insideSUSSEX Magazine Issue 03 - May 2015 | Page 22

arts+entertainment

A Celebration Of Culture
at Brighton Festival
Brighton Festival has been a defining part of the town’s cultural calendar
since 1967 when the then director, Ian Hunter, put together a programme of
events that included Anthony Hopkins, Yehudi Menuhin, and world renowned
actor Lawrence Olivier. With a beginning as prestigious as this, it seemed
as though Brighton Festival would forever be the jewel in the crown of
Brighton’s many fantastic annual events and, thanks to a succession of
excellent directors and stars, it has been.
The festival has become bigger and brighter as it has grown in both
size and popularity, and now, in its 48th year, Ian Hunter’s vision of an
all-inclusive artistic festival that brings the town and visitors together to
discover new and stimulating art in any of the many forms available has
definitely been achieved.

between art forms, and taking liberty. Each performance or piece of art
will challenge visitors to look again, showing us the world we think we
know with a visionary twist in its tale. Questions will be posed, and may
not be answered, but the interactive element of the festival is all-important
to its success and sustainability. There will be discussions of conservation
issues, outdoor spectaculars, a debate of whether art imitates nature, or
whether it is really the other way around…

Brighton Festival is now the largest arts festival in Britain, and past
performers include such notables as Count Basie, Ella Fitzgerald, Sir
Richard Attenborough, the Moscow Philharmonic, Quentin Crisp, Corin
Redgrave, The Bolshoi Ballet, Eddie Izzard, Harry Connick Jr, and Douglas
Adams to name just a few.

The entire festival is designed to pull visitors in, to entrance them, to
educate them, and to leave them asking the right questions and opening
up the right discussions.

This year the director of Brighton Festival is Ali Smith, winner of both
the Costa Novel award and Goldsmiths Prize for boldly original fiction.
She has put together an impressive programme of events for 2015, all
with three central themes at heart: art and nature, the crossing places

Brighton Festival is packed full of interesting and exciting dance, theatre,
debate, installations, music, and more. Here are just some of the
highlights that shouldn’t be missed. For the full listings, please see
www.brightonfestival.org.

and images of a Brighton landmark building on the day it was bombed,
together with ready-made documents from a morally uncertain world.
Marking moments in history and the collective memory, Portraits of
Dissension are not illustrations of the events themselves, but more an
abstract which to explore wider implications, more universal ideas: a
memorable and fixed point about which we can begin a discussion,
relate back, reflect and consider what’s next. This exhibition acts as
a locater in which to explore ideas of unrest, the monumental and
absence, edge and shift, portraiture and representation, space and
occupation.
Agnes Varda © Julie Fabry

Agnès Varda – Installation // 2-24 May
Agnès Varda was recently awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award by the
European Film Academy for her outstanding body of work. An outspoken
feminist throughout her career, Varda, now 86, has created some of the
most interesting female protagonists in 20th-century cinema.
Nathan Coley – Portraits of Dissension // 2-24 May
A new commission by renowned British contemporary artist Nathan
Coley, this year’s invited HOUSE artist. Coley’s exhibition takes as its
point of departure themes of architecture in a state of renewal and
destruction, including materials referencing Brighton’s Royal Palace
Nathan Coley - Portraits of Dissension

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