Hip hop artists, poet and playwright Kate Tempest will be curating the programme for the Brighton Festival 2017 inviting Mica Levi and legendary folk artist Shirley Collins to join her.
The event will take place 6-28 May in the city with Kate announced as guest director for this year’s edition.
At 31 she will be the youngest festival director and follow in the footsteps of previous programmers Anish Kapoor (2009) and musician Brian Eno (2010).
Her programme celebrates what she calls the ‘Everyday Epic’, ‘art that helps us connect to ourselves and others, explores our individual stories and differences, and encourages audiences to take a walk in someone else’s shoes’.
The line up features the likes of Ocean Wisdom, who appears on a bill hosted by UK hip hop label High Focus Records with The Four Owls and Jam Baxter, and Brighton-born poetry slam champion Tommy Sissons who performs alongside fellow spoken word stars Patience Agbabi and Dizraeli.
Kate will also perform herself including an opening gig of music and spoken work, a poetry evening and a live orchestration of her latest album Let Them Eat Chaos alongside the Oscar-nominated Mica Levi.
Kate Tempest said: ‘I feel very humbled to have been given the opportunity to guest direct Brighton Festival.
‘This year’s theme, Everyday Epic, seems to encapsulate some of my feelings about how music, literature and poetry can give us back our lives. Singing, playing, dancing, moving, painting life and communicating about that in public spaces. It requires no qualifications, no training to enjoy it. It’s truthful communication between humans about humanity and in these times, it feels more important than ever to try and understand what that humanity is and what it could be. So please go and see as much as you can. Approach it like an epic. Like you are a pilgrim on a quest and something may well happen in the theatre, the pub, the community centre, the concert hall that will smash you back to feeling and land you in your skin again.’
Other Brighton Festival 2017 highlights include a special performance from legendary folk singer Shirley Collins and US performance artist turned rapper Mykki Blanco.
Visit brightonfestival.org to get your tickets for the event.
The event will take place 6-28 May in the city with Kate announced as guest director for this year’s edition.
At 31 she will be the youngest festival director and follow in the footsteps of previous programmers Anish Kapoor (2009) and musician Brian Eno (2010).
Her programme celebrates what she calls the ‘Everyday Epic’, ‘art that helps us connect to ourselves and others, explores our individual stories and differences, and encourages audiences to take a walk in someone else’s shoes’.
The line up features the likes of Ocean Wisdom, who appears on a bill hosted by UK hip hop label High Focus Records with The Four Owls and Jam Baxter, and Brighton-born poetry slam champion Tommy Sissons who performs alongside fellow spoken word stars Patience Agbabi and Dizraeli.
Kate will also perform herself including an opening gig of music and spoken work, a poetry evening and a live orchestration of her latest album Let Them Eat Chaos alongside the Oscar-nominated Mica Levi.
Kate Tempest said: ‘I feel very humbled to have been given the opportunity to guest direct Brighton Festival.
‘This year’s theme, Everyday Epic, seems to encapsulate some of my feelings about how music, literature and poetry can give us back our lives. Singing, playing, dancing, moving, painting life and communicating about that in public spaces. It requires no qualifications, no training to enjoy it. It’s truthful communication between humans about humanity and in these times, it feels more important than ever to try and understand what that humanity is and what it could be. So please go and see as much as you can. Approach it like an epic. Like you are a pilgrim on a quest and something may well happen in the theatre, the pub, the community centre, the concert hall that will smash you back to feeling and land you in your skin again.’
Other Brighton Festival 2017 highlights include a special performance from legendary folk singer Shirley Collins and US performance artist turned rapper Mykki Blanco.
Visit brightonfestival.org to get your tickets for the event.
