The Bush Theatre has revealed further details about its BABYLON season, a programme which encompasses a celebration of Black and Brown cultural innovators and a ground-breaking production which fuses live-streamed performances around the globe.
The season opens at the venue from 4 February with the week-long BABYLON Festival (4 – 9 February), a week-long takeover which celebrates the influence of Black and Brown people on London culture.
This manifests itself in three strands: LOUD, a series of music gigs hosted by Nabihal Iqbal, Touching Bass’ ShyOne and Wu-Lu, and Sam Wise, all supported by emerging British talent; SPEAKS, which includes live podcast shows, panel discussions and an in-house live radio broadcast show; and RESIDENTS, which includes theatre takeovers from collectives including Sin Deep’s Sonic Transmissions.
BABYLON Beyond Borders at the Bush Theatre
Week two will be BABYLON Beyond Borders (12 – 16 February at 7pm), a spectacular live-streamed performance which will happen in four countries simultaneously.
The possibility and power of cross border encounters will be celebrated by four extraordinary theatres, each deeply rooted in their own community. A Brazilian activist at the Pequeno Ato Theatre in São Paulo performs with a chorus of women from Shepherd’s Bush, and musicians at Harlem Stage in New York act out the experiences of students at the Market Theatre Lab in Johannesburg.
The Bush Theatre’s contribution sees three actresses joined by a chorus of local women to perform stories drawn from their own experience of immigrating to a modern Babylon.
More information about the BABYLON season can be found on the Bush Theatre website.