AN ACCOUNT OF THE ENGLISH FESTIVAL OF BROWN 2012
The second of the 2 FESTIVALS this year happened in BRIGHTON, ENGLAND and culminated in a public performance and exhibition on Sunday 23rd of September. The whole festival was based at the Coach House, a small, discreet and secluded venue in Brighton’s Kemp Town and quite the brownest room short of the Old Bailey. The Festival’s initial meeting on Monday 17th of September attracted 19 participants and involved a lively, interesting and wide-ranging discussion about brown and its many connotations, shades, moods and aspects. Various ideas were proposed and some of them were even brought to fruition in the week ahead. The whole event was marked by a friendly and co-operative atmosphere and a great willingness to honour this most downtrodden of colours. At the final event: There were readings by Tim Wood, Annie Kerr, Sabine Schroepel and Peter Pick. Peter read the poem ‘things to say about brown’ (as usual). Annie read ‘the inventor’ and a piece naming many of the terms used by the manufacturers of paint to avoid saying brown. Sabine Schroepel read a short story of her own invention. Tim read some brown fragments and a piece about a car crash. There were performances by VV, Sabine Portela and Carolina Diaz. VV’s piece was called ‘her outdoors’ and included film, installation and live performance, a carpet covered in earth and eggs and a soundtrack with music by the vitamin b12, narration by Mark Anthony Whiteford and the participation of Ines Blasco-Petty. Carolina Diaz danced shadows with Annie Kerr’s reinterpretation of Bach. Sabine Portela performed ‘fragments’ with projected light and her narration was read by Peter Pick. There was a therapeutic or confessional interlude in which Sara Jane Glendinning and Nick Sebley spoke of unrequited love and stirred up contributions about mourning and loss from the floor. There was a theatrical piece or sketch in which Michael Gale interviewed Nick Sebley and Sabine Schroepel about the ‘Brown Movement’ and its political aims. It seems that the intention of the movement is to compost or mulch Canary Wharf and seed the remains with marigolds imported from ‘Czechoslovakia’ on donkeys. There was music from the choir of rolls, Annie Kerr and meshmass. The choir of rolls featured Emily, Lola, Peter, Richard and Melanie, and Nigel played the marimba. Annie Kerr played an improvisation based on one of Bach’s partitas for violin. meshmass played and were augmented for the occasion by Tim Wood (tenor saxophone), Annie Kerr (violin) and Nigel French (percussion). Everybody did remarkably well considering that nobody had the slightest idea what they were doing. There was brown art on display from Carolina Diaz, Tim Wood, Alanna, Peter Pick, Michael Gale and Nick Sebley. There were photographs by Nigel French and there was a slideshow of brown photographs. This was only the culmination of a week’s collaborative effort including all these people some of the time and some of these people all of the time. Our grateful thanks to all participants and especially to those who made delicious food and cakes.