The Alternative Village Fete
Watch this Space Festival: National Theatre
28th August, 1pm-5.30pm & 29th August 1pm-4pm
All Events are Free
Nothing planned for the August bank holiday weekend? Then home live art is delighted to
present its signature Alternative Village Fete as part of a forthcoming national tour. With an exciting artist roster exploring the folklore, crafts and imagery of the quintessential fete, August-October 2011 finds this gloriously unconventional event in three very different locations: The National Theatre's Watch This Space Festival, Brighton's White Night Festival and Tattershall Castle's Dark Materials Festival in Lincolnshire.
Each Alternative Village Fete will be individually curated. For the tour, veterans such as the Cut a Shine Collective, Tom Marshman, 815agency alongside host Paul L Martin join forces with local artists, performers and producers, creating exciting new work and reflecting their various surroundings whilst responding individually to the three distinctive settings.
Regional dates are to be announced shortly but in the meantime, the Fete returns to the National Theatre's Watch this Space Festival for the fourth consecutive year as part of the all-new Its Great Outdoors! event put together by home live art and Clare Patey. A riotous bank holiday weekend promises radical craft makers, quirky produce stalls and innovative performances offering a modern, urban twist on tradition within the South Bank's concrete jungle.
Supported by: Arts Council England, The National Trust, Lambeth Council, White Night Festival, Brighton & Hove Council, Igniting Ambition in the East Midlands, The Capital Community Fund, Lincolnshire Council, The Basement, Watch this Space Festival National Theatre, Cowling & Wilcox
'...home may be where the heart is, but it is also where innovation takes root and thrives...' Lyn Gardner, The Guardian
www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/wts
Playing with the traditional, communal and the celebratory, home live art produces and curates a programme of artist-led, participatory work which has pioneered the presentation of live art and inter-disciplinary practices into the mainstream & community sector, reaching large audiences, many of whom are not currently engaged with the arts, on a local and increasingly national scale. The company makes the familiar unfamiliar, playfully re-interpreting community celebrations & popular cultural forms such as village fetes, pub crawls, social dances, shared singing, processions, opening ceremonies, communal meals & feasting.
Recent projects include: Women Should be in Charge ICA 2011, The Barbican Weekender: Extraordinary Voices 2011, Book of the Dead Late, British Museum 2011, The Sharing Picnic Arnold Circus 2010, The Thames Festival commissions with Tim Etchells, Search Party & Amy Sharrocks, Ida Barr's Mash-up with Ragroof Theatre's Tea Dance in Myatt's Fields Park, Camberwell, 2010.
Some of those appearing include:
Garudo Studiage is a Peckham-based creative collective set up by Chris Ratcliffe, Laura Cave, Anna Walsh and Hannah Havana. With individual specialisms in screen printing, jewelery and painting, the group also work together and with friends, taking part in a wonderfully bizarre array of exhibitions and events, as well as making props, displays and products.The appropriately glamorous and unpronounceable name is derived from the words 'Garage studio' which is exactly where the venture started out in 2003.
Cut A Shine is a London-based troupe of traditional musicians, dynamic dancers and crazy callers with their bespoke take on a Hoe Down. From Hoxton to Humberside, Amnesty events to Bestival, Cut A Shine are putting ceilidh dance back on the map. This "Anarchic Hillbilly Barn Dancing Squad" hosts a 
rip-roaring, thigh-slapping, pavement-stomping, exhilarating, heart thumping, blood pumping barn dance show. Whilst the banjo and the fiddle set the tone, the callers instruct audiences through do-si-do's and strip the willows, getting everyone involved.
The 815 Agency seeks to explore architecture, playfulness and the city. Their current interests include abandoned spaces, urban infrastructures, high streets, narrative, ritual, spectacle, collectivity and play. The agency was set up in 2010 by Nicola Read, who completed her architecture training of University of Cambridge and London Met and currently teaches at Kingston University. She has worked with Hopkins Architects,and on the Saemangeum Island City project featured at the 2010 Venice Architecture Biennial.
Paul L Martin is an international cabaret performer with over 15 years experience. He has appeared at The Dorchester Hotel, Hackney Empire, The Pigalle, Café Royale, Madame Jo-Jos and Café de Paris.
The Riff Raff Cake Co. make one thing, and one thing only- scrummy yummy cupcakes. Their specialty is simple, fresh, pretty, homemade cupcakes that are all about tasty fun with no fancy descriptions, no mass production, no artificial preservatives and no ridiculous prices.
