Brighton Festival 2014 programme

The Brighton Festival announced its 2014 programme today at a launch helmed by guest director Hofesh Shechter. The choreographer, dancer and musician oversees three weeks packed with 448 performances and 147 events in 34 venues across the south coast city, including 37 premieres.

The hugely eclectic programme of music, theatre, dance, circus, art, film, debate and family events runs from 3^rd to 25^th May and includes a performance of Schechter’s own rousing Sun (with an exclusive "Director’s cut", Sun Dust).

“Brighton has a magic to it that no one can explain,” Schechter enthused, “Finding a place where one can develop and grow artistically is a delicate thing, an important thing. Brighton Dome and Brighton Festival have been an inspiring, energising and encouraging place for my company and me in the last five years. We’ve enjoyed the buzz, the lightness, energy, and the unexplainable essence of Brighton. Now I feel a rush of excitement about sharing our programme with audiences in Brighton and beyond.”

Recent years have seen guest directors such as Brian Eno, Vanessa Redgrave and children's author Michael Rosen focus on their special interests. Schechter does the same, featuring dance pieces such as the fiery Talk to the Demon by Wim Vandekeybus’ Belgian company Ultima Vez, but he also casts his net very much wider. The Festival sees the UK premier of Opus No.7 from Russian theatre’s hugely influential Dmitry Krymov; it will host the mesmerising new work Nowhere and Everywhere at the Same Time No.2 by choreographer-artist William Forsythe and also the highly anticipated and specially commissioned The British Library by Yinka Shonibare MBE; there will be concerts by country legend Emmylou Harris, singer-songwriter Cat Power, jazz sensation Zara McFarlane, and raunch iconoclast Peaches, alongside 24 carat classical material including a new site-specific production of the brilliantly macabre chamber opera Down by the Greenwood Side in a disused Lewes brewery to celebrate composer Sir Harrison Birtwistle’s 80th birthday.

The Festival kicks off with the Children’s Parade, the largest of its kind in Europe, and closes three weeks later in a style appropriate to its guest director: an intriguing story-telling dance performance from Les Slovaks. In between, it runs a wild gamut, from the crazed hip hop granny cabaret of Ida Barr and a face-off between potty-mouthed cult authors Irvine Welsh and John Niven, to the UK premier of Tanzfuchs Produktion’s food-centric, child-friendly dance extravaganza Munch! and the physical theatre and pyrotechnics of the Tangled Feet’s outdoor spectacular One Million.

Brighton Festival 2014 partners theartsdesk will be keeping you updated with reviews, previews, interviews and exclusives throughout.

For a full programme check here.

Overleaf: Watch Brighton Festival 2014 Hofesh Schechter interview