FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: MON 3 OCT 2016

Barbican announces new world-class work for 2017

Basquiat at the Barbican

 Basquiat: Boom for Real – the first ever large-scale Jean-Michel Basquiat exhibition in the UK  The Grime and the Glamour: NYC 1976-90 film season exploring the New York Downtown scene  Basquiat themed creative learning programmes including Barbican Weekender, Barbican Box schools project and the launch of the first Barbican Youth Board

Bold collaborations

 UK premiere of Room 29 by and  Ben Frost and Daníel Bjarnason’s collaboration Sólaris, inspired by ’s 1973 sci-fi film Solaris  Sir Simon Rattle conducts the Symphony Orchestra in a major new production of György Ligeti’s only opera, Le grand macabre, directed by Peter Sellars.

Dance across the Barbican

 Robots, hands and manga-inspired dancers take to the Barbican stage in Blanca Li Dance Company‘s Robot, Jaco Van Dormeal and Michèle Anne De Mey’s Kiss & Cry and Dewey Dell’s Marzo  World and European premieres of choreography including Philip Glass’s Les Enfants Terribles choreographed by Javier De Frutos for The Royal Ballet, Boy Blue Entertainment’s Blak Whyte Gray and NeXT, new work by choreographer and dancer Julie Cunningham set to poetry by Kate Tempest and music by Anohni, a triple bill from Ballet Black and Darren Johnston’s Zero Point  Dance takes over different Barbican spaces with Siobhan Davies Dance in The Curve and Barbican Cinemas, Trajal Harrell in Barbican Art Gallery, and Ann Van den Broek in the Centre’s public spaces

Acclaimed international theatre

 Two productions from the celebrated Schaubühne company – the London premiere of Richard III, directed by Thomas Ostermeier and starring Lars Eidinger, and the UK premiere of Beware of Pity, a collaboration with Complicite’s Simon McBurney, based on the book by Stefan Zweig  Robert Lepage making a rare solo stage appearance in the London premiere of 887  Barbican Artistic Associate Cheek by Jowl present The Winter’s Tale

Sound and technology

 Still Be Here, by Laurel Halo and Darren Johnston, featuring Japanese virtual 3D musical sensation Hatsune Miku  World premiere of German sound and laser artist Robert Henke’s Lumière III

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The Barbican today announces a series of outstanding additions to its 2017 programme including Basquiat: Boom for Real, the first large-scale UK exhibition of iconic painter and New York downtown scene prodigy Jean-Michel Basquiat.

More than any other exhibition to date, Basquiat: Boom for Real focuses on the artist’s relationship to music, text, film and television, placing it within the wider cultural context of the time. Featuring over 100 works, many never seen before in the UK, the exhibition will present some of Basquiat’s most acclaimed paintings and drawings alongside rare film, photography and music to capture the dynamism of Basquiat’s practice. Highlights include a reconstruction of Basquiat’s first body of work, shown at PS1, New York in 1981, revealing how Basquiat so quickly won artists’ and critics’ admiration. Extensive new research into Basquiat’s extraordinary breadth of source material, conducted for the exhibition with the support of the Basquiat family, also shines new light on his work.

Film season The Grime and the Glamour: NYC 1976-90 runs alongside the exhibition with a line- up including Basquiat’s former girlfriend Madonna in Susan Seidelman’s Desperately Seeking Susan and Jim Jarmusch’s Permanent Vacation, which saw Basquiat using the set as a makeshift crash pad. Highlights of the Barbican’s Creative Learning activities include a Basquiat themed Barbican Box learning resource for schools, a Barbican Weekender to celebrate the opening of the exhibition – with free events, installations and performances for all ages – and the launch of the inaugural Barbican Youth Board.

Innovative contemporary music in the 2017 programme includes the UK premiere of Room 29 by Jarvis Cocker and Chilly Gonzales, and Still Be Here, a collaboration between Laurel Halo and choreographer Darren Johnston. Still Be Here features Hatsune Miku who launched in Japan as a vocal synthesizer product, evolving gradually into a virtual 3D musical sensation embodied in the form of a teal-haired 16 year-old, who has now released more than 100,000 songs worldwide.

The Barbican’s most ambitious dance offer to date takes place across the Centre’s venues, encompassing all art forms, including the world premiere of Javier De Frutos’s choreography for Philip Glass’s radical dance opera Les Enfants Terribles with Royal Ballet Principals Edward Watson and Zenaida Yanowsky; a Ballet Black triple bill featuring work from choreographers Martin Lawrance, Michael Corder and Annabelle Lopez Ochoa following the company’s debut sold-out performances at the Barbican in 2016; and two new works from the emerging choreographer and acclaimed dancer Julie Cunningham. Taking over the Centre’s visual arts spaces are Siobhan Davies Dance in The Curve, complemented by a series of films in the Barbican cinemas, Trajal Harrell in Barbican Art Gallery and a residency from Ann Van den Broek in the Barbican’s public spaces.

The season continues with a selection of performances at the cutting edge of dance and

2 technology, including Robot by Blanca Li Dance Company, featuring eight dancers and seven humanoid robots accompanied by a live orchestra of self-playing instruments, and Zero Point by choreographer and visual artist Darren Johnston which uses technology to map and project onto the dancers’ bodies. The use of cameras to simultaneously film and screen Kiss & Cry, a dance production returning to the Barbican that features just two hands, brings the tiny and intricate world created by award-winning filmmaker Jaco Van Dormeal and his wife, the choreographer Michèle Anne De Mey, to life.

Barbican Artistic Associate Boy Blue Entertainment, will present the world premiere of Blak Whyte Gray, a triple-bill which shows a new side to the work of Kenrick ‘H2O’ Sandy and Mikey ‘Mikey J’ Asante.

Also in 2017, legendary German theatre company Schaubühne Berlin return to the Barbican with the recent Edinburgh International Festival hit Richard III, starring cult actor Lars Eidinger and directed by Thomas Ostermeier, and Beware of Pity, a joint production with Complicite’s Simon McBurney based on the book by Stefan Zweig and part of 14-18 NOW, the UK’s arts programme for the First World War centenary. In addition, Robert Lepage will make a rare solo stage appearance in the London premiere of the Barbican co-produced 887, his autobiographical and exquisitely staged show. Barbican Artistic Associate Cheek by Jowl will also present the Barbican co-commissioned The Winter’s Tale as part of its world tour.

This programme adds to the stellar line-up of already announced arts projects for 2017.

Sir Nicholas Kenyon, Managing Director, Barbican said: ‘We are thrilled to be welcoming so many world-class artists and performers to the Barbican in 2017. Our programme is innovative, diverse, and completely international in its scope with Jean-Michel Basquiat in the art gallery, a triple bill from Ballet Black and a world premiere of Robert Henke’s Lumière III joining a programme that already features world-class artists such as Ivo van Hove and Sir Simon Rattle alongside our Film in Focus season that looks at the impact of film across the art forms. It certainly looks set to be another stellar year at the Centre as we continue to present arts without boundaries for the widest possible audience.’

Louise Jeffreys, Director of Arts, Barbican said: ‘The Barbican is the perfect place for this once-in- a-generation look at legendary artist Jean-Michel Basquiat’s work. Our cross-art form approach to programming provides a hugely exciting opportunity to explore Basquiat’s many interests, influences and connections across film, music and other media, while our ambitious Creative Learning programme will connect a new generation to this extraordinary artist’s work.

‘We’re also delighted to welcome Schaubühne Berlin back to the Centre, as well as Complicite’s Simon McBurney who thrilled audiences here with last year’s The Encounter. Combined with a

3 dance programme that features Ballet Black, Blanca Li’s robots, Siobhan Davies Dance and the Royal Ballet and innovative musical collaborations including a new work from Jarvis Cocker and Chilly Gonzales, we are very excited about welcoming audiences to the Barbican in 2017.’

Programme information

Basquiat at the Barbican

Basquiat: Boom for Real Thu 21 Sep 2017-Sun 28 Jan 2018, Barbican Art Gallery Media View: Wed 20 Sep, 10am-1pm

Basquiat: Boom for Real is the first large-scale exhibition in the UK of the work of American artist Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960-1988). One of the most significant painters of the 20th century, Basquiat came of age in the post-punk underground art scene in Lower in the late 1970s. By 1982, he had gained international recognition and was the youngest ever artist to participate in Documenta in Kassel. Basquiat’s vibrant, raw imagery springs from an impressive erudition, seen in the fragments of bold capitalised text that abound in his works – offering insights into both his encyclopedic interests and his experience as a young artist with no formal training. Since his tragic death in 1988, Basquiat has had remarkably little exposure in the UK – where there is not yet any work in a public collection. Drawing from international museums and private collections, Basquiat: Boom for Real brings together an outstanding selection of more than 100 works, many never before seen in Britain, and opens at Barbican Art Gallery on 21 September 2017.

More than any other exhibition to date, Basquiat: Boom for Real focuses on the artist’s relationship to music, text, film and television, placing it within the wider cultural context of the time. Paintings, drawings and notebooks are presented alongside rare film, photography, music and ephemera in a design that aims to capture the dynamism of Basquiat’s practice.

Basquiat first came to the media’s attention in 1978, when he teamed up with his classmate Al Diaz to graffiti enigmatic statements across the city under the collective pseudonym SAMO© (which stood for ‘same old, same old bullshit’). Soon he was making drawings in his own blood, collaging baseball cards and postcards, and painting on clothing, architectural fragments and increasingly on enormous canvases. He starred in the film New York Beat with Blondie’s Debbie Harry (written and produced by Glenn O’Brien); appeared in nine episodes of O’Brien’s cult cable-television show TV Party; and performed in his experimental band Gray. He collaborated with other artists, most famously with Andy Warhol; created murals and installations for notorious New York nightclubs including the Mudd Club and Area; and in 1983 produced Beat Bop, a classic hip hop record with K-Rob and Rammellzee.

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Highlights of the Barbican’s exhibition include a partial reconstruction of Basquiat’s first body of work, which was exhibited on a single wall in Diego Cortez’s watershed group show New York / New Wave at PS1 in New York in February 1981. These exhibits are brought together for the first time in 35 years, allowing visitors to understand how Basquiat so quickly won the admiration of his fellow artists and critics. The Barbican exhibition continues with an exploration of his energetic, often collaborative, work as the prodigy of the downtown scene – from the birth of SAMO© to his relationship with Warhol. In the downstairs spaces, new scholarship sheds light on some of his most acclaimed paintings and drawings. A famously self-taught artist, Basquiat sampled from an extraordinary breadth of source material – from anatomical drawings to bebop jazz to silent film – but many of these reference points have remained relatively opaque until now. With the support of the Basquiat family, the curators have conducted extensive new research, which will allow these important works to be understood as never before.

Jean-Michel Basquiat's sisters, Lisane and Jeanine Basquiat said, 'We are delighted to be working with the Barbican on this important exhibition, which is so long overdue'

Basquiat: Boom for Real is curated by Dr Dieter Buchhart and Eleanor Nairne, Curator, Barbican Art Gallery, and organised in collaboration with the Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt.

The exhibition is supported by an advisory group comprised of Celeste-Marie Bernier, Professor of Black Studies at Edinburgh University; academic and curator Dr Augustus Casely-Hayford; friend and former bandmate, Michael Holman; former studio assistant and art advisor Joe La Placa; and Basquiat scholar Jordana Moore Saggese.

The Grime and the Glamour: NYC 1976-90 Fri 29 Sep-Thu 5 Oct 2017, Barbican Cinemas Running alongside Basquiat: Boom For Real is film season The Grime and the Glamour: NYC 1976-90.

New York in the 70s and 80s: a time of fear, poverty, uncertainty… and unparalleled artistic freedom. With the earliest film in the season dating back to 1976, a year after the city’s financial default, these movies capture a moment of significant historical change and creative energy in Jean-Michel Basquiat's hometown.

The Grime and the Glamour line-up includes Susan Seidelman’s Desperately Seeking Susan, with Basquiat’s ex-paramour Madonna in her iconic turn as Susan; Jim Jarmusch’s Permanent Vacation, which saw Basquiat himself using the film set as a makeshift crash pad; plus hip hop classic Wild Style, starring the legendary Fab 5 Freddy and Rammellzee, personal friends and musical collaborators with Basquiat.

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Other films in the season feature a host of classic NYC haunts frequented by the artist as a young man including CBGBs, Times Square and legendary nightspot Danceteria. Remembering CBGBs – A Triple Bill featuring Patti Smith, The Ramones, Talking Heads and Blondie; Smithereens (1982), starring Television frontman Richard Hell; Chantal Ackerman’s hauntingly beautiful News From Home (1977); female erotic fantasy Variety (1984); conflicting portraits of the former Puerto Rican enclave now uber-hip Brooklyn neighbourhood Williamsburg in Los Sures (1984) + Living Los Sures; a documentary celebrating bohemian cabaret artiste and Warhol consort Tally Brown, New York (1979); an early offering from the cinematic king of New York’s underbelly Abel Ferrara, Ms. 45 (aka Angel of Vengeance) (1981); and credited with capturing the last gasp of the downtown scene before its decline is Raul Ruiz’s The Golden Boat (1990).

Barbican Weekender Welcoming the opening of the Boom for Real exhibition, the annual Barbican Weekender returns on 7-8 October 2017 for a weekend-long party celebrating Basquiat. The Weekender will present a programme of free events, installations and performances, providing opportunities for all ages to take part and get creative. Showcasing a range of new work with and by young people from across east London and beyond, the Weekender will explore what Basquiat means to young and emerging artists today through a range of art forms including hip hop, jazz, street art and spoken word. Programme highlights will include a Basquiat-inspired repertoire from Creative Learning’s community of young creatives, including the Barbican Young Poets and Young Visual Arts Group.

Barbican Box The Barbican’s flagship schools programme, Barbican Box, will take Basquiat as its inspiration for the 2017/18 academic year. A cross-art form Box exploring key themes and motifs from Basquiat’s work and influences will be delivered in schools from autumn 2017. The Barbican Box programme works with over 700 school and college students from across east London annually.

Barbican Youth Board Barbican Guildhall Creative Learning will launch its inaugural Youth Board in January 2017. Providing a platform for young people’s voices within the organisation, the Youth Board will meet regularly to share ideas, provide feedback and consultation on a wide of range of initiatives and programmes, and develop their skills and creative practice through work on specific projects and events. Panel members will comprise of young people aged 14-25 from across London. The first project for the Board will be to respond to Basquiat: Boom for Real working with the Barbican to help design and develop public events alongside the exhibition.

Bold collaborations

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Jarvis Cocker & Chilly Gonzales: Room 29 Thu 23-Sat 25 Mar 2017, Barbican Theatre

Room 29 is a multi-media musical entertainment devised and performed by Jarvis Cocker and Chilly Gonzales, which receives its UK premiere at the Barbican Theatre in March 2017.

For the past three years both artists have been working on a song-cycle concerning the goings-on in Room 29 of the Château Marmont hotel in Hollywood. Now, through the music of Chilly Gonzales and the words of Jarvis Cocker – along with clips from classic Hollywood movies, live dance and audience participation – this room is ready to reveal its secrets for the first time.

Jarvis describes the Room 29 project: ‘Featuring contributions from film historian David Thomson and the stories of famous former occupants of the room such as Jean Harlow and Howard Hughes, the show will also attempt to unpick the way a heady concoction, dreamt up in the immediate vicinity of the hotel, went on to intoxicate the entire population of planet Earth. Or, (to quote the sub-title of David Thomson’s book The Big Screen): it is also the story of the movies and what they did to us.’

'For the duration of one evening the entire audience will be occupants of Room 29. You will be greeted by our concierge and you will be given a key. Sit down, get comfortable – it will be our pleasure to serve up a night of entertainment like no other: Room 29 may be a real location in Hollywood, California – but it is also a place within each one of us. Through this collection of songs we hope to open the door to that room for all those of you who wish to explore it. How’s that for Room Service?’

Sólaris Sat 29 Jul 2017, Barbican Hall

Ben Frost and Daníel Bjarnason’s collaboration Sólaris takes its inspiration from Andrei Tarkovsky’s 1973 sci-fi film Solaris. Frost and Bjarnason’s compositions include the futuristic atmospheres and pulses associated with sci-fi soundtracks; yet here they are built upon the warm qualities of a string orchestra (Poland’s Sinfonietta Cracovia), a gentle piano with warping and melting harmonies, and waves upon waves of guitar. The score was created through an appropriately innovative process, where Frost’s and Bjarnason’s initial sketches were improvised to the film and fed through music software that attempted to ‘correct’ their distorted sounds into digital musical data. The music will be performed with a video accompaniment by and Nick Robertson.

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This event runs alongside the previously announced Barbican exhibition, Into the Unknown: A Journey through Science Fiction – tickets for which go on sale from 4 October. Opening in summer 2017, this major exhibition is a genre-defining exploration of one of popular culture’s most celebrated realms. Featuring work not yet shown in the UK – including original objects and artwork from The Paul G. Allen Family Collection, concept art and models from films Godzilla, Stargate and Dark City; and original manuscripts from iconic authors such as Jules Verne – this unprecedented show encompasses music, film and contemporary art to present a new, global perspective on science fiction, taking place all over the centre, in The Curve, The Pit and foyer spaces.

Sir Simon Rattle / Peter Sellars / London Symphony Orchestra 14 - 15 January 2017, Barbican Hall Sir Simon Rattle conducts the London Symphony Orchestra in a major new semi-staged production of György Ligeti’s only opera, Le grand macabre, directed by Peter Sellars. The second in a series of semi-staged operas co-produced by the LSO and the Barbican, Ligeti’s wild journey through the end of the world, not seen in London since a 2009 English National Opera production, stars Peter Hoare as Piet the Pot, Ronnita Miller as Amando, Elizabeth Watts as Amanda and Pavlo Hunka as Nekrotzar.

Dance across the Barbican

Blanca Li Dance Company: Robot Wed 22-Sat 25 Feb 2017, Barbican Theatre, 1.30pm, 7.45pm

Blanca Li creates a fantastical universe where humans and robots playfully mingle and merge, all dancing to the percussive beat of a ten-piece mechanical orchestra.

Full of invention, wit and mischievous humour, this multimedia spectacle sees eight agile dancers share the stage with seven personality-infused robot humanoids who talk, see and feel. As they mimic each other’s characteristics, they become almost interchangeable, their movements driven by the sound of imaginatively designed self-playing instruments.

Fascinated by our ever-evolving dependence on technology, Spanish-born Blanca Li has devised a visually startling show that embraces artificial life, automation and projection mapping while retaining her trademark exuberance. Based in France and well known for her choreographic work with , Beyoncé and Pedro Almodóvar, she crosses genres and styles.

Charleroi Danses: Kiss & Cry

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London International Mime Festival Wed 1-Sat 4 Feb 2017, Barbican Theatre, 7.45pm

Kiss & Cry is a potent story of love and loss that stars a dexterous duo of dancing hands in ravishing miniature landscapes, their sensual ballet filmed live and screened for cinematic perspective.

As an ensemble of performers, camera crew and prop manipulators gathers around small-scale sets, a journey through one woman’s memories begins. Enhanced by mesmerising visual effects made live, Giselle’s dreamlike recollections of past romances unfold, the central characters portrayed surprisingly by nimble fingers and hands.

This masterful, image-rich show, which is shot and projected simultaneously on a big screen, comes from Belgian filmmaker Jaco Van Dormael and choreographer Michèle Anne De Mey. The husband and wife team draws on contemporary dance, cinematography, puppetry, stagecraft and poetic storytelling to produce a theatrical gem that returns to the Barbican, having enchanted audiences across the globe.

Dewey Dell – Marzo London International Mime Festival Tues 24 – Sat 28 January 2017, The Pit, 7.45pm

An impact crater on a distant planet: the scene of ancient hostilities. This is the eerie setting for a manga-influenced, comic strip drama where battle is stylised, almost ritualistic. And yet there is love. Straddling physical theatre and contemporary dance, Marzo has been developed with a wholly original performance style, the uncanny choreography complemented by a discordant, electronic soundtrack and minimal narrative. From Italy, Dewey Dell’s founders – Agata, Demetrio and Teodora Castellucci and Eugenio Resta – have worked in collaboration with Japanese director Kuro Tanino and visual artist Yuichi Yokoyama, whose costumed figures come straight from a graphic novel.

The Royal Ballet – Philip Glass at 80: Les Enfants Terribles Fri 27–Sun 29 Jan 2017, Barbican Theatre, 7.45pm

Royal Ballet and contemporary dancers join singers from The Royal Opera’s Jette Parker Young Artists Programme to perform in a new production of Les Enfants Terribles for the Barbican’s weekend celebrating Philip Glass at 80 which is part of the Barbican series Reich, Glass, Adams: the Sounds that Changed America.

This radical dance opera conjures up the strange tale of siblings Paul and Lise who live together in an isolated room. As they grow up, they become so immersed in each other and the dark fantasies 9 of their imaginations that they lose all sense of normal reality.

Composed in 1996 as the last in a trilogy of works that Glass based on the writings of Jean Cocteau, Les Enfants Terribles is directed and choreographed by Javier De Frutos. The risk-taking, Venezuelan-born dance maker, who himself has often found inspiration in Cocteau, collaborates with leading lights of the contemporary and classical dance scene on the surrealist tragedy, which features Royal Ballet Principal dancers Edward Watson and Zenaida Yanowsky. Les Enfants Terribles is performed in English and French with English surtitles.

Boy Blue Entertainment: Blak Whyte Gray Thu 12-Sat 21 Jan 2017, Barbican Theatre, 2.30pm, 7.45pm and Boy Blue Entertainment – NeXT Sunday 15 & Sunday 29 January 2015, The Pit, 7.45pm

The world in flux, a mood for change: the artists of Boy Blue Entertainment give expression to experiences of contemporary life through the prism of a compelling new dance production.

Fuelled by an emotional energy, this triple bill from Barbican Artistic Associate Boy Blue Entertainment pairs the concentrated physicality of select hip hop dance styles with the rhythmical groove of music and moves evoking Africa. Progressing from story-driven hits such as The Five & the Prophecy of Prana, Boy Blue’s founders Kenrick ‘H2O’ Sandy and Michael ‘Mikey J’ Asante inject Blak Whyte Gray with an unexpected abstract quality, revealing a different side to the company’s personality.

Throughout January H2O and Mikey J curate events, music, film and talks at the Barbican to accompany the main show. This includes NeXT – in which Boy Blue Entertainment shine a spotlight on the next generation of UK hip hop theatre and dance pioneers, providing a platform for two innovative artists to showcase their formidable talent. Handpicked and mentored by ‘H2O’ and ‘Mikey J’, Kloe Dean and Tyrone Isaac-Stuart are developing original work for their respective shows in The Pit.

Julie Cunningham and Company Wed 8-Sat 11 Mar 2017, The Pit, 7.45pm

Julie Cunningham, whose performances with Michael Clark Company have won her a Critics’ Circle Award, brings us a rare combination of dance and spoken word, part of her expressive double bill about gender and identity.

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Inspiring one half of this presentation is the mythical character Tiresias, who the gods turn from male to female for seven years. Returned to his original form, he loses his eyes but is given the power of insight, living the rest of his life as the blind prophet.

With a narrative quality, To Be Me features four dancers, including Cunningham, who choreographs her piece to Kate Tempest’s rhythmic, hip hop influenced reworking of the ancient Greek myth, the lyrical recording taken from the poetry collection Hold Your Own. The bill’s other half, reflecting similar themes and including tracks by Anohni (), offers a contrast in approach from the emerging choreographer as she develops her own new work, a continuation of her celebrated dance career.

Ballet Black Thu 2–Sat 4 Mar 2017, Barbican Theatre, 7.45pm

Ballet Black’s first programme at the Barbican was presented in spring 2016. In her second mixed bill here, Artistic Director Cassa Pancho commissions bold choreography once more, blending the classical and contemporary, narrative and abstract, for her ballet company comprising international dancers of black and Asian descent. A four-hander characterised by intricate detail and propulsive energy, Captured ebbs and flows to the fiery emotion of Martin Lawrance’s edgy choreography, set to a Shostakovich string quartet. Celebrated British choreographer Michael Corder, whose glittering versions of Cinderella and The Snow Queen have been seen across Europe, creates the evening’s second abstract piece for four dancers. South Bank Sky Arts Award- winner Annabelle Lopez Ochoa turns a popular fairy tale on its head, as she gives her short narrative ballet a surprising twist.

Darren Johnston: Zero Point Thu 25-Sat 27 May 2017, Barbican Theatre, 7.45pm

An engrossing sensory performance inspired equally by the sacred and scientific, Zero Point fuses digital imagery, produced by motion-sensing technology, with meditative choreography.

Hypnotic light and video projections fill the space onstage to form virtual architecture, connecting the seamless fluidity and precise grace of an ensemble of Japanese dancers. Enhanced by the frequencies of an ambient soundscape, the experience is illusory and immersive.

British choreographer and multi-disciplinary artist Darren Johnston embarked on a residency in Kochi, Japan, to research concepts of zero point, delving into sacred ceremonial spaces, ancient rituals and Eastern thinking on rebirth. With a movement vocabulary drawing influences from Butoh, Qigong, contemporary dance and neo-classical ballet, he has distilled all his ideas into this

11 innovative new show. Canadian , a pioneer of experimental , provides an additional energy to power the piece.

Siobhan Davies Dance Fri 20-Sat 28 Jan 2017, The Curve, Sun and Wed 12-7pm, Thu and Fri 2-9pm

In January 2017, Siobhan Davies Dance premieres a new performance installation in The Curve. Siobhan Davies Dance’s most ambitious interdisciplinary collaboration material / rearranged / to / be explores our bodies’ capacity to communicate. Comprised of multiple works by choreographers, visual artists and designers, the work includes performance, film projection and sculptural objects that are presented as an ever-changing arrangement. Visitors enter the gallery and are immersed in a live environment that evolves around them.

Artist Jeremy Millar provides a structure and concept for the work inspired by the practices of the art historian Aby Warburg. Warburg collected diverse images of human gestures and poses from different times and places and positioned them side by side to reveal previously-hidden relationships across time and space. In a similar spirit, material / rearranged / to / be presents a large-scale, modular framework which is continually arranged and rearranged by the artists, creating new pathways through the installation and drawing visitors into a journey of discovery as unexpected affinities emerge between the individual works. The constantly altering juxtapositions mean that few visitors will have the same experience.

Complementing material / rearranged / to / be, Siobhan Davies Dance will collaborate with the Barbican to co-present a series of films by and about dancers, choreographers and others. The series will place a particular emphasis on gesture and movement.

Trajal Harrell Thu to Sun: 20-23 Jul; 27-30 Jul; 3-6 Aug; 10-13 Aug 2017, Barbican Art Gallery Thu and Fri 2-9pm, Sat and Sun 12 -6pm Media View, Wed 19 Jul

In summer 2017 Trajal Harrell presents a survey of his entire body of work in Barbican Art Gallery. One of the most prominent choreographers and dancers of his generation, Harrell creates a performative dance exhibition foregrounding a body of work developed during his two year residency at The , New York. The centrepiece of this exhibition is Caen Amour, which uses the seductive hoochie coochie belly dance-like spectacles from the nineteenth century as its starting point.

Harrell is best known for Twenty Looks or is Burning at The Judson Church where he created a lively dialogue between post-modern dance and New York’s voguing scene. Often working with 12 historical imagination as a way to rethink how to process and interpret our pasts, Harrell’s performances are exquisitely crafted blends of fact and fiction which query the very nature of performance itself. This is a unique opportunity to explore and discover the playfulness, creativity and sass inherent in Harrell’s works over the last fifteen years.

WArd/waRD by Ann Van den Broek Autumn 2017, Barbican public spaces and The Pit

Belgian choreographer Ann Van den Broek brings her experimental dance company WArd/waRD for a twelve-day residency in Barbican public spaces in 2017, complemented by a further six days of research and experiment, as part of Barbican’s Open Lab programme, which gives artists the space to experiment in a working theatrical space . In June 2018 the company will create a ten- day project in The Curve informed by the work undertaken in the 2017 residency.

The theme for the work is memory loss and its impact, focusing on how our memory works, how important the senses are to recognise and describe things and how - when our memory starts to fail - our world starts to fall apart. Anticipating the work, Van den Broek writes: ‘I want to give the audience the feeling that the world, as they know it, doesn't exist anymore. There are no certainties.’

Acclaimed international theatre Schaubühne Berlin: Richard III Thu 16–Sun 19 Feb 2017, Barbican Theatre, 7.45pm

Commanding centre stage in this full-throttle, raucous adaptation, Shakespeare’s antihero is portrayed as displaying a repugnant magnetism difficult to resist.

Resplendent in black tie, showered in glitter, the victorious Yorks celebrate. Damaged and disfigured, Richard finds no peace among this elite to whom he has never fully belonged. Murdering his way to the throne, exposing conflict and mistrust in his wake, the outsider makes us complicit, addressing us directly to reveal his manipulative plans.

One of Europe’s most distinctive directors, Thomas Ostermeier reinvents classic plays with confrontational, compact interpretations that draw audiences close to the stage action. Setting his gritty production in a clay-lined arena, where visceral materials congeal to suggest something in decay, he presents his Richard III as both a theatrical thriller and study in evil – a visit to one’s innermost abyss. In the title role, popular German actor Lars Eidinger is part rock star, part stand- up comedian, his darkly charismatic take matched by a score of ferocious live drumming.

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Richard III is performed in German with English surtitles.

Complicite and Schaubühne Berlin: Beware of Pity (Ungeduld des Herzens) Thu 9-Sun 12 Feb 2017, Barbican Theatre, 7.45pm

Simon McBurney directs the outstanding Schaubühne ensemble in a vivid account of a young man’s slide into a terrible situation, his struggle to extricate himself from it raising questions of consciousness and compassion. Beware of Pity is part of 14-18 NOW, the UK’s arts programme for the First World War centenary.

Young officer Hofmiller commits a faux pas at a soirée held by a Baron, unwittingly asking his paralysed daughter to dance. The mistake pulls him into a relentless train of events in this devastating depiction of honour, love and betrayal, realised against the disintegration of the Austro-Hungarian Empire – a catalyst for the outbreak of the First World War.

Two of Europe’s most boundary-pushing, imaginative theatre companies work together for the first time. Their co-production is based on Stefan Zweig’s 1939 novel, written just before the Second World War but looking back to the verge of the previous disaster. Reverberating in the past and present, the story is relayed by seven actors, swapping narration and dialogue to vocally build the tension of McBurney’s orally rich, visually eloquent production. Beware of Pity follows the five-star triumphs of The Encounter and The Forbidden Zone, the last shows presented here by Complicite and the Schaubühne respectively.

Beware of Pity is performed in German with English surtitles.

Ex Machina/Robert Lepage: 887 Thu 1-Sat 10 June 2017, Barbican Theatre, 3pm, 7.45pm

Robert Lepage’s most autobiographical play to date is a riveting tale about memory, belonging and collective history, conveyed in a tender one-man performance animated by a transforming set.

Standing beside a rotating doll’s house replica of his childhood home – the block of flats at 887 Murray Avenue – Lepage opens a beguiling window to the past. Delivered in a mixture of poetry and prose, his intimate recollections of family life illuminate the struggles of Québécois society of the time while inviting us into his present-day world.

Unable to retain the words of a poem for a recital, the Canadian theatre-maker begins an investigation into the act of remembering. Leading to a retracing of his roots, in a divided 1960s Québec, his narration ricochets across decades and themes. Matching ingenious storytelling with

14 a meticulously crafted staging that plays with scale through innovative technologies, this is a tantalising solo show from an iconic artist.

887 is performed in English and French with English surtitles.

Cheek by Jowl: The Winter’s Tale Wed 5-Sat 22 April 2017, Silk Street Theatre, 2pm, 7.30pm

Recently awarded the Golden Lion of Venice for his ability to bring classic works to life for a contemporary audience, Declan Donnellan directs a revelatory Winter’s Tale.

Shakespeare tears apart nearly every rule of theatre. Low comedy interrupts high tragedy, kings jostle with thieves, and the stage is invaded by clowns, a princess, a bear and Time herself, who announces a sixteen-year interval.

Vitalised by storytelling of sparkling clarity, this production by Barbican Artistic Associate Cheek by Jowl features Orlando James as Leontes, his insidious descent into delusion and darkness giving way to light as joy is born.

Sound and technology Still Be Here Sun 26 Feb 2017, Barbican Hall, 7.30pm

Commissioned by CTM Festival and transmediale for their joint 2016 editions, in collaboration with Donaufestival, the Barbican and Metal, Still Be Here is a unique collaborative performance that draws its audience into the multiplying realities of ‘cyber celebrity’ Hatsune Miku – the ultimate 21st century pop star – tracing the dynamics at play between fans, corporations and social desires. Miku (whose name literally means “first sound of the future”) launched in Japan in 2007 as a vocal synthesizer product, evolving gradually into a musical sensation embodied in the form of a teal-haired 16 year-old. She has given countless stadium performances as a virtual 3D projection and has released more than 100,000 songs worldwide.

Originally conceived by artist Mari Matsutoya, Still Be Here is a collaboration with music producer Laurel Halo, award-winning choreographer and visual artist Darren Johnston, and digital artists LaTurbo Avedon and Martin Sulzer. Together they have crafted an audiovisual platform for exploring the nature of the female popstar in the 21st century, combining new musical material, found footage and documentary excerpts. Miku’s songs employ a collage of user- generated lyrics, referencing many other contributors and countless online authors and Creative Commons users, whose works are then further interpreted and given new meaning.

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This work features adaptations of Hatsune Miku, a character originally created and © Crypton Future Media, INC. www.piapro.net. Hatsune Miku is licensed under a Creative Commons BY- NC. This is a non-profit event, organised independently from Crypton Future Media.

Robert Henke: Lumière III Support from Tristan Perich: Noise Patterns Thu 16 Feb 2017, Barbican Hall, 7.30pm

German sound and laser artist Robert Henke – also known for his ground-breaking techno productions under the Monolake moniker – returns to the Barbican Hall with the world premiere of the third edition of his Lumière project. This follows on from his presentation of Lumière I as part of the Barbican’s Digital Revolution exhibition in 2014.

Henke’s Lumière project – which he started in 2013 – is an immersive audiovisual experience, where laser and sound explore syntax, meaning and narration within a newly developed audiovisual language.

An array of high precision lasers draw rapid successions of abstract objects including perfect geometric figures and organic structures, seemingly floating in space. The same score driving these visual patterns also triggers sonic events, resulting in a highly synaesthetic experience of light and sound.

Tristan Perich and Robert Henke’s work methods share common ground in navigating the conceptual edges of . Sharing a fascination for the emergent beauty of machines, both take technical constraints as starting points for creativity. Tristan Perich’s formidable new circuit composition Noise Patterns reveals a score of unheard-of sonic colours, output from rapid, random oscillations between zero and one, offering a new dimension to the 1- bit sound Perich is now known for. Similarly, Robert Henke masters the movement of computer- controlled mechanical mirrors through his laser performances, meaning both artists navigate this space between sound and vision. Extending their multi-disciplinary practices through sound with the craft and knowledge of machine systems, both artists create from electronics a complex, although delicately natural, world of poetic noise.

ENDS

Notes to Editors

Research & Development As part of the Barbican’s Research & Development programme Darren Johnston and Julie Cunningham were given time in our theatres in which to formulate ideas and work with their dancers, and access to our facilities and equipment to develop their work musically and 16 technically. Concluding the R&Ds, sharings were opened up to Barbican Members for a special early glimpse of these artists at work and a chance to give feedback. These now fully formed pieces are unveiled in our spring 2017 season. For further information about becoming a Barbican Member please go to: www.barbican.org.uk/membership

Press Information For further information, images or to arrange interviews contact:

Jess Hookway, Senior Communications Officer +44 20 7382 7237 / +44 7545629316 [email protected]

Public information Box office: 0845 120 7511 www.barbican.org.uk

Barbican newsroom All Barbican Centre press releases, news announcements and the Media Relations team’s contact details are listed on our website at www.barbican.org.uk/news/home

About the Barbican A world-class arts and learning organisation, the Barbican pushes the boundaries of all major art forms including dance, film, music, theatre and visual arts. Its creative learning programme further underpins everything it does. Over 1.8 million people pass through the Barbican’s doors annually, hundreds of artists and performers are featured and more than 300 staff work onsite. The architecturally renowned centre opened in 1982 and comprises the Barbican Hall, the Barbican Theatre, The Pit, Cinemas One, Two and Three, Barbican Art Gallery, a second gallery The Curve, foyers and public spaces, a library, Lakeside Terrace, a glasshouse conservatory, conference facilities and three restaurants. The City of London Corporation is the founder and principal funder of the Barbican Centre.

The Barbican is home to Resident Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra; Associate Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra; Associate Ensembles the Academy of Ancient Music and Britten Sinfonia, and Associate Producer Serious. Our Artistic Associates include Boy Blue Entertainment, Cheek by Jowl, Deborah Warner and Michael Clark Company. International Associates are Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam, New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Gewandhaus Orchestra Leipzig and Jazz at Lincoln Center.

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