season review 2011 / 12 barbican.org.uk Catherine McGuinness Chairman, Barbican Centre Board There cannot have been a more exciting year to be in London, and the Barbican has played its part to the full – not only by presenting our rich and varied programme, but also in the wonderful and diverse audiences with whom we have been able to engage. Partnerships have been at the heart of the Catherine McGuinness © Felix Clay year, whether with the Barbican’s own resident Sir Nicholas Kenyon © Felix Clay and associate orchestras and ensembles, with other organisations involved in the Cultural Sir Nicholas Kenyon Olympiad, or with our local communities. Managing Director, Barbican Centre Alongside our partner the Guildhall School ‘An almost impossible level of brilliant’ is my favourite of Music & Drama, we have been working Twitter comment about the Barbican’s arts programme with music and youth services in neighbouring in 2011/12. Our group of creative leaders, supported by boroughs for decades. The strong relationships our talented teams, have delivered something we believe we have fostered have helped us to develop is really distinctive in London’s artistic life – a diverse and new audiences and provide many people accessible offer for the City and the whole of London. with opportunities to create and perform. The Barbican Centre has felt vibrantly alive and If we are to ensure a lasting artistic legacy exciting during a year when we have both celebrated from this Olympic year we need to keep our 30th anniversary and played a major role in the momentum going despite a difficult funding London 2012 Olympics. Audiences have thronged climate in which all arts organisations need to the Barbican for a wide range of innovative and to do more with less. That’s why the Barbican popular events, and we have expanded our mission is making every effort to attract the private to offer world-class arts and learning for all. income needed to help us continue delivering our world-class arts and learning programme. With the opening of the two new cinemas and the Guildhall School of Music & Drama’s new Milton Court building opening in 2013, we now look forward to a period of rapid development, working with our neighbours and partners to create a cultural quarter at the heart of the City of London. Join us on the journey that is putting the Barbican at the heart of the City’s offer to London and the UK: become a barbican.org.uk supporter, a member, a patron, or part of our ever-widening audience. We look forward to welcoming you here. 1 Forewords Our vision world-class arts arts world-class and learning and 2 Barbican Season Review 2011/12 ‘[The Barbican] is pulling out all the stops for the Olympic year’ Daily Telegraph, 8 March 2012 The Barbican presented an outstanding programme to celebrate the London Olympics, playing a major role in the Cultural Olympiad and London 2012 Festival. As the world focused its attention on London, the Barbican offered a dazzling array of international and local collaborations consisting of exceptional performances, star names and must-see events. The enhanced 2012 funding awarded to the Barbican by LOCOG and Arts Council England allowed us to build on our long history of high-quality programming, as well as the partnerships we’ve forged in east London, to create a once-in-a-lifetime series of unforgettable experiences. Our London 2012 Festival programme saw sold-out shows in the theatre. These included the Sydney Theatre Company’s production of Botho Strauss’s surreal play Big and Small (Gross und Klein) starring Cate Blanchett, and the UK premiere of Robert Wilson and Philip Glass’s mesmerising music-theatre piece Einstein on the Beach. – Cate Blanchett © Lisa Tomasetti – Cate A major collaboration for 2012 with Sadler’s Wells brought about an unprecedented Pina Bausch season presenting Tanztheater Wuppertal performances of ten works from the legendary choreographer’s World Cities series, each exploring a different global location. Big and Small (Gross und Klein) Big and Small (Gross barbican.org.uk The Barbican continued to grow beyond its walls with the participatory adventure You Me Bum Bum Train at Empire House in Stratford and the Back2Black festival hosted 3 Company’s Theatre Sydney London 2012 London by Gilberto Gil in Old Billingsgate Market. Shortly before the opening of the Olympic 12 / Games, the Barbican hosted a number of extraordinary music projects including Desdemona, a new work created by Toni Morrison, Peter Sellars and Rokia Traoré, and a residency bringing together Barbican International Associate Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis and our Resident Orchestra the London Symphony Orchestra under Sir Simon Rattle. Rattle and the LSO also featured in the acclaimed Olympic opening ceremony, 2011Barbican Season Review which was partly choreographed by Kenrick ‘H20’ Sandy, Artistic Director of Boy Blue Entertainment, a Barbican Artistic Associate. ‘The arts being firmly established © Lucie Jansch Moran Kate r Helga Davis, l to at the centre of our lives, and of our city, is one small part of the legacy of 2012 that will live on’ on the Beach Einstein Sir Nicholas Kenyon, Evening Standard, 26 July 2012 4 Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra © Mark Allan Orchestra Jazz at Lincoln Center Audiences are always at the heart of the Understanding audiences Barbican’s vision; we exist to serve our We’re continually working to better understand increasingly wide and diverse public. The our current and potential audience. This past year has seen the Barbican develop year we undertook a range of research to relationships with existing visitors through our get a better picture of who comes to the unique and outstanding artistic programme, Barbican and what parts of the experience while reaching out to potential newcomers. they value. We’ll use this research over the coming years to improve our offer. Our creative learning projects and free events across east London are central to The Barbican is also committed to using digital nurturing the artists and audiences of the technology to enhance visitor experiences, future, and our partnerships with a range of from the introduction of e-ticketing to our east London arts, community and education podcasts and downloadable programmes. organisations ensure the Barbican serves a varied range of needs across the city. This work has included taking visiting musicians involved in our International Associate Residencies from the concert platform into the heart of local communities, resulting in performances in schools, hospitals and other community venues. Our commitment to young audiences was also demonstrated by our freeB membership programme, which gives free tickets to those aged between 16 and 25. The Barbican’s blockbuster exhibition Designing 007: Fifty Years of Bond Style attracted a huge new audience, with 90 per cent of visitors never before having booked for an event at the Barbican. At the same time, the exhibition Bauhaus: Art as Life received over 100,000 visits. Many events attracted a young and diverse audience, including the Urban Classic concert, featuring the BBC Symphony Orchestra together with stars of the urban music scene. The concert created an electric atmosphere barbican.org.uk in the Barbican Hall and reached a huge public through a broadcast on BBC Radio 1 before being performed to 9,000 people in the grounds of Waltham Forest Town Hall. Urban Classic rehearsal – Fazer © Mark Allan 5 our audiences Serve all Serve Africa Express 12 / The Africa Express tour, which was produced in association with the Barbican, brought together African and western musicians for a musical adventure across the UK. The tour played to an estimated audience of 14,000 across the country, including a concert attended by 4,500 people in London’s Granary Square. Barbican Season Review 2011Barbican Season Review concert in Granary Square, Kings Cross © John Sturrock Kings Cross Square, concert in Granary Africa Express 6 ‘It’s fair to say that this year will see no more spectacular theatre production than The Master and Margarita at the Barbican’ Evening Standard, March 2012 barbican.org.uk 7 Produce an outstanding arts programme arts Alongside our London 2012 Festival events, The Barbican maintained strong partnerships 12 / the Barbican’s 2011/12 programme was with other organisations, from our work with packed with brilliant artists, groundbreaking artistic associates such as Cheek by Jowl and collaborations and innovative performances. Michael Clark Company to our collaboration with CREATE on events in surrounding boroughs, Work from outstanding artists and companies including Dance Nations Dalston in Gillett from across the world included Complicite’s Square and our Shoreditch Festival programme celebrated production of Bulgakov’s The Master celebrating the creativity of east London. and Margarita, Schaubühne Berlin’s visceral interpretation of Hamlet, and the largest Our relationship with Theatre Royal Stratford Bauhaus exhibition in the UK in over 40 years East saw the two organisations share an Olivier which was a hit with critics and audiences alike. Award for Roadkill, which won the Outstanding The Barbican also hosted four International Achievement in an Affiliate Theatre award. 2011Barbican Season Review Associate Residencies: Gewandhaus Orchestra Leipzig; Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam; Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, and the New York Philharmonic. Collaborations included a unique new song cycle from Sufjan Stevens, Nico Muhly and Bryce Dessner and the world premiere of Hofesh Shechter and Antony Gormley’s Survivor. We supported innovative new work ranging and Herbert Bayer, Gropius Walter from Hydrocracker’s The New World Order, which saw five short Pinter plays uniquely Director’s Office at the State Bauhaus Weimar (1923) (1923) Bauhaus Weimar at the State Office Director’s staged at Shoreditch Town Hall, to the first Bauhaus: Art as Life, major UK exhibition from Chinese artist Song Dong, whose Waste Not installation comprised over 10,000 items collected by the artist’s mother, providing a poignant meditation on family life.