wed 09/07/2025

festivals

theartsdesk in Western Sahara: The World's Most Remote Film Festival

At FiSahara, films are screened at night in the centre of the camp onto a multiplex-sized screen

During the 1960s, when decolonisation movements were sweeping the world, it was joked that, after achieving independence, a country had to do three things: design a flag, launch an airline and found a film festival. Western Sahara has a flag but...

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UK Festivals 2011 Round-Up

It's time to dust down your tent and ice-box and plan some summer breaks with theartsdesk's definitive clickable festival guide - listings and links for all the UK festivals this summer, from rock by the lochs to DJs in London parks, and catching...

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Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui's Apocrifu/ Gardenia, Brighton Festival

Apocrypha is a word that has acquired a dubious meaning, for books of questioned value and authenticity, texts in various religions that may not necessarily be held divine. The Belgian-Moroccan dancemaker Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui's dance work Apocrifu...

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theartsdesk in Brighton: At the Festival Where Anything Goes

Persecuted Burmese freedom fighter Aung San Suu Kyi may be this year’s guest director, provoking a loose theme of "freedom of expression, liberty, and the power of the individual voice" that’s all the more powerful for her enforced absence. But a...

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Asian Dub Foundation - Music of Resistance, Brighton Dome

It's been a while since I've spent time with Asian Dub Foundation. In the mid-Nineties, when they first appeared, they were one of the most exciting acts around and I enthused about them in print at every opportunity. They were born of an east-...

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theartsdesk in Clonter: The Opera Farm

Deep in rural Cheshire farmland, music is in the air. It’s not the music of the spheres from the Jodrell Bank radio telescope nearby, nor even the sound of the birds and the bleating of the lambs nearby. It is the music of human voices at work on...

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theartsdesk in Cuenca: Religious Music Week

Houses perched precariously in the medieval town of Cuenca

It’s Holy Wednesday in Cuenca, and going round the corner into Cathedral Square I’m surrounded by hordes of guys in multicoloured mufti who look like the Ku Klux Klan, with unnecessarily pointy hoods. Twenty of them are carrying a heavy float with a...

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BBC Proms 2011 In Full

The 2011 BBC Proms open on Friday 15 July and close on Saturday 10 September. Strands linking the 90 concerts include Choral Sundays, film and TV music proms, French music, unusual concertos, Liszt and Frank Bridge focuses, and the first Comedy Prom...

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Cage 99, St George's Bristol

John Cage, patron saint of silence and noise

John Cage, the focus of an adventurous three-day mini-festival in Bristol, is possibly one of the most influential figures in 20th-century culture. As much a practical philosopher as a composer of note, he made artists, writers and musicians think...

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theartsdesk in Tallinn: Music Week in the European City of Culture

It’s an important year for Estonia. The Baltic nation celebrates 20 years of independence from Russia. Capital city Tallinn is European Capital of Culture for 2011. It’s also 10 years since their Eurovision win. theartsdesk is here for Tallinn Music...

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Edinburgh International Festival 2011

The 2011 Edinburgh International Festival, running 12 August-4 September, has been announced, on a theme of the Far East and the Far West. Offerings  include the National Ballet of China, Korean and Vietnamese contemporary dance, traditional...

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Scott Agnew, The Stand, Glasgow

Scott Agnew: The 6ft 5in Glaswegian likes long stories

Scotland certainly loves its comedy. In addition to the month-long bliss that is the Edinburgh Fringe, just along the M8 Glasgow has been providing its own few weeks of fun since 2003. Their comedy festival has a very different feel to it - less of...

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