World Poetry Day

Posted on March 21, 2017 by Steven Lake

March 21st is UNESCO’s World Poetry Day, not only a celebration of the poetic forms of literature in all its infinite variations, but also to encourage learning and teaching of poetry across the globe.

Thanks to our own English & Drama School, we’ve built up quite an extensive range of poetry, ancient and modern, ranging from the Greek epic poetry of Homer to Shakespeare’s Sonnets, to the 19th century classics of Coleridge and William Wordsworth, to the contemporary poetry of Philip Larkin and Andrew Motion. Not forgetting our comprehensive range of literature databases available on Library Catalogue Plus, most notably Literature Online (LION), from which you can glean everything you ever wanted to know about your favourite poem or poem. Why not have a browse?

On the Radar – Crazy Like Machines

Posted on March 20, 2017 by Steven Lake

The Radar Artspace at the Edward Herbert Building is hosting a new interactive project this Wednesday lunchtime (22nd March) between 1-2pm.

Crazy Like Machines is a dance and visual art project with a social and political backdrop which aims to build an accessible and informal educational methodology to develop an innovative model of collaborative research and participatory performances.

Pushing the boundaries between verbal and non-verbal communication to explore the role of immediacy and mediation in drawings and dance to create cohesion in the group, the audience is encouraged to be actively part of an ongoing creative process in the form of performative workshops in order to build a ‘personal and non-linear visual narrative manifesto’.

Chiara Dellerba is a visual artist whose work experiments with the potential energy of the human body. Her pieces are often site-specific with an interest in the dichotomy between energy/movement, and time of reaction/determined space. Dellerba’s practice is an organic open work structure of experimentation using a system of signs and methodologies. She investigates the unconscious necessity for human beings to regenerate their lives, their environment, their relationships, and their way of perceiving a reality in order to be actively part of it.

LU Arts Presents Englishes – A Conversation

Posted on January 6, 2017 by Steven Lake

Join LU Arts this January for an afternoon of presentations, discussion and film screenings constructed around artist Nicoline van Harskamp’s preoccupation with investigating the global use of English by non-native speakers around the world.

Having already made a series of video works focusing on the subject, the artist continued her research at Loughborough University where she was invited by Radar to make a new work in collaboration with its linguists. A new work, Apologies and Compliments, was made as part of the commission and will be screened alongside other videos from the series known as Englishes, an on-going a project that seeks to provoke questions about the features and possible declinations of a future global English.

Screenings will be accompanied by presentations from experts in the fields of linguistics and art. Nicoline van Harskamp will host a conversation between invited artists and academics who will act as first respondents to the issues represented in the works before audience members and guests are also invited to contribute to the session with their remarks and opinions.

The event will be taking place on Friday 27th January at the LU Arts Project Space on the 1st Floor of the Edward Barnsley Building from 1pm – 5pm. Tickets can be bought via the LU Arts website below:

http://www.arts.lboro.ac.uk/radar/events/event/englishes_-_a_conversation

Weekend of Weird at the Martin Hall

Posted on November 10, 2016 by Steven Lake

LU Arts is remaining in the Halloween spirit this November with a weekend long exploration of everything Weird, hosted in the Martin Hall Theatre on Saturday 26th & Sunday 27th November.

A Weekend of Weird brings together writers, performers, filmmakers, artists, publishers, academics, enthusiasts and celebrants to ask: what is the Weird? Where did it come from? Where is it going?

The Weird is an emerging field that encompasses literature, film, music, art and performance. Its world is subtly strange, uncanny, irrational, inexplicable, questioning our everyday environments and perceptions and implying that our world is far more bizarre and disturbing than we would like to believe.

The weekend will comprise panel discussions, live performances, film screenings and a specialist book fair. It is organised by Radar in collaboration with Nick Freeman and Dan Watt from Loughborough University’s School of the Arts, English and Drama.

A Weekend of Weird centres around a series of main panel discussions with contributions from John Hirschhorn-Smith, Andrew Michael Hurley, Timothy Jarvis, James Machin and Mark Valentine. These sessions will be interspersed with live performances and a series of specially curated film programmes.

For this programme Radar has commissioned new works by Joey Holder, Ben Judd, Tai Shani and artist collective Reactor. There will also be screenings of work by Sidsel Christensen and Pauline Curnier Jardin.

Full programme information can be found on the LU Arts website here:

http://www.arts.lboro.ac.uk/radar/events/event/a_weekend_of_weird

Delve Into The Deep Blue Sea With Flix & LU Arts

Posted on August 24, 2016 by Steven Lake

LU Arts and Flix are back this September bringing a new screening of Terence Rattigan’s post-war drama The Deep Blue Sea from National Theatre (NT) Live.

Helen McCrory, known for her role in Penny Dreadful and Peaky Blinders, appears alongside Tom Burke of War and Peace in this new, critically acclaimed production by Carrie Cracknell.

The Deep Blue Sea will be screened next Thursday, 1st September, at 7pm in the Cope Auditorium in the Edward Barnsley building. For full details and to pre-book your tickets, please visit the LU Arts website.

Fruit Routes Renga

Posted on May 31, 2016 by Steven Lake

Fruit Routes, the University’s artist-led project designed to bring people together on Campus around themes of food, foraging and the natural world, are delighted to be hosting their first Renga on the campus on Friday 10th June.

Renga is a 1000 year old Japanese form of collaborative non-narrative poetry made up of a series of short linked verses. The process of writing a renga is a shared creative experience open to all. The renga welcomes absolute beginners (age 8 +) as well as experienced writers.

Renga is a frame that binds people, landscape and seasons. It is led by a master poet, who holds the map, and a host poet. Joining the Fruit Routes renga will be local artist, cultural forager and poet Little Onion (Paul Conneally) and Kerry Featherstone (Lecturer in Creative Writing, Loughborough University).

Over the four hours of the event participants will experience the rhythm of writing, reading, listening, the silence and sound that is renga – and tea!.

The event is free to attend but registration is necessary. To do that, and for more information about the event and the Fruit Routes initiative, visit this link:

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/fruit-routes-renga-tickets-25313928642?aff=eac2

Database Trial: Eighteenth Century Drama

Posted on May 24, 2016 by Steven Lake

This month we’re trialling an Adam Matthew resource that should be of much interest to English & Drama students or anybody interested in the history of British theatre.

Eighteenth Century Drama features the John Larpent Collection from the Huntington Library – a unique archive of almost every play submitted for licence between 1737 and 1824, as well as hundreds of documents that provide social context for the plays. Explore the Larpent plays, papers of prominent theatrical figures of the period, including correspondence, financial documents, and portraits. Cross-reference this with essential searchable databases created from information in The London Stage 1729-1800 and A Biographical Dictionary of Actors, Actresses, Musicians, Dancers, Managers Other Stage Personnel in London, 1660-1800.

To begin searching please go to: www.eighteenthcenturydrama.amdigital.co.uk – access is via IP address and the trial runs to 17^th June 2016.

NB: Please note that PDF download options are not available during trials.

We welcome feedback – good or bad – on this trial, please contact Steve Corn.

Freefest 2016

Posted on April 28, 2016 by Steven Lake

Don’t want to be stuck in the Library revising this Bank Holiday? Then why not spend the day down at the Student Union for Freefest 2016 and listen to great music instead!

Listen to music by local bands and acts, join in at the acoustic stage or get raving at the DJ arena! During the day as well student circus society Fever will show off their talent and you can even join in to learn some skills yourself! Pole Fitness and LSU Break Dance will be taking care of the dance performances for the day, with a guest appearance by the Nottingham Portland Underground Pandas for a chilled out break dance jam in the sun.

Add to this a charity beer and cider festival, a student art sale and a vintage fair and there’s no need to spend the day anywhere else than at the LSU. If we weren’t open, we’d all be down there as well!

This event is just the start of a weeklong of amazing activities, so please have a look at the full programme below and join in with more events this week.

http://www.arts.lboro.ac.uk/calendar/event/freefest_2016/

Where There’s A Will, There’s A Website!

Posted on April 19, 2016 by Steven Lake

To mark the 400th anniversary of the death of William Shakespeare two brand new electronic resources have been launched by the BBC and Oxford University Press.

The BBC Shakespeare Archive Resource contains a wealth of Shakespeare material, including all of his plays, poems and sonnets, documentaries, interviews and over a thousand stills of classic Shakespeare productions, as well as entertainment programmes referencing Shakespeare.

Oxford University Press’s Illuminating Shakespeare provides access to Shakespeare resources from the wealth of material published by OUP and explores a new theme every month with specially commissioned videos, articles, and interactive content.

Don’t forget as well that the British Library last week launched their own anniversary exhibition, Shakespeare in Ten Acts.

William Shakespeare portrait copyright Books18, reproduced under CC License from Flickr.

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Category Archives: Performing Arts