In the Cold, Cold Night

IN THE COLD, COLD NIGHT
London Arcola Theatre
Sunday 14 January 2007, at 7pm

LUX presents an evening of film and performance dedicated to inclement weather, with performances by Heather Jones X, Andrew Gaston, Paul Hood, Susan Turcot, Dirty Snow and Viralux and a screening of Michael Curran's LOVE IN A COLD CLIMATE.

“The white bees are swarming,” said Grandma.
“Do they have a queen too?” asked the little boy, for he knew that real bees had such a ruler.
“Yes,” replied Grandma, “she always flies right at the centre of the storm.”

IN THE COLD, COLD NIGHT will invoke the chill in winter tales, ice crystals, battles of love and silence of snow. Crossing the boundaries between music and art a focused constellation of performances will introduce this special screening of LOVE IN A COLD CLIMATE.

Love in a Cold Climate (Michael Curran, 2002)

Taking the form of a fractured journey LOVE IN A COLD CLIMATE explores notions of coldness, the act of storytelling and loneliness, all haunted by the spectre of Hans Christian Anderson's Snow Queen. Whilst seeking the actress Natayla Klimova, who played the role of the Snow Queen in Gennadi Kazinski's 1966 LENFILM production, Curran drifts through a series of episodic encounters which all strangely reflect upon his concerns. Comprised of telephone recitations, fairy story, chance meetings and weather changes LOVE IN A COLD CLIMATE emerges as an essay in love and longing.

at

Arcola Theatre
27 Arcola Street, London E8 2DJ
Nearest Train: Dalston Kingsland
MAP OF AREA

Tickets: £5
Box Office: 020 7503 1646
Email: info@lux.org.uk

www.lux.org.uk

...

IN THE COLD, COLD NIGHT

Michael Curran lives and works in London and has established a growing reputation for a series of video works with a stark visual style that belie a deft and sophisticated handling of complex, often unsettling material. Curran has exhibited at Rotterdam and Video Positive festivals and galleries such as Rhodes + Mann in London. Read Mike Sperlinger’s essay on LOVE IN A COLD CLIMATE at www.lux.org.uk

Visual artist and performer Esther Planas formed her band Dirty Snow in Autumn 1999 and has developed the project in an art context while at the same time pitching it against the detachment and self-conscious irony which tends to typify the 'art-band'. The group's romanticism, musical style and unpredictable mode of performance, which foregrounds emotional expression and improvisation (sometimes to the point of incoherence and collapse...) are for Esther a means of counter-attack and critique against a too intellectual art-world. Dirty Snow exists, in Esther's terms, as a kind of 'ghost band'. www.clubesther.biz

Andrew Gaston runs a multimedia project called Secret Films based in London, a part of which involves the build up and maintenance of a large video archive. He often works with video appropriation within the context of various art projects. This includes live audio visual narrative based performances and remixing music and visuals for a wide variety of events. www.secretfilms.co.uk

Paul Hood one of the prime movers on the London Improv scene. He started working with vintage record players in the early 1990s and has since continued to use turntables as his primary instrument. He's recently put out records on the super-label Japan Improv (with Toshimaru Nakamura and Tetuzi Akiyama) and with Joel Stern, Anthony Guerra and others on Paradisc and TwoThousandAnd.

viralux is an audio-visual collective of musicians, artists & poets based in South London. it was founded in 2000 by Gordon Dawson & Poppy Coyote. their music is a luxuriant electric guitar soundscape overlaid with song-structured vocals. they perform live to video in art gallery settings. www.myspace.com/viralux

Roger Turner and Susan Turcot have collaborated as a duo with amplified drawing and percussion since 2003. Both work extensively with the fields of visual art, performance and experimental music. Turcot recently exhibited at the Sao Paulo Biennale while Turner has a wide and eclectic history exploring many forms of percussion in the sonic arts and world of music. www.free-music-production.de

Heather JonesX is a singer-songwriter and author, her blend of folk-punk combines storytelling and balladeering to articulate tales from the darkside. She is a longstanding contributor for both The Illustrated Ape and Vomit in The Mainstream and is currently working on a book of her writings. She is also a long-term collaborator with Viralux. www.myspace.com/hjonesx