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Katharine
O'Sullivan goes in search of big ideas for the future
of the Brighton Festival, as the city bids to be European
Capital of Culture 2008.
 Isn't
it strange that the creative forces that give us the best
vision are so often the ones that are held back by lack
of funds? How different would the Brighton Festival be
if it tapped into the wealth of ideas dreamed up by local
people, or even the current organisers' own wish list?
The
biggest changes that could completely reshape the Festival
image of today would be if the vision of Daniel Bernstein,
arts manager for Carnival Collective, and Jeff Hemmings,
director of the Brighton Fringe, were to be implemented.
Bernstein
would like to see a Brighton Festival synonymous with
Carnival. Hemmings wants to bring the Fringe to the people
rather than vice versa.
The
last time I saw Daniel Bernstein, he told me, "My
personal vision is for the Brighton Festival to finish
with a big Samba Carnival weekend on a par with Notting
Hill, Rio and the Trinidad Carnivals.
"By
2008, I would hope people will definitely know that they
have to come to the Brighton Festival for the Carnival
weekend."
Great
stuff! I had already heard that when he first mooted the
idea of a Rio-style Carnival at the City of Culture launch,
an event where every man woman and child could party like
there was no tomorrow, a frisson of excitement passed
through his audience. Yet when I asked him to give me
more details he seemed horrified.
"More?"
Bernstein repeated in shocked tones, "Well I haven't
any more." I waited expectantly. Here was a vision
that could make Brighton into a Samba Capital of Europe,
if not Cultural Capital, and at the same time deliver
a great art and music festival. "Well I can't go
on. Because I… we don't have the funds!"
How
much would it cost? "Look I don't know... it could
be anything from nothing to a hundred million pounds.
The figure is in there somewhere. It's not easy to do...
Did you know three organisations have gone bankrupt who
have been involved with the Notting Hill Carnival?"
His exasperation is obvious.
But
don't you understand that when there is a good idea, people
turn to the initiator, they don't go to the executive?
"I realise that, but I don't want to over-deliver
in words and under-deliver in action," he says finally.
Yet
Bernstein believes he can get the know-how and experience
to enlarge to a full blown Samba carnival weekend à
la Rio even before 2008 if the Samba weekends could continue
for the next three years.
A
real Rio-style carnival would mean shutting down central
parts of the city, or at least having a golden route where
thousands would have spectator access, and thousands more
could have the space to parade. A real carnival would
mean allowing carte blanche to the townspeople, neighbourhood
communities, artists and musicians to participate in costumes
of their own making and design.
Next
to that vision, the Samba weekend of this year's Festival
seems rather modest. Samba bands from Edinburgh, Manchester,
Cardiff and Paris will give a show at the Corn Exchange
on the Saturday of the last weekend, and Sunday will see
a parade of some 600 Samba musicians, and schoolchildren
who have been learning samba, along the sea front. But
at least it's a start: from small acorns do mighty carnivals
grow.
And if The Open section of the official Festival programme
provides a tradition unique to Brighton, and especially
the private homes exhibiting art to the public, then the
latest Brighton Fringe vision to provide platform performance
spaces for free shows can be said to fall into the same
class of originality.
"We are really keen on providing free outdoor entertainment.
We want to bring the Fringe to the people rather than
the people to the Fringe," Jeff Hemmings says. "If
we can persuade the council to provide platforms for these
performance shows, we could actually make the vision a
reality next year.
"Brighton
is much bigger than people imagine. We could have these
platforms in far reaching areas - Moulsecoomb, Seven Dials,
Ditchling, Patcham. These are huge residential areas and
people there would love to see these shows."
At
the moment, apart from presenting a Fringe Queen's Day
Street party, the Fringe organisers themselves have only
been in a position to put on a comedy festival in association
with Connective Projects, an outdoor event with Magpie
Recycling for Fringe Saturday, and two or three other
small productions.
Yet
the 2002 Fringe listings themselves are impressively active
with over 150 events, productions, music, comedy, plays,
and happenings all organised by small, local, theatre,
arts and music companies. 60 venues are playing host to
cutting edge shows with titles such as Anal Beard, Blavatsky's
Tower, Flighty Aphrodite, Stars up Your Arse, The Jolly
Folly of Polly the Scottish Trolley Dolly, and other stuff
en route from or to Edinburgh. If their 2003 bid for public
funding succeeds, Hemmings sees a bed of roses for Brighton
fringe activities.
The
Brighton Festival itself is actually up to its neck in
newness. Although the present Executive Director, Nick
Dodds, is into his second festival, this is the first
to be shaped according to his own vision, and his new
staff are still working into their roles.
At
its heart is the new fantastically refurbished performance
centre at The Dome, which will be showing events all year
round, as well as during the Festival.
But
a new broom is not allowed to sweep clean when it comes
to dealing with the people already working within the
breadth of the Festival framework. So it has had to be
a softly softly approach for Dodds, an apparently peaceable,
calm and negotiative administrator not given to public
feuds or communication problems - often the source of
bad vibes in past festival culture.
With
good funding and state of the art performance halls, what
changes has Dodds given to his 'new-look' Festival? Quite
a lot, it seems. He has formatted a new programme, and
renamed the Umbrella section as The Open to give it a
stronger identity of its own. The outdoor activity weekends
have also been expanded and now encompass circus and carnival
as well as children and street arts.
For
the official programme, he has invited Komedia, who have
been putting on international shows, cabaret and translated
plays independently for a long time, to co-produce productions
from Japan, South Africa and the UK .
In
addition to this 'new look' is the decision to give the
Charleston Festival a higher profile by including it within
the literature section of the main festival. By doing
this Dodds has been able to present a very large section
of book-readings by well known authors to a wider public.
Dodds' intention is to hold what is the current Brighton
Festival within one programme, as he has done, but at
the same time to educate the public to understand that
there is a difference between the main programme and the
Open. He wants an absolute understanding that the main
programme is identified with a seal of high quality.
By
2008, he hopes that The Open will include all self-promoting
activities. Here Dodds adds that he might like to call
The Open 'The Fringe' and have as broad a base as at Edinburgh.
He adds that he would like to take on the name by negotiation.
Is this a thorny little area?
Jeff
Hemmings, who runs the current Brighton Fringe, makes
no comment but thinks things will have to be "different
and talked out". This undebated subject could mean
that the 2008 Festival, which could be the year that Brighton
becomes the Cultural Capital of Europe, or at least achieves
the distinction of being a recognised centre of cultural
tourism, could have two Fringes, one official and one
unofficial. Or it could mean that the Brighton Fringe
has been taken over by the Brighton Festival to complete
an homogenous image.
Another change to this year's Festival is the inclusion
of programming by Dave Reeves, head of Zap Productions,
producers of the Street Arts festival and the Circus Weekend.
Reeves too would like to see Brighton closed to traffic
for a weekend so that people could really get the feel
of the festival.
If
one is looking for what should lie behind vision in cultural
festivals I have to agree with him when he says, "Culture
should be a creative process accessible to all. Culture
is the cohesive force in society."
He
also wants to see a stronger input from other festivals
in Europe, and strong cultural partnerships. Reeves believes
that although the Brighton Festival should have roots
in Brighton, it should also have world-class interest.
However,
as always when visions are flying about, reality checks
don't take long to turn up. Speaking a few hours later
to Mike Lance, proprietor of The Greys Pub in Hanover,
he gave me his view of the Festival and how by changing
it just a little, his own vision could be met.
Lance
puts on music events throughout the year at The Greys.
"The Festival is good for big business but not small
business," he says. "It would be better for
me if inclusion in the Festival Programme was cheaper
so that my type of event could be included in it.
"In
order to be with the Festival currently, I have to pay
a fee, be registered with the Dome Box Office which organises
the sale of tickets etc. I then suffer late pay-outs,
set-up fees, commissions lost on each ticket. As a small
company I cannot afford these outgoings, so I am not registering."
The
Greys is putting out 12 shows during the Festival this
year, which they showcase on their web site. "My
vision for future Festivals would be to have a Big Top
at the Station car park for community events as was done
a few years back," he says.
"I
think it is important to put on a lot of community events
but I am also not against having one bloke running the
whole Festival and staging international events,"
he concludes.
So
there you have it. We could be looking at: Brighton as
the new Rio; a Brighton Fringe and unofficial fringe to
rival Edinburgh; or a Brighton closed to traffic and open
to street arts. It's all there, in the current blue sky
thinking.
One
thing is clear: if the 2002 Festival seems exciting to
you, oh festival-goer, you've seen nothing yet. Waiting
in the wings are many many more surprises.
copyright New Insight 2002
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