Check It, a documentary about a queer street gang in Washington D.C. screens at Fringe! in November
The travails of the world’s only documented gay street gang, the daily life of a ‘third gender’ family in India and some sexy and shocking short films are set to hit East London’s screens at the Fringe! Film and Arts Fest next month.
The annual queer arts festival was launched in 2011 and has become a mainstay of East London’s cultural calendar.
Cinemas, art galleries, pop-up venues and basement clubs are to host a raft of film screenings during November alongside a programme of experimental art, workshops, interactive walks and parties.
The grand opening of this year’s programme is on 15 November at the Rio with Viva, the story of a hairdresser in Havana who works at a drag cabaret club to make ends meet but has dreams of stardom.
Check It, at theInstitute of Light, is a documentary about the Washington D.C street gang of the same name (apparently the only documented queer gang in the world) and their struggles to claw their way out of gang life through the unlikely avenue of fashion.
Shorts supply: Natural Instincts is a series of short films designed to shock and arouse in equal measure
Other film highlights include Guru: A Hijra Family, a moving portrait of the daily life of a family of transgender women in India known as hijras, commonly referred to as ‘the third gender’.
A series of shorts tackling the theme of being young and in love and will, according to the programme “resonate like the first time”. Whilst another, Natural Instincts, veers towards the explicit, featuring depictions of spanking and light bondage.
Away from the films, spoken word night Queer’Say will see broadcaster and comedian Rose Wilby host performances by three acclaimed LGBT poets and the drag performer and dominatrix Holestar will be hosting a BDSM workshop and fetish party.
Fringe! Queer Film and Arts Fest 15–29 November various East London venues
For more information and the full programme, see here.
Still from Viva, which opens the festival at the Rio Cinema next month
Béla Bartók’s entrancing masterpiece, Bluebeard’s Castle. Photograph: Brent Eviston
Flying in the face of opera’s reputation for being overpriced, elitist, and long-winded, the Arcola Theatre has launched its tenth-anniversary Grimeborn festival.
The festival offers new works and reinvigorated classics in both theatrical and outdoor spaces around Hackney.
This year’s event, a rather grittier alternative to the prohibitively expensive Glyndebourne, is presenting sixteen new pieces of music theatre from the sublime to the psychopathic.
The festival opened with a production of Bela Bartok’s Bluebeard’s Castle, translated from Bela Balasz’ original Hungarian text, and performed in one-act. Daunted? Don’t be.
Following its huge success at the Olympic Park last year, this contemporary production was performed for free, outdoors, at none other than Gillett Square, where a cast of community performers manipulated huge, over-sized puppets through this dark tale of blood, tears and unruly husbands.
The setting for opening night was an impressive statement of intent for the seven weeks of festival to come, where almost every ticket is £15 or less and many of the shows come in under the hour mark.
That’s not to say that the rich majesty of some of opera’s more heavyweight material is not represented at Grimeborn 2016.
With Puccini’s classic Tosca, Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro, and Rimsky-Korsakov’s Mozart and Salieri, there is plenty to enjoy from the canon, revitalised for a contemporary audience.
The Hive is a work-in-progress showing of a new piece about psychopathic behaviour and the people who seek it out. The production is directed by Bill Bankes-Jones, who runs the Tête-à-Tête contemporary opera festival.
For anybody who saw the award-winning show Wot? No Fish!!, the closing event of the festival will be one to look out for.
In his most successful work, Danny Braverman recounted the heart-warming story of a shoebox full of his great uncle’s wage packets adorned with sketches designed to entertain his wife.
Braverman has now penned a musical for Grimeborn based on the songs of Labi Siffre. Something Inside So Strong opens in the first week of September.
There are specially-priced tickets for those 16 and under, suggesting most productions are suitable for young adults. It’s also worth noting that many of the shows run for only a night or two so best to book early.
Grimeborn
Till 10 September 2016
Arcola Theatre
24 Ashwin Street
Dalston
E8 3DL
Walking down Well Street in Hackney, you’d be forgiven for missing the Freed of London ballet shoe factory. But according to the filmmaker Jack Flynn, inside the factory lies “another world”.
Established in 1929, Freed of London manufactures pointe shoes for dancers globally – from young beginners to prima ballerinas. The small factory produces 48,000 standard and 112, 000 bespoke shoes annually – that’s 700 shoes every day.
But who are the people working the machines? This question captivated filmmakers Jack Flynn and Nick David who, in a four-minute, beautifully-crafted short film, tell the stories behind the story of Freed.
“We love the honesty of the film,” says David. “It was a very simple approach, but that’s when you get the magic.”
“Initially we wanted to document the manufacturing process,” adds Flynn, “but what became apparent after a couple of visits, were the stories of the people who worked there.”
Every worker has their own ‘maker’s stamp’ – “mine’s a crown,” says one – and all express a strong sense of pride in their craft. “Not many people can do the work,” explains one employee.
The workshop seems worlds way from the pristine theatres of world-class ballerinas, yet its rhythmic contraptions are almost dancingly hypnotic. “The contrast between ballet and the factory floor was really obvious,” says Jack, “yet we saw a real connection with the sheer physicality of both disciplines.”
In other ways, however, there is a disconnect between the crafts. One shoemaker has been in the business for 25 years, but is yet to go to the ballet. “I’ve seen it on telly,” he says, “but I haven’t gone to theatres or nothing like that. I don’t get the time to.”
Freed’s workers are undoubtedly devoted. Tony Collins started work in 1969 and has been there ever since. Sheila Goodman met her husband of 35 years at the factory. They’ve been working together for 40 years. “We didn’t tell no one that we was getting married!” she recalls. “We got married on the Saturday and on the Monday we were back into work. We didn’t even have a honeymoon!”
The factory’s walls are testament to the spirit and diversity of its workers. One wall is covered in football memorabilia and another cats and Hindu iconography. “I’m curious as to who’s wearing my shoes,” muses one worker. “Without the audience there’d be no dancers, without the dancers there’d be no makers. Life goes round in a circle… It’s unlike anything else.”
“If you just do whatever you’re doing, there is no box to be in.” – Craig David
“The past is a concept. Whenever you experience anything, it’s right now. When we were talking five minutes ago, it’s now. The future is now.” If Craig David used to insist on 9pm dates with “cinnamon queens”, today that is unlikely. These days he wears his philosophy on his sleeve with a watch that simply reads “now”. But while the former golden boy of UK garage is living for today – his fans just want to rewind.
At the turn of the millennium David’s honeyed vocals and catchy lyrics, coating two-step beats with pop sheen, sent the 19-year-old soaring up the charts. When his first album Born To Do It “dropped”, as he calls it, I headed straight to Woolworths for a copy (complete with a B-side disc of him talking to himself). I learnt the words to the whole album, carefully balancing the CD on the spindle of my Sony Discman.
But even by 2002 interest had already waned. “It’s what they call the rise and fall,” he lamented on his second album Slicker Than Your Average, which sold around half as many copies as his debut smash. He next became the victim of a cruel but oddly enduring character on Leigh Francis’ sketch show Bo Selecta which had his trademark facial hair and, inexplicably, a Scottish accent and a pet bird Kes – the kestrel from Ken Loach’s film. It was a swift descent.
Craig David left London for Miami, moved into a hotel and got into bodybuilding. An episode of Cribs revealed life-sized photographs of scantily-clad women, white sofas, impressive audiovisual equipment and a thing for fast cars. Everyone moved on. Yet teenage kicks…so hard to beat.
I jumped at the chance to do a ‘phoner’ with the beanie-toting star of my adolescence.
Guestlist ratio
He was in London for the tour of his DJ show TS5 in which he aims to “bridge the gap” between live performance, DJing and MCing.
Named after the number of his apartment-cum-hotel penthouse, TS5 is modelled on his own “pre-drinks” house parties. These are carefully orchestrated affairs where the man himself “holds it down” on the decks, there are drinks on tap, before everyone goes “out out” (they call it that in Miami too).
Getting the “sexy vibe” is an exact science so David enforces a rigorous 70:30 female to male ratio on the guestlist. “If you overload it with guys, and the girl ratio is lower, in my experience, girls feel intimidated by that,” he explains. “Guys get really confident and try and hit on everyone and the ratio is all off.”
Curiosity piqued, I head down to Hackney’s very own Oslo for the gig, where I find myself surrounded by other sheepish looking folk in their mid-twenties, but no drinks on tap.
There is a reasonably sexy ratio of 60:40, the “vibe” is millennium chic and girls in white TS5 trucker hats hand out leaflets for the next gig. This being Hackney, I am initially concerned everyone is here to parody their younger, less cool selves. But I’m wrong. “You’ve got to love Craig”, two people tell me outside. “He’s the English Drake”.
Upstairs David exaggeratedly presses buttons and drags faders, his biceps bulging under his oversized white T-shirt. After an underwhelming opening song he gently brings in ‘Fill Me In’ and the crowd goes wild. Girls at the front flap white A4 sheets of paper with his name written on in biro, and there is much grinding.
But even the most diehard fan would be forced to admit he is simply not the best DJ, and his soft-as-butter voice just sounds plain weird when warbling over aggressive house bangers.
Thinking is the box
I ask about the transition from singersongwriter to DJ. “It’s crazy to think the cycle has come full circle”, he says. “DJing is what I started off doing. When the first album blew up, I put that on the side burner. I just do what ever I want to do, there’s no boundaries.
We’ve taken the box, and removed all the lines from it. It’s all open now.” I manage to anchor a memory of this ‘box’ in David’s sea of axioms.
Along with 75 thousand others I am an avid follower of his Instagram account, a luxury flick book of Miami sunsets (#blessed), workout selfies (#eatcleantraindirty) and tautologies set against a backdrop of his own face.
One of my favourites (genuinely), I tell him, is a picture of a cosmic night sky with a white square and “thinking is the box” written inside it…
I can hear him nodding down the phone: “You got it. It is the box. If you just do whatever you’re doing, there is no box to be in, but as soon as you say ‘there’s the box and I’m trying to think outside of it’, you’re saying the box is there.”
David comes across as intensely and at times robotically upbeat. I ask about his Instagram, where his posts often receive mixed responses, and how he manages to stay so positive in the face of jokes at his expense. “It’s transient”, he says. “It’s not to be taken seriously.
The beauty of Instagram and Twitter is there is a follow and an unfollow button.”
His puppyish optimism is likable and there is definitely a sense of humour under his earnest theories. I ask him if his rumoured new studio album has now been put on the “side burner.” He acknowledges the dig: “We’re taking the burner off. There’s no side burner, back burner, up burner, Bunsen burner. All the burners are out. We’re making the record.”
Craig David Presents TS5 has announced a second date at Shapes in Hackney on 16 October 2015. For tickets see ts5.com/shapes
Jose Cuervo, the oldest and best-selling tequila brand in the world (founded in 1795), is giving one lucky Hackney Citizen and East End Review reader the chance to win two tickets to watch The Greatest Spectacle of Lucha Libre – Mexico’s iconic wrestling extravaganza on Friday 10 July.
Starring the finest Mexican fighters, you will watch the electrifying show in a retro-style Mexican Arena at York Hall, Bethnal Green and also be treated to a £50 Jose Cuervo bar tab to spend on Jose Cuervo’s selection of feisty agave cocktails at the event.
To be in with a chance of winning, just answer the following question:
What year was Jose Cuervo tequila founded?
A) 1808
B) 1795
C) 2005
Please send your answer to editor@eastendreview.co.uk
Terms and conditions
– Prize includes 2 tickets to The Greatest Spectacle of Lucha Libre, taking place on Friday 10 July 2015, and £50 bar tab at Lucha Libre for Jose Cuervo cocktails
– The Greatest Spectacle of Lucha Libre tickets will be collected by the competition winner at the event by providing their name for the guest list
– Drinks can be claimed at the event. A bar tab will be set up in the competition winners name in order to claim the complimentary drinks
– Name must be given by Thursday 9th July in order to receive prize
Shafi Ahmed, Virtual Surgeon. Photograph: Eleonore de Bonneval
Do you ever feel overwhelmed by technology? If so, you are not alone. However, tablets and smartphones are only the start. With Virtual Reality on the rise, you will soon be immersed in it. Literally.
Without leaving your living room, you’ll be able to travel the world, feel what it is like to live in a refugee camp in Jordan or visit your new flat before it is built and decide on the interior design.
“Virtual Reality first came around 25 years ago, but people’s imaginations heavily outweighed the technology,” says Steve Dann, a digital media specialist who runs the East London Augmented Reality Meet Up Group.
Now technology is catching up with the imagination, and East Londoners are using Virtual Reality in new and diverse ways, from making virtual art galleries to treating brain injuries and training surgeons.
Storytelling
News journalists and documentary makers could soon be telling stories using Virtual Reality, giving those turned off by conventional news coverage a new way to engage.
Hoxton-based Edward Miller, Head of Visuals at Immersiv.ly, is one of the very first to have filmed an immersive news documentary using 360-degree video.
Hong Kong Unrest, about the city’s pro-democracy protests, was filmed using six Go-Pro cameras clustered in a 3D-printed rig around the size of a Rubik’s Cube.
Louis Jebb, CEO of Immersiv.ly, explains that Virtual Reality is “taking the mediation out of media – or reducing the mediation”.
“For a news piece for example, you feel as a viewer that you are the news editor. For an art gallery you feel like you are the art critic,” he says.
With Virtual Reality, spectators need not be passive or static. The format allows them to change viewpoint, and as they physically enter and move in the space with the help of motion trackers, they can interact, participate and comment.
“With that comes a lot of responsibility,” Jebb adds. “When you take someone into the virtual world they’re going from a place of reality into a place of Virtual Reality so you’ve always got to think about how you bring them back. It is a powerful tool.”
Patients’ recovery
Staring at four walls in hospital is nothing if not boring, but doing so whilst recovering from a brain injury is potentially harmful.
“We know that the environment of post-recovery is incredibly important in determining the extent of your recovery,” says Dr Paul Penn, a lecturer in psychology at the University of East London.
Research co-authored by Penn that was published in 2008 demonstrates the benefits of virtual environments in paediatric neuropsychological rehabilitation following traumatic brain injuries.
Penn explains that creating an enriched and stimulating environment in the real world of the hospital is difficult because of health and safety, cost and time implications. “So if we can’t take a person to a real enriched environment why not take an enriched virtual environment to them?” he asks.
Penn’s research finds that improving the quality of a patient’s environment in the recovery stage “will act as a catalyst for the plasticity that occurs in your brain to help you recover from that injury”.
Penn says that since the hardware is now financially accessible “it is crazy we are not using it in a more applied medical, psychological sense”.
For Penn, gaming can be the perfect way to provide auditory, visual and tactile stimulation, and offers the possibility to monitor patients simultaneously, as well as helping patients visualise their own progress.
Virtual Art gallery
Hackney-based American artist Gretchen Andrew, 28, is an early adopter of Google Glass, a form of hands-free wearable technology that she uses to record her work whilst
she paints.
For four months the artist worked with digital media firms on a Virtual Reality replica of the Los Angeles gallery that represents her, and where she had a show earlier this year.
As you put on a Virtual Reality headset it feels like stepping into the physical gallery, but as you approach each individual frame something happens that is specific to the medium of Virtual Reality.
One of the paintings morphs into the photograph that inspired its creation, another frame shows behind the scenes videos of the paintings being made with Andrew speaking to you, providing insight into her world.
“I want to try to create a conversation around how all of this is real,” Andrew says. “By thinking about it in that way it is easier to think about how we exist both physically and digitally. Our Facebook profiles, our lives on emails, all of that is important and real information about who we are.”
A Virtual Reality headset. Photograph: Eleonore de Bonneval
Medical Realities
A year ago, surgeon Shafi Ahmed made history by removing a tumour from the liver and bowel of a patient at the London Royal Hospital whilst live streaming the operation to students using a pair Google Glasses.
“If you pre-record the operation that is okay and a good educational tool, but with live streaming you are watching exactly what is happening from my point of view,” Ahmed says.
As well as the live element, the software being used allows people to type in questions that can be answered in real time by their peers.
There are now three to four live surgeries carried out every month from general surgeries and orthopaedics, to cosmetic surgery and casualties.
Early in 2015, Ahmed co-founded Medical Realities, a group offering medical training products that specialise in Virtual and Augmented Reality.
He says that using Virtual Reality is better practice for students than working with a dead body. “With the interaction, you can create problems… blood loss, for example and if something goes wrong you have to deal with it. It is not just about doing a technical exercise.”
Ahmed estimates Medical Realities is one year away from being able to create an effective Virtual Reality simulation of an operating theatre.
Now entering its landmark 10th anniversary year, Standon Calling Festival has always been a favourite for revellers looking for a special boutique festival experience.
Taking place from 31 July to 2 August, Standon Calling is nestled in the rolling green fields of Hertfordshire and is just an hour’s drive or a 40 minute train journey from London.
The festival sets itself apart from the crowded market thanks to its unique country manor house setting with an overgrown house-party feel, complete with its own swimming pool, annual dog show and a habit of punching above its weight with its musical programming, booking critically acclaimed and world famous international acts to grace its intimate stages.
This year’s festival will see plenty of musical heavyweights in the shape of Little Dragon, The Dandy Warhols (UK Festival Exclusive), Basement Jaxx, Roots Manuva, DJ Yoda, The Horrors and Hercules & Love Affair along with showcasing rising talent with the likes of Ella Eyre, Kwabs, Slaves, Prides, Jagaara, Charlotte OC and many more.
The festival’s eclectic programme means there’s something for everyone and revellers can expect all sorts of weird and wonderful attractions from line dancing dance offs to dog shows, taxidermy masterclasses to Rockaoke and trapeze classes to ukulele sing-a-longs, all under the banner of 2015’s Wild West-inspired theme, ‘A Town Of Two Faces’.
A fine selection of food and drink including quality ales and award-winning street food from all over the world ensure that you’ll be well fuelled too.
This year’s theme will see Standon Calling transform from day to night, offering the perfect way to spend a day in the sunshine, then embracing its darker side after midnight.
There will be contrasting takeovers of The Last Dance Saloon on the lawn and late nightclub The Cowshed by the likes of Bella Union, Bondax & Friends, Sink The Pink Present SAVAGE, Gilles Peterson and Patrick Forge Present Sundays at Dingwalls and many, many more.
Limited tickets are available from £127 for the weekend with more information from Standon Calling.
Located in the heart of Hackney Wick’s thriving creative community, Wick Market is a destination for lovers of art, shopping, music and food.
The outdoor marketplace is a one-stop shop for all your Sunday delectations – pick your way through stalls showcasing the next generation of hot designers and high-end vintage fashion, find that perfect retro interior decor piece you’ve been after, or work your way round the gourmet street food market.
Expect carefully programmed Holistic Days with Indian head massages, tarot and crystals, Kids’ Days with arts, crafts and music activities, plus bank holiday beach parties and more – it’s a weekly mini-festival in the creative heart of East London!
Wick Market
Every Sunday from May till October 2015
12 midday – 10.30pm
The Old Baths
80 Eastway
E9 5JH
The festival season starts in earnest next month with Land of Kings, which returns to Dalston after a year’s hiatus.
Starting at midday on Sunday 3 May, the festival will see 16 hours of live music, food and film in venues across Dalston.
Live acts announced include electronic maverick Tom Vek, who will be performing a special a/v set alongside techno artist Nathan Fake, female choir Deep Throat, melodic indie funk act Boxed In and 90s-influenced power pop act Juce.
On the DJ front, Dalston’s backrooms and basements will welcome the likes of Hot Chip spin off The 2 Bears, house specialists Waze & Odyssey, plus NTS resident Moxie who will spin an eclectic mix of techno, grime and hip-hop.
Aside from the music, the festival programme is reaching into the realms of immersive performance with Gideon Reeling’s flamboyantly irreverent Land of Queens at the Arcola.
Film curators Lost Picture Show will be hosting a roof top cinema, and Dalston’s Rio Cinema will be hosting a late show of shorts by local filmmakers.
New for the 2015 festival is Royal Thoughts, described as a “salon of talks, interviews and ideas”, and cultural journal Let’s Be Brief will be holding a creative forum.
Street food pioneers Street Feast will be serving up their signature nosh, and women’s group the Dalston Darlings will also be in attendance.
Confirmed venues include the Alibi and Birthdays, the Arcola, the Bunker, Dalston Roof Park, Eastern Curve Garden, Rio Cinema and back-live music den the Servant Jazz Quarters, while Oval Space will be throwing open its doors to hold the Land of Kings Afterparty.
Iain Sinclair at London Review of Books bookshop launch of 70×70. Photograph: Laura Bradley
Hackney-based author and filmmaker Iain Sinclair launched his new book, 70×70: Unlicensed Preaching, in an event at the London Review Bookshop last month.
Tagged as A Life Unpacked In 70 Films, the work chronicles Sinclair’s 70th-birthday project, for which he chose 70 films – important to him in some way – to be screened in locations across the capital over the course of a year. Friends and collaborators Chris Petit and Susan Stenger joined the writer in a discussion chaired by film curator Gareth Evans, during which they touched on the changing nature of how we engage with cinema – a key aspect of 70×70.
“This is essentially a curation of memory and of a particular period of life where cinema was important,” Sinclair says, explaining how our experience of catching a film has lost something vital over the years.
“This evening is absolute because it’s now, it can’t be repeated. That’s what we’ve lost in a sense with cinema. What was great in the early days was that we went out and made journeys,” he says.
“Buñuel was on one night only, if you didn’t go there you missed it, you may not see it again for another four years. Now that everything’s available and broken down and atomized, everything’s changed.”
The films written about in the book range from Hitchcock’s Psycho and Godard’s British Sounds to John Mackenzie’s Docklands masterpiece The Long Good Friday, with plenty of obscure gems scattered in between.
