School Creative Centre enters a new period of development

Having secured its future with East Sussex County Council’s approval of a three-and-a-half-year extension to the lease and the successful application to the Arts Council England for a capacity building grant, Rye’s School Creative Centre is entering an exciting new period of development.

To help realise its vision for the future, The School has recently appointed Michael Smith as creative co-ordinator. Graduating from the Glasgow School of Art in 2010, Michael has spent the past two-and-a-half years working on diverse projects, in Glasgow as well as Poland, the Netherlands and China. He brings to the centre a new energy and fresh perspective and is already working on some dynamic initiatives while continuing to develop the existing programme of events.

Local talent joins comedy headliners

Back In The Room comedy nights Downstairs at The White Rock Theatre feature the best of new comedy from the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, alongside some budding local acts.

Hastings based producers B&R Productions are keen to develop local talent and have created Back In The Room ‘launch pad’ slots as the perfect opportunity for those wanting to break into the comedy scene to try out ideas and new material. Up and coming sketch troupe Big Hands Men from Rye, Bexhill-based Ali Gen and Polly Ester, young comedian from Battle, David Seymour and student duo Don’t Slam The Door are all included in the line ups for May, June and July.

If you have a comedy or cabaret act contact Chrissy on 01797 229 797 or email infot@theschoolcreativecentre.co.uk to find out how to get involved.

Back In The Room is hosted by Time Out Critics Choice and local favourite the glamorous bearded drag lady Timberlina, with a winning blend of homemade jam, good advice and top tips for make and do. When not battling the allotment, Timberlina, who hasbeen described as ‘Bill Nighy in a twinset’, deftly combines highly finessed shambolic humour with spontaneous rants and has been enthralling audiences nationally, internationally and now in East Sussex.

Back in The Room Downstairs @ The White Rock Theatre launches on May 16th with stand-up, metal head, transvestite Andrew O’Neil and continues on June 20th with Edinburgh Comedy Awards nominee James Acaster and ‘rising star’ (TimeOut) Nish Kumar on July 18th . Tickets available from whiterocktheatre.org.uk. 01424 462288.

Live music with Dorey The Wise + Elle Rayenne + Native People

Four-piece Hastings band DOREY THE WISE headline our showcase night playing a mix of indie rock/pop with a sprinkling of acoustic tunes. Since forming in 2010, the band has played at a range of venues across London and the South East East (including Indigo 02, 02 Academy Islington, Purple Turtle, Water Rats, Bush Hall, The Forum) and honed its live set into a tight and powerful performance, steeped with emotion, and notable for original, well-crafted songs that really stick in the mind. 2012 saw the band take 2nd place (out of a field of 10,000 hopefuls) in the Surface Festival, an international showcase event promoting new music. Their debut EP was released on 1 March with radio plays on BBC and is available to download from iTunes and Amazon   www.doreythewise.com

ELLE RAYENNE are an indie band from Broadstairs, Kent. Originally an acoustic duo focusing on vocal harmonies, the band has now become a 5 piece formed just over a year ago. They released their first EP ‘Rayguns’ in early January and are fast becoming recognised, thanks to the BBC local networks for frequent plays, for their unique style and catchy melodies. You can find their FREE EP at ellerayenne.bandcamp and keep up to date with gigs and releases on facebook.com/ellerayenne

NATIVE PEOPLE are a 4 piece indie/alternative band from Folkestone who formed in 2011 and have built up a strong local following on the south coast. Their debut EP is to be released in 2013.

Tickets: £5 in advance, £7 on the door available http://www.theschoolcreativecentre.co.uk, Grammar School Records, Rye or call 01797 229797. Group discounts available.

Doors open 7.15pm, licensed bar and free parking.

Children 15 and under must be accompanied by an adult.

Art inspired by wild woods and nightingales.

A new audio-visual installation by Rye-based artist Anny Evason combines sound and large-scale artworks to evoke a powerful sense of nature and to challenge our common perception of gardens and outside spaces.

The piece, A Garden Enclosed – Lines of Exploration, is the result of a collaboration between Evason and Jamie Griffiths, a digital media artist, who is providing the soundtrack. It is being unveiled at a private viewing on Thursday 11 April at 5.30pm at The School Creative Centre in Rye, after which it will be open to the public daily from 10am – 5pm until 14 April.

A Garden Enclosed – Lines of Exploration combines many of the skills and ideas that Evason has acquired through working in theatre and landscape design. The work takes the form of a series of large-scale graphic images, suspended in space and integrated with an original sound piece. Viewers will have the freedom to move through the images, seeing one juxtaposed with another, rather than seeing them in succession on a wall.

“Receiving funding from the arts council last year has enabled me to develop this project over the past few months,” Evason explains. “Research has been quite broad based, covering early medieval gardens, the history of wild wood and ancient forest in Europe, the human impact on woodland habitats and the resulting reduction in bird numbers and species.

“I am fascinated by the changing natural soundscape of rural areas throughout the world, the nature of nightingales, fairy stories and mythology associated with forests and woodland communities, the chestnut woods of France and the music of Purcell and Messiaen.

“The sound will be a powerful part of the work. Jamie’s past record is impressive and I know that she will bring a dynamic and unique quality to the piece. The School has been instrumental in arriving at this point. It is a terrific opportunity to be able to plan and create work for an onsite space and to have the back-up of the School team to help with administration, organisation and encouragement. It is a great local resource.”

In conjunction with the installation, Evason will be running two half-day workshops at The Towner Gallery, Eastbourne and The School Creative Centre, Rye for anyone interested in creating drawings from the landscape, using traditional materials and iPads. Details of these can be found at http://www.annyevason.co.uk

For more information about the exhibition and workshops, visit

http://www.annyevason.co.uk

http://www.annyevason.wordpress.com

A GARDEN ENCLOSED – lines of exploration

An audio visual installation created by Anny Evason + Jamie Griffiths

Private view Thursday April 11th 5.30 – 8.30pm

Open Friday 12th April – Sunday 14th April 2013 10am-5pm (free admission)

at The School Creative Centre Rye East Sussex

Notes to Editor:

Images : A GARDEN ENCLOSED – lines of exploration : work in progress, taken in Evason’s studio at The School Creative Centre, Rye – further images and background to the work as it develops can be found at http://www.annyevason.wordpress.com

After graduating in fine art at Brighton College of Art, Evason moved to Australia and spent thirteen years travelling, painting and drawing and working in theatre. She designed and painted sets and costumes for several theatre companies in Sydney including Nimrod Theatre Co. and The Australian Opera. She continued designing for the theatre in the UK (including Gylndebourne Young Vic, Royal National Theatre, Glyndebourne Opera, Old Vic and Opera North) while also selling her work to private and corporate clients. Since 2000 she has been designing outside spaces, private and public, teaching, and developing her thoughts about landscape through painting and drawing.

Evason was shortlisted for the Oldie British Artist Award in 2012

MLA (MA Landscape Architecture) University of Greenwich 2004

BA Hons. Open University 2000

BA Fine Art Painting Brighton College of Art 1974

Foundation Shrewsbury School of Art 1970

NURU KANE comes to Rye as part of world-wide tour to launch latest album

As part of his world-wide tour celebrating the release of his third album Exile, Senegalese superstar Nuru Kane & BFG return to the School Creative Centre, Rye on Saturday March 30.

Nuru’s music, like the Baye Fall clothes he wears, is a patchwork. Exile, Nuru’s third album, charts his

experiences living in Europe, far from his Senegalese homeland. Streams of influence from his life in France, his trips to North Africa and his time in urban London run deep throughout his sound. Here, his resonant Moroccan guimbri, along with guitars, kora and calabash, bounce and colour his luxurious deep singing voice.

Nuru Kane’s many-sided music is part-Moroccan, part-Senegalese, part-blues, part-whatever else he fancies throwing into the mix – on this album he alternately adds some reggae heat on ‘Issoire’, a hypnotic gnawa groove on ‘Sadye’, and then a flicker of Spaniard gypsy spice on ‘Corriendo’. His previous Riverboat records release, Sigil, was a resounding success and earned him a well-deserved nomination for a BBC 3 Award.

Born in Senegal’s hustling bustling capital city Dakar, Nuru built his first guitar in his teens, and began to strum and thrust his fishing-wire strings along in rhythm. As a young musician, Nuru began to explore the beautifully bizarre effects created when juxtaposing different modern styles with his traditional Senegalese singing technique.

Nuru is also heavily influenced by gnawa, the Moroccan trance-like spiritual music that seals his signature style – what he coins Baye Fall Gnawa. The guimbri is a three-stringed lute played in the gnawa tradition, and Nuru can be heard playing the instrument on the track ‘Bambala’. ‘Sadye’ pays tribute to the gnawa tradition and features characteristic rhythmic interplay between duple and triple meters. Here sanza, djembe and calabash add to the intense percussive play.

As well as Moroccan gnawa, Nuru takes influence from the Baye Fall, a sub-group of the Mouride brotherhood of which he is a member. The meditative-sounding track ‘Zikar’ references the practice of religious recitation practised by Sufis.

Exile balances Nuru’s fun-loving nature with a darker, brooding mood not heard in some of his earlier work. On the light humorous track, ‘Yes We Kane’ Nuru sings with heavy vibrato and playfully interacts with a slip-sliding fiddle. ‘Issoire’ is a laidback lilt infused with rolling reggae rhythms. In contrast the track ‘Exile’ (from which this album takes its name) is a sorrowful, sultry track commemorating the lives of those forced into exile in order to escape humiliation and torture. Nuru sculpts a dark, brooding soundscape complete with stark-sounding sanza and a swooping violin; next, the track accelerates wildly, painting out a sense of urgency and instability. Exile throws light and shade on Nuru’s unique worldview – on this album alone he covers topics as broad-ranging as religion, marriage, family, dictatorship and African liberation.

With Exile, Nuru’s bouncing Baye Fall Gnawa sound is set to reverberate around the globe once more. Get ready to hear him loud.

Tickets: £10 in advance, £12 on the door (students £8) available online http://www.theschoolcreativecentre.co.uk, Grammar School Records, Rye or call 01797 229797. Group discounts available.

Doors open 7.30pm, licensed bar and free parking.

Back In The Room – returns bigger and better to a new venue

Andrew O’Neil

James Acaster

Nish Kumar

B&R Productions brings its highly successful comedy cabaret Back In The Room to Hastings. In association with the White Rock Theatre, Back In The Room launches again on 16 May with its winning blend of satirical sketches, songs and headline stand-up from top acts on the UK comedy circuit.

The season gets going on Thursday 16 May with  metal-head, transvestite Andrew O’Neil and his hit Edinburgh show – Andrew O’Neil is Easily Distracted. O’Neil has been branded as “one of the funniest comedians on the circuit” (TimeOut) with a “winning blend of polemic and off-beat whimsy” (Guardian). A star of Never Mind The Buzzcocks and Stewart Lee’s Comedy Vehicle he is often heard on Radio One and Radio 5 Live.

Thursday 20 June sees Fosters Edinburgh Comedy Awards nominee James Acaster headlines with a preview of his new Edinburgh show. With appearances on Dave’s One Night Stand, Russell Howard’s Good News (BBC Three) and Show & Tell (E4) Acaster’s laid back style, playful wit and appetite for the unconventional makes for an evening that is “blisteringly funny and highly original” (Fest)

The final show on Thursday July 18 brings to Hastings a ‘rising star’ (TimeOut) who is ‘ludicrously charming and razor sharp’ (Spoonfed.co.uk) Nish Kumar. His hit show is about being proud of your roots and ashamed about everything else. “Impressive and accomplished….full of confidently delivered, wryly witty tales that delight in the quirks and possibilities of language.” (Scotsman).

Back in The Room will feature special guests including Fosters Edinburgh Comedy Awards nominee David Trent and deadpan poet Malcolm Head. With a host of local talent plus the best of the new comedy greats, Back in The Room is the perfect pick me up when life’s gone to sh*t.

Tickets are now on sale at http://www.whiterocktheatre.org.uk

Tickets £10 in Advance £12 on the door and discounts for students and groups (6+).

Psychedelic frippery, progressive funk, alternative rock and twinkly emo

On Friday 2 November The School Creative Centre presents a mega night of musical talent, featuring four dynamic bands from across the South East: psychedelic popsters JOUIS, progressive funksters ADONIS FUZZ, alternative rocksters WHITE HORIZON and twinkly emo from HEY JONI

Expect perfect vocals, Hammonds, handclaps and psychedelic frippery from headliners Jouis, a psychedelic pop rock band from Bournemouth/Brighton whose sound incorporates elements of the classic 60′s British sound with a modern twist. Consisting of one Jack, two Joes, a Louis and an Adam, Jouis cite influences from the Beach Boys to Radiohead, creating a sound that has been described as a “breathtaking, refreshing change”. Their latest four-track EP Kaleidoscopic Psychotropic mixes jazz and beat grooves, gentle psychedelia, and perfect four part Magical Mystery Tour-esque harmonies.

Comic genius releases his inner swan!

Back In The Room comedy cabaret returns to the School Creative Centre on 27 October with yet another stellar line up for your delectation and delight.

Our headline for the evening – Marek Larwood – has been described as a ‘combination of unhinged and hilarious, indeed an absolute oddball’ and you won’t be disappointed as he brings his hit Edinburgh show TYPECAST (****Guardian) to Rye.

BBC Poetry Slam winner and World DMC Scratch finalist headline showcase in Rye

On Friday 12th October UK hip hop sensation Dizraeli + DJ Downlow (UK and World DMC Scratch finalist), the men behind the rhymes and cuts of the legendary Small Gods, will bring a full, live hip hop PA to The School Creative Centre, Rye.

As a rapper, singer and poet, Dizraeli has won the BBC Radio 4 Poetry Slam and the Farrago UK Slam Poetry Championships. He’s written several hip hop plays, including the award-winning The Rebel Cell with Canadian Baba Brinkman, and become a legend in the UK hip hop scene with his telling, touching, funny stories of riots, atheism and Englishness. With Dizraeli and DJ Downlow you can expect verbal elastics and scratchy business of the highest grade.

Open Studios and inaugural symposium

From 5-6 October, The School Creative Centre in Rye opens its doors for another annual open studios event, featuring work by more than 30 artists, designers and makers, ranging from pottery, sculpture and fine art to textiles and jewellery.

Now in its fourth year, this highly successful event showcases the work of both award-winning and emerging artists, providing a unique opportunity to meet them first hand and find out about their techniques and inspiration.