Cornerstone Arts Festival 2015

FRIDAY 20TH SATURDAY 28TH NOVEMBER 2015

Cornerstone Arts Festival

Liz Aggiss is The English Channel

An introduction by Festival Director, Dr Alberto Sanna

Friday 20 November, 7.30pm Admission Free

" I am delighted to present the 15th edition of the Cornerstone Arts Festival - the creative festival of Liverpool Hope University. Our week-long celebration of artistic talent will commence on Friday 20th November and last until Saturday 28th November. This year, in addition to our regular series of music, drama, dance and art events, thanks to the generosity of Mrs Diane Tod and our other sponsors, we have the privilege of hosting for the entire duration of the festival three ensembles in residence from different parts of the world: the American jazz musicians Craig Hamilton and Sim Flora, the Italian orchestra Gli Archi del Cherubino and St Paul's Chapel Choir from Nairobi, Kenya. During the festival, these musicians will perform on several occasions and in various venues.

Liz Aggiss has been musing: Should she please you, or should she please herself? Now at 62 she finally gives herself permission to do what she damn well pleases, better late than never! So batten down the hatches and prepare to meet the Grand Dame of anarchic dance in an irreverent and glorious solo show, in which Liz Aggiss IS The English Channel.

As you read through the pages of this brochure, you may decide you would like to watch an artist of international reputation performing at one of our evening events or to support a young performer at our new late-afternoon series of events or perhaps attend a workshop run by our guest artists for the benefit of our students in the departments of Drama, Dance and Performing Arts, Education, Fine and Applied Arts, and Music. Whatever your reasons for coming to the Creative Campus of Liverpool Hope University, I look forward to welcoming you."

Using her body as the medium through which to act out and act up, Aggiss becomes a conduit for willful women and a cunning connection to ‘the other side.’ She is a witty commentator on life, death and the pain, pleasure and paradox of the stage. Choreography and texts (by Aggiss) are backed by contemporary and archive film, with knock-out musical numbers by Wevie. Surprise guests are channelled into being.

Hände

Saturday 21 November, 7.30pm Admission Free

Monday 23 November, 5pm Admission Free

In the darkness there seems to be no way out, the gift of desperation.

Upon Awakening explores a real life story of adversity, the pivotal moment that propelled them into recovery from addiction.

Recently selected as BBC Music Magazine's “rising star”, pianist Clare Hammond comes to the 2015 Cornerstone Arts Festival of Liverpool Hope University with an imaginative and enterprising programme in which she gives the world premiere of two works for piano and film.

Fallen Angels Dance Theatre is always guaranteed to take you on a roller coaster of emotions, thought-provoking it forces you on to go on your own personal journey, and consider the stigma attached to addiction.

This piece is created using Fallen Angels' unique process led practice with recovering addicts whose testimonies are integral.

‘‘ Fallen Angels will surely rise!

David Jays, critic for the Guardian/Sunday Times

Angels Dance Theatre ‘‘ Fallen is looking like an important new player in contemporary dance.

Peter Jacobs, The Public Reviews

Hände, by Liverpudlian composer Ken Hesketh, and The Nose, by Ed Hughes, both use silent film as the backdrop for works of breathtaking ingenuity and beauty. These have been programmed alongside Scriabin's passionate fifth sonata, Hesketh's whimsical Through Magic Casements, and three jazz-inspired études by Ukrainian composer, Nikolai Kapustin.

Acclaimed for the “unfaltering bravura and conviction” of her performances (Gramophone Magazine), Clare is rapidly developing a reputation for “brilliantly imaginative concert programmes” (BBC Music Magazine).

Join her in this exhilarating exploration of the piano and its possibilities!

CORNERSTONE ARTS FESTIVAL 2015 HIGHLIGHTS

Upon Awakening

The Conversation – Andrew Bick

In 2011 Andrew Bick curated an exhibition of four key British Artists, Anthony Hill, Peter Lowe, Jeffrey Steele and Gillian Wise for Galerie von Bartha in Basel. All the artists are now in their late 70s or 80s and are know for their trenchant opinions and uncompromising attitude to how their work has been overlooked and undervalued. The title chosen for the exhibition was The Conversation.

The Conversation, 1974, is also the title of a film starring Gene Hackman and directed

by Frances Ford Coppola. Hackman plays a surveillance expert adept at splicing complete conversations together from sound fragments gathered through covertly placed microphones, in a tale of spying and paranoia from the time of the Watergate scandal…

The parallel between film and exhibition was intentionally mischievous; half caught dialogue, miss heard and misunderstood statements, shifting patterns of understanding, these form in any conversations where trust and understanding is not absolute…

Contemporary art is often weakened by its poor grasp of work from the past; similarly older artists who are made to feel redundant see no reason to engage with an art world that seems to have no use for them…

Following on from a paper given for the seminar Staging Painting (ICA 21 July 2015) Artist and curator Andrew Bick will lead a discussion panel with invited guests on conversation as a means of making exhibitions. Bick uses the ideas of art historical research both for making painting and for organising exhibitions in collaborative contexts. Dialogue, as a means of reinterpreting overlooked and undervalued artists and of reappraising contemporary practice, through an astute adjustment of its relationship with the past, is central to Bick’s methods and this panel will reflect his current exhibition project with Liverpool Hope University and present his engagement with the work of some of his key collaborators.

CORNERSTONE ARTS FESTIVAL 2015 HIGHLIGHTS

Monday 23 November, 7.30pm Admission Free

Tuesday 24 November, 5pm Admission Free In the year 2093 libraries and books have long been forgotten and the human race depends solely on TV, electronic gadgets and computer games to entertain their minds. Well, all except one. Roberta Price is desperate for adventure and to rediscover the power of imagination. On her quest Bobby discovers an old, abandoned building which is soon revealed to be an ancient library full of books!

Excited by her discovery, Bobby begins to read.

As the pages turn she rouses the storybook characters, including Matilda, The Mad Hatter, The Very Hungry Caterpillar and more, from a deep slumber. The characters explain that their tales have been forgotten and that all of the characters and stories are on the verge of disappearing for good. Bobby must convince all other children to turn away from their computer games and rediscover the power of reading and to start. If they don’t, her newfound friends will soon fade from their pages and the imagination will be lost forever.

This performance takes place in The Cornerstone Theatre at Liverpool Hope University's Creative Campus.

John Godber's Poles Apart Tuesday 24 November, 7.30pm Admission Free The Theatre Royal is an oasis of artistic calm, equality and sensitivity, but when the scaffolders from hell descend upon the thespians, the masks slip and the curtain comes down.

Phil, Fat Glen and Polish Jan, are on task and finish as they deliver a breathless rant on life, art and sausage sarnies in a desperate effort to mend the leaking roof.

Never has illusion been so shattered as they race to their next job; but when leading lady Abi and theatre manager Grahame unleash their real feelings about the men with the hard hats, the question is, who is the most brutal?

is the unsung hero ‘‘ Godber of British Theatre...

The Guardian

Godber turns ‘‘ John a bad trip into a

brilliant night out...

The Guardian

It seems it's never over until the fat man sings!

In this scorching new comedy, John Godber examines the role of the theatre in the life of the working man and the role of the working man in the life of the theatre, and asks, are they Poles Apart?

Uncompromising, unflinching and deliriously funny, this visually exciting world premiere tries to understand culture clashes up-close, personal and from the top of a scaff tower.

CORNERSTONE ARTS FESTIVAL 2015 HIGHLIGHTS

Take a Hint Theatre Company: Tales That Time Forgot

Wednesday 25 November, 5pm Admission Free UNIT is inspired by the superheroes and villains of comic strips and consists of a collection of interlocking solos, duets and group pieces all centred around the exploration of relationships, with comical, farcical and exaggerated characteristics. It weaves together contemporary, postmodern, and physical theatre.

Taking you back to June 1st 1927, in a small town east of New York City - VillainVille the characters will take you on a journey of crime, and mischief, exploring each other’s personalities and relationships towards one another.

Grand Band Wednesday 25 November, 7.30pm Admission Free Grand Band is a new keyboard sextet featuring six of New York City’s top pianists: Vicky Chow, David Friend, Paul Kerekes, Blair McMillen, Lisa Moore, and Isabelle O’Connell.

Described as “awesome” (Sequenza 21), “inventive” (New York Magazine), and “six of the finest, busiest pianists active in New York’s contemporary-classical scene” (New York Times) following their performance of Steve Reich’s Six Pianos at the 2012 Bang on a Can Marathon in the World Financial Center Winter Garden, this stunning collection of performers creates a powerful sonic force.

This performance takes place in The Cornerstone Theatre at Liverpool Hope University's Creative Campus.

Photo credit: Chris McGuire

Watch closely as the story unfolds, starting at the end and finishing at the beginning...

Programme: Julia Wolfe - my lips from speaking John Metcalf - Never Odd or Even Michael Gordon - Ode to La Bruja Kevin Volans - Kneeling Dance Paul Kerekes - wither Ben Wallace - A Road You Can Go

Of the group’s debut performance, Lucid Culture wrote: “Grand Band had a ball [in the Wolfe], each wearing an ear monitor so as to catch the innumerable, suspenseful series of cues as the gospel licks grew from spacious and minimalist to a joyously hammering choir.”

CORNERSTONE ARTS FESTIVAL 2015 HIGHLIGHTS

Cornerstone Graduate Dance Company: UNIT

Thursday 26 November, 5pm Admission Free 1927. A black and stormy night. Alone in a crumbling manor, four children play a delightfully dark, frightfully funny game, where the shadows ring with laughter and buried secrets threaten to spoil the fun.

Edward, Constance, Oliver and Theo revel in old tales of castles, dungeons and kidnapped heroines. In their ever-shifting world of joyful cruelty, the only sure things are the rules of the game. But their own past is not at rest, and the violence of a half-forgotten war lurks beyond the torchlight. Born of classic Gothic novels and visually inspired by early silent films, Parlour Games is an inventive, funny, playful and disturbing work of physical theatre.

This performance takes place in The Cornerstone Theatre at Liverpool Hope University's Creative Campus.

Ruskin on Turner Thursday 26 November, 7.30pm Admission Free Paul O'Keeffe, actor and art historian, recreates John Ruskin's celebrated lecture as it was first delivered at the Philosopher's Hall, Edinburgh in 1853. Passionate, opinionated, and controversial, the great Victorian critic set out to defend the posthumous reputation of JMW Turner by placing his work in the context of six centuries of landscape painting. His moving account of the life, achievements and lonely death of the embattled painter is guaranteed to bring a lump to the throat.

In Harmony Friday 27 November, 5-6pm Admission Free Everton Youth Philharmonic is the senior ensemble from In Harmony Liverpool, a programme based in Everton inspiring children and young people daily, through music and led by Royal Liverpool Philharmonic.

Comprised of children and young people aged 10-17, Everton Youth Philharmonic rehearses twice a week in Faith Primary School, and perform regularly around the country.

In Harmony Liverpool is delighted to be part of the Liverpool Hope University Cornerstone Festival 2015.

CORNERSTONE ARTS FESTIVAL 2015 HIGHLIGHTS

Tooth + Nail Theatre Company: Parlour Games

Milapfest presents Ramprapanna Bhattacharya & Kousic Sen

Friday 27 November, 7.30pm Admission Free An evening of music from around the globe featuring all the artists in residence at the 2015 Cornerstone Arts Festival: the string orchestra Gli Archi del Cherubino from L'Aquila, Italy, St Paul's Chapel Choir from Nairobi, Kenya, and the Jazz musicians Craig Hamilton and Sim Flora from Ouachita Baptist University, USA.

St Paul's Chapel Choir

Saturday 28 November, 1pm Admission Free (Please book at www.milapfest.com) Ramprapanna Bhattacharya & Kousic Sen - Sitar & Tabla An afternoon of beautiful Indian music from two incredibly skilled and creative artists. A prime disciple of Ustad Vilayat Khan and Ustad Amir Khan, Ramprapanna Bhattacharaya is renowned for his captivating, energetic and vibrant sitar performances. As a next generation sitar virtuoso, he is representative of the younger generation of the Etawah Gharana. He will be accompanied by the internationally renowned tabla maestro, Kousic Sen.

Concert Bands Saturday 28 November, 7.30pm, Admission Free

Sim Flora

Crai gH ami lton

Gli Archi del Cherubino

The Liverpool Hope Wind Band Festival aims to bring together players from around Liverpool in a celebration of wind band performance, creativity and musical achievement.

Masterclasses with Professor Craig Hamilton from the USA will be a highlight of the event.

CORNERSTONE ARTS FESTIVAL 2015 HIGHLIGHTS

Cornerstone Festival: Ensembles in Residence

Venue Information

The Festival at a Glance

Accessibility

Friday 20th November

The Capstone Theatre is fully accessible to wheelchair users. When booking tickets, please advise TicketQuarter staff of your requirements.

The Theatre has a number of accessible seats with space next to them to accommodate wheelchair users. For each ticket booked for one of these spaces, you will be offered a free ticket for an accompanying carer, if required.

An induction loop system is in operation at The Capstone Theatre.

If you have any further questions about venue accessibility please contact us on 0151 291 3578.

Times of Events

Times indicated are performance start times.

Venue doors open 45 minutes before the performance start time.

Venue staff reserve the right to restrict entry into the theatre for performances that have started, to avoid disruption.

Parking

There is limited parking available on site from 45 minutes prior to evening performances. This is available on a first come first served basis and a small fee is normally charged.

1-2pm Francesco Manacorda - Hope Chapel 7.30pm Liz Aggiss - Capstone Theatre

Saturday 21st November

7.30pm Fallen Angels Dance Theatre – Capstone Theatre

Monday 23rd November

1-2pm Gli Archi del Cherubino - Hope Chapel 5-6pm Clare Hammond - Capstone Theatre 7.30pm Andrew Bick - Capstone Theatre

Tuesday 24th November

1-2pm Tyndale Thomas - Hope Chapel 5-6pm Take a Hint Theatre Company - Cornerstone Theatre 7.30pm John Godber - Capstone Theatre

Wednesday 25th November

1-2pm Bryce Evans & Emma Haughton - Hope Chapel 5-6pm Cornerstone Graduate Dance Company - Cornerstone Theatre 7.30pm Grand Band Piano Sextet – Capstone Theatre

Thursday 26th November

1-2pm St Paul's Chapel Choir - Hope Chapel 5-6pm Tooth + Nail Theatre Company – Cornerstone Theatre 7.30pm Paul O'Keeffe– Capstone Theatre

Alternatively you may wish to park at Q-Park on Epworth Street, off Erskine Street, Liverpool L6 1LY and take advantage of our Liverpool Hope visitor discount vouchers to reduce your parking fee. These vouchers are available from the main Lodge as you enter the campus.

Friday 27th November

For cyclists, there is also a small bike parking area next to the main entrance of the Theatre.

Saturday 28th November

The information in this brochure is provided by the artists and edited by Liverpool Hope University.

1-2pm Liverpool Hope Choirs – Hope Chapel 5-6pm In Harmony – Cornerstone Theatre 7.30pm Ensembles in Residence – Capstone Theatre 1-2pm Ramprapanna Bhattacharya – Capstone Theatre 7.30pm Concert Bands – The Great Hall

To book your free tickets, email cornerstonefestival@hope.ac.uk

By Car

Finding Us

Directions from the M62: At the end of the M62, follow signs for City Centre, continuing straight ahead for about 2 miles. Turn right onto Low Hill (also signposted for City Centre) continuing straight ahead at the traffic lights leading onto Erskine Street. Turn right at the next traffic lights [Staples store on right] onto Shaw Street. The Capstone Theatre is almost immediately on the left.

Directions from the M56: From Junction 15 join the M53.

Continue to Liverpool via the Wallasey Tunnel (Kingsway).

Exit straight ahead toward Scotland Road/Byrom Street.

Keep in the left-hand lane and at the traffic lights follow to left (signposted Warrington, Manchester and M62) on to New Islington. Stay in the left-hand lane to the second set of traffic lights and turn left on to Shaw Street. The Capstone Theatre is almost immediately on the left.

By Public Transport Bus: From Liverpool City Centre (Queen Square) the Arriva and Stagecoach bus services travelling to the Creative Campus are the 12, 13, 14, 14a, 14b, 17, 18 and 19 which stop on Brunswick Road (near to Staples). A two minute walk from Staples down Shaw Street will lead to the venue (on the left opposite the Collegiate). The 21 from Queen Square travels along Shaw Street and can drop you directly in front of the venue.

Rail: The Creative Campus is around ten minutes’ walk from Liverpool’s largest and main railway station, Liverpool Lime Street. The main entrance to Liverpool Lime Street is opposite Queen Square Bus Terminal from where you can travel by bus (see above).

The Capstone Theatre, Liverpool Hope University Creative Campus 17 Shaw Street, Liverpool L6 1HP, T: 0151 291 3578 E: cornerstonefestival@hope.ac.uk www.hope.ac.uk/cornerstonefestival/

Sponsors

HopeCornerstoneFestival

Mrs Diane Tod The Ravensdale Trust Cecil Pilkington Charitable Trust Rimmer Memorial Charitable Trust

@LiverpoolHopeUK