03 Jul Artists of Choice Awards 2017: UK Recipients
Dance
Holly Blakey - Some Greater Class
Holly Blakey’s Some Greater Class is a live dance performance exploring connectivity, class and gender, exposing the subtle and not-so-subtle dynamics of contemporary pop culture and it’s context.
Created in collaboration with musicians Gwilym Gold and Darkstar, Some Greater Class, the work aims to decode the complex class structures that govern ‘high art’ and popular culture and also question the complicity of art itself in dividing audiences and assigning value. As a choreographer, music video director and artist who refuses to be categorised, Blakey brings a unique perspective to this discussion and this award will support the re-imagining of the work for new spaces and a series of tour dates around the UK.
Tour dates include Latitude Festival (The Waterfront Stage, Friday 14th July at 11.15pm), Southbank Centre (The Clore Ballroom, 29th & 30th July at 8.30pm) and The Lowry (Compass Room, 16th & 17th October.
Some Greater Class is produced by Georgina Harper in partnership with Ben Totty and BOX Artist Management.
Musical Theatre
Silent Uproar - A Super Happy Story (About Feeling Super Sad)
Silent Uproar’s latest production A Super Happy Story (About Feeling Super Sad) is a cabaret musical about depression by Olivier award winner Jon Brittain with music by Matthew Floyd Jones (Frisky and Mannish). The production is a fun, silly and sad show that explains, sings, and throws glitter at how it’s OK to not feel OK.
Silent Uproar is a Hull-based new writing company. Silent Uproar commissions writers to create playful and provocative work to help make the world a little less shit. Silent Uproar is a Supported Artist of Hull Truck Theatre, and an Emerging Company of New Diorama Theatre 2016-2017.
Theatre
The Wardrobe Ensemble - Education, Education, Education
Education, Education, Education is The Wardrobe Ensemble’s love letter to the schools of the 90s - to smiley potato faces, to the tv being wheeled in on a Friday afternoon, to yoyos, to CGP, to setting fire to the bin, to pogs and furbies. A love letter to our teachers who were probably just as confused as we were.
Education, Education, Education asks big questions about a country in special measures, exploring what we are taught and why, and where responsibility lies.
Education, Education, Education is a co-production between The Wardrobe Ensemble, Royal & Derngate Northampton and Shoreditch Town Hall.
The Wardrobe Ensemble are a group of Bristol-based theatre artists working together to make new plays that dissect the twenty-first century experience, consisting of nine core members, one producer and a constantly growing community of associate artists.
Film
Saeed Taji Farouky - Strange Cities Are Familiar
Director Saeed Taji Farouky is a Palestinian-British filmmaker and artist. He has been writing and directing documentaries and short fiction on themes of colonialism, conflict and human rights since 2004. This is his second film with Candle & Bell.
Strange Cities Are Familiar is a film about memories, guilt and resilience. It tells the story of Ashraf, a Palestinian father living in the UK, struggling to deal with experiences that haunt him: the promises he couldn’t keep, the family he couldn’t protect.