Welcome to the 2009 Wandsworth Arts Festival!
8 May to 24 May 2009
Last year you were enticed, entertained and illuminated by the range of work on offer during the Arts Festival – and we promise you even more this year!
Whether you want to be dazzled by theatre, tempted by art or learn some new skills yourself there is something for everyone. The festival will end with The Shimmy! An outdoor arts day in promenade from
Putney Wharf to Wandsworth Park - so clear your diaries and come and enjoy the art on your doorstep.
We look forward to seeing you there!
Download your copy of the fesitval brochure in pdf format.
 Arts Festival 2009 (1.1 mb) and tell us about your festival experiences
Image: drift by Amy SharrocksThe Shimmy!
On Sunday, 24 May 2009, between 2pm-6pm Putney Wharf and Wandsworth Park will be bursting with arts and performance to mark the finale of the Wandsworth Arts Festival 2009.
The Shimmy! is an outdoor festival featuring performance, art workshops, storytelling and surprises around every corner with more than 20 acts and events. There will be architectural installations, live music and hidden performances.
Highlights will include a one-on-one performance in a boat, a group of roving tent creatures, live music, aerial tango performances and workshops to get your creativity going!
Come to The Shimmy! and be inspired, entertained and uplifted. For more information contact the arts team, or download a map (pdf 761 kb).
Your reviews
The Fibonacci Sequence - 22 May 2009
The Fibonacci Sequence's lunch-time concerts at St. Mary's Church right by the river in Putney are unique. The church and its excellent café are light and welcoming, the concert atmosphere informal and relaxed, with highly disciplined performances full of expression and excitement. Today's programme centred round Gillian Tingay's brilliant and joyful harp playing. Two young guest artists from the Royal College of Music, the 'cellist Corentin Chassard and the tenor John McCunn, were seamlessly incorporated into the ensemble led by Tingay and the Fibonacci's excellent oboist, Christopher O'Neal.
The programme consisted almost entirely of little-known pieces, most of them of the 20th Century, but all of them fresh and immediately approachable. Christopher O'Neal, introducing William Alwyn's recently-rediscovered Suite for Oboe and Harp, written in 1945, reminded us that in the 30s, Alwyn was considered somewhat avant garde, but the Suite consists of three delightful, melodious dance movements, the oboe integrated into Alwyn's expertly-fashioned harp writing, the only hint of modernity being an expressive section in five-time in the final Jig.
These days one is tempted to forget that Gabriel Fauré's Après un Rêve was originally a song before all the world's 'cellists appropriated it, but today Corentin Chassard's 'cello was accompanied by harp instead of piano, which somehow took the piece out of the drawing room and into a Romantic world all of its own. Chassard's introverted, thoughtful style and veiled tone suited the piece perfectly. It was followed by a two-movement Fantasia by Telemann, today played on the oboe by Christopher O'Neal with extraordinary ease and fluency.
Next came two solo harp pieces. Chanson de la Nuit is an atmospheric tone-poem by Carlos Salzedo, full of the special effects and techniques with which he almost single-handedly created 20th Century harp-writing. It was played equally brilliantly and poetically by Gillian Tingay. Watching the Wheat, a charming piece based on a simple song-like tune that returns at the end, enclosed in brilliant figuration (where Tingay's internal balance was perfect, making one listen for the kernel of simple tune while never obliterating it), was by the Welsh composer John Thomas and is based on a traditional Welsh song.
The final piece was by far the most unusual and interesting. André Jolivet's Suite Liturgique is a powerful and expressive work of real stature, at times chromatic and harmonically bold. The ensemble was joined by the tenor John McMunn as well as his fellow-guest from the RCM, the 'cellist Corentin Chassard. Overall the performance matched the stature of the work and formed the climax to a most rewarding concert.
Michael Graubart
Alice in the Walled Garden, Sixteen Feet Productions - Saturday 23 May, Battersea Park
Set in the picturesque Old English Garden at Battersea Park this promenade performance of Alice in the Walled Garden, an adaptation of Alice in Wonderland, started with the audience seated on rugs placed on the grass outside the garden along with star of the show, Alice (Lysianne Thomas), and her sister (Tasha Johnson) who also played the Queen of Hearts. Here, Alice fell into her infamous dream and began to chase the White Rabbit and, after a clever use of props, shrank and met a peculiar caterpillar (Danny Charles).
Caterpillar's wonderfully animated performance was a nice ice-breaker before we were led into the 'Walled Garden' where cobbled paths, water features, flowers and greenery made it the perfect setting for this adaptation of Lewis Carroll's classic.
Sixteenfeet Productions used the Garden fully and imaginatively. The performance was seamless from beginning to end with excellent acting and unnoticeable, quick costume changes. Highlights included Alice throughout, Caterpillar's song and dance, the Cheshire Cat's (Ray Emmet Brown) southern American accent and wit which had us all laughing, the vociferous Queen of Hearts' bossy demands, Mad Hatter (Tom McDonald) and sleepy Dormouse (Jennifer Rhodes) at the confusing and very funny tea party and the King of Hearts' (Morgan Philpott) trial. The children in the audience appeared mesmerised by it all and my seven year old daughter enjoyed every moment.
Dedication and enthusiasm was evident in all the performers and the ticket prices made it accessible to everyone. I would recommend Alice in the Walled Garden to adults as well as children.
Action Hero: Watch Me Fall - BAC
In 2008 Bristol based live artists Action Hero made A Western, in which they deconstructed the Spaghetti Western genre and presented it as a collection of clichés, drolly delivered and acted out with a few props such as playing cards and plenty of bright red tomato ketchup.
A similar method is employed here, with the duo this time turning their attention to American Daredevilry. Motorcycle daredevil Evel Knievel is a continuous touchstone during the performance, his name adorning the crash helmet used.
The audience is split into two, with a long rectangular area forming the stage, on which sits a bike ramp.
The performance begins with the Daredevil holding his Beautiful Assistant by the hand and punching his fists in the air. This is Machismo writ large.
'Dangerous stunts', are preceded by hype and followed by the Daredevil's tantrums and, once, a crushingly tender weep in his assistants arms.
At the centre of the work is a tension, a constant power-play – he will later pour a litre of coke over her head.
Nonetheless, when the big stunt finally approaches, it is the girl in her star-spangled blue dress that helps him into his red knee guards and when the inevitable fall comes and he lies crumpled in a heap, she is the one who tends to him and helps him to stand.
The strength of this work comes from the duo's ability to tease poignant moments out of their chosen subject, to expose flaws inherent in the logic of a system and to question the actions and motivations behind its denizens.
Watch Me Fall asks why people feel compelled to risk their lives, suggesting in the final couple of minutes that it may be an attempt to bring order out of a chaotic life with an uncertain future.
Maximum Density of Sound (MDoS) - Putney Library
Sitting in a dimly lit room in Putney Library with twenty other people simply 'listening' is not a standard Wednesday night, however it certainly proved to be an enlightening experience.
Maximum Density of Sound (MDoS) is comprised of Julia Schauerman and Steve Webber. Using Wandsworth soundscapes as inspiration, 'Wandsworth Soundings' was an improvised performance which layered pre-record sounds from around the borough with live sound and music.
Recordings came from familiar locations such as Clapham Junction Station, Wandsworth Common Ponds, and George Irvin's Fun Fair and were complimented by saxophone, guitar and other sounds. The result being a completely different experience of the day to day environment in which we live.
Listening is something that is often over-ruled by what we see, and simply taking the time to listen meant that you heard so much more. The addition of music and other live sound also saw the sounds and their environments reveal themselves in new and different ways.
MDoS provided a unique and different production that surprised and stimulated in a very unexpected way.
Wandsworth Mind: identity
This thought provoking exhibition is small but has a powerful impact. It explores the idea of personal identity through photography and features the work of Ross McRea and Michael Weston. McRae often stages scenes for his images that reflect his own behaviour in public. He aims to give an honest insight into "who he is and how he has become this person". Intriguing and often arresting images are accompanied by intelligent, analytical statements and often moving commentary and poetry. McRae states, "It exposes the naked truth of the life and chances I failed to take as 40 years of fear, stress and missed life experiences rob me of enough sleep nearly every night." And, "My photographs are painful self criticisms of my defeatist attitudes and hiding of my life-affirming potential behind my masks." Many of the images, from both of the exhibitors, depict an interior life, looking out at the world from the confines of an urban space. One of McRae's images is of a door with light flooding in from the outside into a gloomy corridor; it speaks volumes. Similarly powerful is the work of Michael Weston. Particularly striking images include that of a person, hands and face reduced to a blurred shape behind an opaque, reinforced glass door panel. Some of Weston's images feature looking out at lush green space, conveying a strong feeling of being separated from nature and observing, not participating.
The exhibition is the result of a series of workshops run at Wandsworth Mind's Foresters centre by photographer and project facilitator Jasmine Falcolner. This striking and moving work deserves a bigger and more accessible public platform – highly recommended.
Preston Reed - Half Moon Putney
I do not habitually go to gigs or concerts, but I enjoy good music and when it is live it's even better. So going to see Preston Reed at The Half Moon pub in Putney intrigued me, if only because it was going to be a new experience. The venue held, at most, 50 people, and there were about 40 people in attendance. With lights dimmed and candles on tables, the experienced American guitarist, commenced his two hour solo performance.
His first song was the energetic Ladies' Night and from that point onward I was hooked. He played the guitar much like a banjo, using metal picks on his fingers. Uniquely holding the frets from the top, allowing for more movement and flexibility in the strings, his speed and agility impressed, but even more, the composition used drumming against the guitar to create a full and rounded piece. Particularly impressive was the emotive Overture, sharing the joy of the birth of his child. Preston Reed's style is fairly distinctive, but notably the piece Valhalla was more melancholy piece, played traditionally on an electric guitar.
It was refreshing to see someone playing music that was original, inspired and not all about image. This man visibly lived to play his music and enjoyed sharing it with others. Overall - a wonderful experience.
Family Stitch - Southfields Library
'Family Stitch' is a great initiative, run by Bridging Arts and Wandsworth Council with experts from the Royal School of Embroidery. A workshop for local people took place in the friendly atmosphere of Southfields Library, during Wandsworth's Art Festival. People of all ages (99% women and girls) had a chance to learn several hand embroidery stitches, with the supervision and assistance of a teacher from the Royal School of Embroidery. The advice was excellent and stitches were easy to follow. A small embroidery kit was given to everyone who attended to use, and people were able to take this home. Using a finished example for reference, each stitch was demonstrated in turn. Once everyone had mastered one stitch, the next was introduced. The ice was quickly broken between strangers, who were soon helping each other, chatting, threading needles and comparing their samples and stitching techniques. Two hours flew by. Participants also had the opportunity of studying a couple of superb historical examples of accomplished needlework that had been brought along, together with more information about the courses run by the Royal School of Needlework. The workshop is part of a heritage project that will continue workshops with different sections of the community. This is a great way of introducing many people to a first experience of this pleasurable, satisfying craft, and enabling many of the older people to re-kindle a long forgotten skill.
Pascal Djabali - Putney Arts Theatre
Local artist Pascal revealed his vibrant canvases and prints at a one man exhibition at Putney Arts Centre. The exhibition included an eclectic range of subjects, in Djabali's lively, atmospheric style. Pascal Djabali is a self taught artist who took up painting in 1996 while living in Essex, but has now re-located back to London. A recurring, favourite theme of his is musicians, including the striking "Gilespi" print on show. Djabali manages to convey not only the concentration of the performer and the intimacy of the venue, but also something of the joy and intensity of the music. Other favourite subjects include his confident and accomplished studies of horses. Simple, strong compositions are highly effective, and his sketchy, free, style, often using mixed media on to highly textured canvas, gives his work a very distinctive style. The rendering of light is deftly handled in the majority of the pieces on display, often using strong contrasts of light and shade to create lots of impact. The artist also tackles landscape, and subjects include the lush triptych, "Richmond Park", "Suffolk field" and "By the Coast".
Summer Open Studios - Wimbledon Arts Studios
The impressive Wimbledon Arts Studios opens its doors just twice a year for members to the public to buy directly from the artists. This well established creative showcase is a joy, with a huge variety of art on display. Painting, drawing, sculpture and ceramics by over 100 artists, (most of whom are on-site to talk to potential customers directly) show in London's largest studio complex. The studios are tucked away between Tooting and Earlsfield off Garrett Lane, and are a 'rabbit warren' of delights. Undoubtedly a gem worth seeking out, and last year over 4,000 visitors did just that. Painting ranges from abstract work to atmospheric landscapes, still life and some excellent figurative work of people and animals. For those for who find 3D more appealing, there were delicate ceramics from Gemma Wightman and Sarah Grove, through to gutsy, imaginative 'scrap' sculptures by Kevin Herlihy. Literally something for everyone's taste. Prices ranged from an affordable £49 upwards for an original piece of Art. This event is highly recommended not only for those who want to buy something unique, but also for those interested in taking up a rare opportunity simply to see first hand some of the range and diversity of contemporary art.
Grimm - The Final Chapter -Tara Studio
I liked the way it was set up and how they did lots of plays from the Brothers Grimm. I especially loved Little Red Riding Hood and how they used a white sheet and when the wolf ate the Granny they turned over the sheet and there was blood on the other side. Little Red Riding Hood and her Grandma got saved by the Huntsman who filled the wolf with rocks which killed the wolf and they all lived happily ever after. That was my favourite story.
I liked the colourful clothes and The Queen from Snow White was my best actor. I felt quite comfortable in the front row and liked how the room was small and stuff. In fact, I liked all of it. I recommend it to everyone. Have fun.
Chanie Maxwell, Aged 7
Grimm - The Final Chapter -Tara Studio
Grimm - The Final Chapter was a play from the South West Youth Theatre performed at Tara Studio on Garratt Lane, 2 minutes walk from Earlsfield Station.
The space where the performance took place was a small area sectioned by black sheets which also lined the walls and floor. The show lasted 50 minutes and comprised a medley of adapted fairy tales with dark as well as comical modifications.
The witty storylines and very good acting in parts made up for the lack of props and costumes. Improvisation was definitely necessary and at times the actors poked fun at their lack of appropriate props and outfits.
All the performers were enthusiastic and together they put on an enjoyable show. They all brought something special to the production. However, the actor who played 'The Huntsman' in Little Red Riding Hood and also performed well in The Three Sillies as well as the actress who played 'The Queen' in Snow White both had charisma, presence and good delivery. They came across as confident and brought their scenes to life with bold and good acting.
The production appeared to be enjoyed by the audience most of whom seemed familiar with, or attached to, the Theatre Company and Tara Studios. There was an incestuous feel to this set up and I felt a bit of an intruder.
For those with no involvement with the South West Youth Theatre and Tara Studios I would recommend this play for younger children aged 4-10 yrs.
Putney Theatre Company - Two One Act Stage Readings
It always feels an honour being the first to see anything, and the staged readings of two one act plays at Putney Theatre Company was just that.
Whilst the staging was minimalist and scripts were in hand, it did little to distract from the fresh storylines and the engaging acting.
'Bobby Bathurst and the Spiders from Cars' by Graham Kellas was an hour long voyage of self discovery with bullied schoolboy Bobby. His journey takes him into an arachnid world beyond the playground where he meets a number of characters led by 'Ziggy' (the Alpha Spider).
Themes and references to 'Ziggy Stardust' abound with puns and parody colouring the entire script and adding differing layers of humour.
Andy Barrett's portrayal of Bobby (aged five and a quarter) is credibly childlike and delights the audience with immature jokes and misinterpretation.
'The Awkward Date' by Jonathan Carroll is a voyeuristic and darkly humorous exposé of the blind date.
Phil and Sarah's meeting in a pub washes the audience through a wave of human emotions. From awkward to tender, and from humiliating to slightly disturbing, the writing remains undeniably introspective throughout.
The character of Phil, described as being "Schizophrenic, but with no good side" is cast brilliantly with Joseph Broderick, and brings humour to the table in unpredictable and slightly unsettling ways. Whilst Carla Ritchie playing Sarah skilfully grounds the scene into some sense of normality. An exciting and
Putney Arts Theatre simply showcased two diverse and innovative pieces of new writing that both entertained and captivated.
Photography Exhibition - Roehampton University
Examples of work from Roehampton's first ever BA/Bsc Photography graduates went on show at Queens Building in the University. The work on show was very diverse, including portraiture, landscape, documentary and staged pieces – reflecting the many individual projects undertaken in the student's final year.
Cropped images and unusual angles were a feature of Anita Okoro's "Capture 2009" . She focuses her lens on the many barriers to be seen in the city – walls, gates, doors as well as reflecting the decay and imperfections of the urban landscape.
Analytical close-ups of root vegetables created an arresting set of images by Bianca Beech. Her project, entitled, "Fragor labia ulcus rapa" (Cracked lips and sore neeps) drew attention to the 'ugly beauty' of simple root vegetables such as beetroot and celeriac. Focusing on the myriad colours and textures to be found on dormant and sprouting roots, it forces the viewer to re-consider the mundane.
In contrast, Sarah Louise Simon's striking black and white graphic composition of heads and shoulders draws attention to the obsession of organisations seeking to categorise human beings. The rigid 'boxed' people, and captions such as "Mixed, White, Afro-Caribeaan, Indian, White Other, Chinese", etc make us focus on the issues of people and labels, statistics and the relevance of all of this in today's society.
Other notable work included Jack DashiellBlackmun's meticulously staged images "A Model London", commenting on the 'corporate graffiti' to be found everywhere in the city, Sara Naqui's interesting modern re-interpretations of old master paintings, and Tonje Naess's arresting and atmospheric images, "Brixton Hill SW2". |
