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See us perform in 2015
| May 9 | Round About Radstock | DNA Project |
| June 4 | Circomedia, Bristol | Slapstick and Slaughter |
| June 14 | Bedminster, Bristol | Make Sunday Special Hosts |
| July 4 | Bridgwater | Film Crew |
| July 18 & 19 | Bristol Harbour Festival | Water Balloon Toss and Rubbish Heads |
| July 24 | Under the Stars Festival, Barnsley | Pirates |
| July 29 & 30 | Surge Festival Glasgow | Slapstick and Slaughter |
| July 31 – Aug 2 | Kendal Calling Festival | Pirates |
| Aug 8 | Coventry, Festival of Imagineers | Slapstick and Slaughter |
| Aug 31 | Devizes International Street Festival | Slapstick and Slaughter |
| Sept 4 | No 6 Festival, Portmerion, Wales | Pirates |
Bristol Loves Tides
Photo by Tom Walmsley
Water runs under, over and around Bristol, but how many people understand how and when it ebbs, flows, floods and falls? Bristol Loves Tides took audiences deep into the rhythm of our city’s water with an education programme for school communities and the wider public, using performance and film to explore water flows, tides and systems.
Desperate Men appeared at BLT events from March – October 2015 as Peri and Proxi, the tides made flesh. Peri and Proxi arrived with the Spring Equinox and spent the summer with the good people of Bristol, finally departing under a Blood Moon as the autumn equinox rolled in. Their adventures are not quite over, however, as they have been spotted in Spain taking part in a video by BLT collaborators Rough Glory films – watch this space for updates. Click here to see the first Rough Glory film of Proxi and Peri arriving in Bristol or click here to read a lovely blog post by geographer Katherine Jones reflecting on Peri and Proxi’s contribution to Bristol’s tidal education.
Bristol Loves Tides was part of the Bristol Green Capital 2015 programme and was led by My Future My Choice. We collaborated with a group of 16-25 year olds, Rough Glory Films and partners including NOVA, Hydrocitizenship, Underfall-Yard and Bristol Festival of Ideas to help create a deeper awareness of the city’s wild spaces and how ecology, biodiversity and energy interconnect.
DNAarts
The three-year DNAarts project was commissioned by Bath and North East Somerset Council to create new ways for communities, and particularly families who rarely come into contact with exciting and stimulating art, to engage with high quality art in all forms.
Our contributions included bottling the essence of Radstock as chefs, bringing love to Twerton on Valentines day to celebrate the 80th anniversary of Bakers of Bath, leading intrepid mountaineers up the terrifying slopes of SnowHill and working with And Now … and Cirque Bijou to create Radstock’s mesmerising ‘Light the Night’ event.
DNAarts ran from 2014 to 2017 and was a consortium of Desperate Men and The Natural Theatre Company, arts leaders Phillippa Haynes and Mijanou Blech and is led by the arts education company Boomsatsuma.
Jon Beedell as ‘Piggy’ in Pig Pen Lottery at Bath City Farm in 2016
March 2015 News
Funding success for Wye Valley River Festival 2016 research
We’ve scored a hat-trick with our research & development funding bids for the next Wye Valley River Festival (WVRF). Arts Council England, Arts Council Wales and the Wye Valley AONB Sustainable Development Fund have all granted R & D funds for a second festival next year. Our starting point for the global themes of WVRF 2016 is a bottle of water collected from the source of the Ganges …
The first ever WVRF in 2014, for which we were Artistic Directors, attracted a total audience of 18,500 and gave a boost of at least £400,000 to the local economy. You can read more about it on the WVRF page.
Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band 50th Anniversary Gig
Following our stellar performance at Bristol Slapstick Festival’s ‘Ginger Geezer’, a tribute to Viv Stanshall (see fishy image above), we have been invited to disrupt proceedings again at a one-night-only 50th anniversary Bonzo Dog hooley at KOKO in Camden (previously the Camden Palace). We’ll be performing excerpts from our DADA-inspired show Slapstick & Slaughter during the show, which will also feature The Rutles, The Bill Kerr Whoopee Band and other surprise guests. The show takes place on Friday, April 17th and you can purchase tickets here.
