, 7.30pm
£5 · £3
(scratch)
Rapid eye movement followed by stillness, and for a split-second you're blind. SharpWire take a look at the hidden-in-between, a place where good-for-nothing lovers, magic flutes, mythical kings, minstrels and myopia meet. Following the critically acclaimed UK tour of their first show, Adam's Apple, SharpWire are joined by playwright Stephanie G Young and video artist Tobin Rothlein to take a new look at some ageless themes. "An intoxicating and intimate passion play of sound, song, movement and video." The Guardian on Adam’s Apple

Julian Fox
Untitled (parts 1 - 34.5)
Sat 13 - Sun 14 Ma(y post show discussion Fri 13 May), 9.00pm
£5 · £3
(scratch)
An evening in 2 parts. Part 1 - Julian will perform A Slacker's Opera , a 20 minute piece that he took up to his first Edinburgh Festival in 2000. "Not everyone will fall for its surreal, quirky charm. I did" Lyn Gardner, Guardian. Part 2 - 24th February: I’m thinking about going to Cologne for the day… Fresh from his Radio Four series On a Lonely Planet, Julian Fox is ‘scratching’ his way towards a new piece. It will probably be about travel. Julian will read from his diary, play a song or two and might dance.

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