Open Sessions #18: Spotlight on Performance

Date: Thursday 29 February 2024

Doors: 6.30 pm

Event: 7 - 9 pm

Location: Lighthouse, Kensington Street, Brighton, BN1 4AJ

Tickets: £2. Booking Required

Join us for an evening of creativity and inspiration with a panel of industry experts at our Open Sessions #18 🎤

We'll dive into the world of performance, exploring aspects of poetry, dance, storytelling and more 🎭 We'll hear more from the experts on the power of performance and how to take your audience on a journey.

Curated by the brilliant minds of our Young Creatives, we'll take a look at the diverse approaches and practices that fuel performances. It will be followed by an audience Q&A where you can ask your questions to our experts.

Our incredible panel includes:

Emma Frankland - a Brighton based writer, theatre maker and performer

AFLO. the poet - an award-winning Brighton-based spoken word artist, activist and academic

Suyoung Park (aka Gong-won) - works within live performance, dance, and installation

Dred - a rapper, lyricist and artist, and is fresh off headlining his first sell out show

Our panel will be hosted by Levvy, Founder and Creative Director of eott - a youth mental health project focused on creatively communicating mental health. He is an experienced videographer, DJ, producer, writer, award-winning young entrepreneur.

Whether you're an aspiring poet, a budding actor, or a musician in the making, this event is for you. You'll also get the chance to connect with fellow creatives, exchange ideas, and build a community of like-minded individuals passionate about the art of performance.

Sign up now to secure your spot. We look forward to seeing you there!

A NOTE ABOUT PRICING

We are currently trialling a small fee for our events.

In the past we've seen our free tickets often sell out, but we've then had a lot of ticket holders not show up on the night, leaving others who do want to come missing out. So, we're asking people to show their commitment to attending by charging a small fee, which on attendance can be redeemed for a free hot/soft drink or a discounted alcoholic drink.

Please contact us if the ticket price is a barrier for you in attending.

ACCESSIBILITY

Lighthouse is a fully wheelchair-accessible venue. This event will be held on the ground floor, level access, reception space. For further information email info@lighthouse.org.uk or call 01273 647197.

PHOTOGRAPHY & VIDEO DURING EVENT

Please note, that this event will be photographed/filmed. If you prefer not to be photographed please speak to a member of the Lighthouse team. The photographs and film we capture at our events are used for marketing and promotional purposes for our programme only and are stored securely.

About the Speakers and Panel Host

Emma Frankland is a Brighton based writer, theatre maker and performer. Her work is often described as playfully destructive, and gloriously irreverent.
Emma Frankland is the punk rock angel of your dreams and nightmares… The Stage.

Over the past decade, Emma’s status has been established as a prominent and innovative theatre artist, whose work has been focussed on issues around gender identity. She has written five solo shows for the None of Us is Yet a Robot project, which were published by Methuen in 2019 as a collected volume: None of Us is Yet a Robot - Five Performances on Gender Identity and the Politics of Transition.

A ferocious cry for the safety of trans women - Brands don’t lead revolutions. People like Emma Frankland do. THE GUARDIAN ****

Most recently she has written several episodes for Channel 4's iconic continuing drama Hollyoaks, and currently has a full length play, TRAP, in development.
In her spare time, she skates for Brighton Rockers Roller Derby.

AFLO. the poet (she/they) is an award-winning Brighton-based spoken word artist, activist and academic who embraces creative expression to disrupt the status quo and inspire social change. AFLO. uses poetry as a vehicle to address hard-hitting topics, primarily focusing her work on colonialism, racism and mental health. AFLO. has shared her work at various events, protests and festivals across the country, and is currently an in-house artist at Brighton Dome.

Outside of poetry, AFLO. is pursuing a PhD, and is co-founder and trustee of Brighton's Black Anti-Racism Community Organisation (BARCO).

Suyoung Park artistic practice "takes on forms with the body that follow the flow of my genetic and environmental surroundings."

Working within live performance, dance, and installation, artist Gong-won explores direct interactions between the body and unexpected external sites. She asks, "How does an individual's personal history influence and manifest within the body?" Her choreography, <Dot, Line, Space>, presented at the 2018 Seoul International Improvisation Festival and the Busan Improvisation Festival, was an impromptu dance exploring relationships between people. Her 2019 "Seong-gwak Village Showcase Performance" responds to the venue and investigates the specific relationship between an individual's history and the social history of Seong-gwak Village.

Her 2019 work, "void draw()", was designed to raise awareness about the disappearance of inherent uniqueness in modern society due to gentrification. She used different elements, including traditional Korean paintings, to find connections and explore basic elements of human behavior such as "see," "touch," and "think." Through this, she aims to uncover the history of the unconscious individual within herself. In the end, she views herself as an expedition. Her work poses questions to the audience: Should she keep moving away from herself or go deeper into herself? Is she the starting point or the final destination?

About Map Project:

As Su-young's representative project, "MAP PROJECT," which has been conducted since 2020, approaches the audience with media and performing arts, the environmental behaviour habits experienced by individuals under the theme of "individual history gathers to form a huge flow."

Map Project Vimeo | @gong_won01

Introducing Brighton-based artist Dred. Influenced by the likes of Nines, Dave, Jay Z, Kendrick Lamar, and Nipsey Hussle, Dred uses his relatable lyricism and story-telling ability to deliver musically dense, gritty and catchy UK rap bangers. His content and creative writing point at his own real life experiences and paint vivid pictures, stirring emotions in songs like ‘Otis’, to street ready segments such as ‘Cascades’ which display his real rap foundations through and through.

Fresh off a year of firsts, including his first ever UK tour support slot with Brighton super star ‘Arrdee’, as well as headlining his first sell out show, 2024 will see Dred releasing more epic music than ever and solidifying his spot as a future UK rap staple.

Levvy is Founder and Creative Director of eott - a youth mental health project focused on creatively communicating mental health and is an experienced videographer, DJ, producer, writer, award-winning Young entrepreneur and degree holder from Brighton, aged 24.

He founded eott in 2019, and has since led the creative work and well-being focused messaging that it exists to push, raising over £10,000 for charity, selling 1000s of pieces of merchandise and reaching 100,000s people with his words in the process. Alongside which, he is / has been parts of the creative teams at Audio Active, The New Society and Keep Hush, has worked alongside Pirate Studios, UKF + Bru-C, and has produced media work for some of the UK's biggest music festivals.