Because the Night
A special night of
performances,
screenings
and talks
dedicated
to darkness.
Friday
24 November
7:30pm to 3am
Bethnal Green
Town Hall,
Corner of Patriot
Square & Cambridge
Heath Road,
Bethnal Green,
London E2.
See map.
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Bat experts, paranormal researchers, musicians and cabaret artists celebrated the close of Artangel Interaction's Nights of London series of artist-led projects investigating the nocturnal metropolis. Passionate nocturnalists Sukhdev Sandhu and Scanner (Robin Rimbaud) provided a spin-off from their Artangel web project Night Haunts in a special live performance, Haunted Lullabies: A psalm for London's night souls; and Gentlewoman Naturalist Bridget Nicholls, in A Little Night Opera, exposed to our ears the sonar clash of the feuding moth and bat that hatched the evolution of the butterfly. She performed with Master Gentleman pianist Nathaniel Woodcock as the moth on melodic and percussive piano and Mark Pilkington as the bat on keyboard.
•
Ghost expert Alan Murdie and sleep scientist Julia Chapman provided talks, while amateur astronomer David Arditti invited guests to join him stargazing in the Library of the Night Project Space.
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A cabaret hour was performed by experimental comedian Simon Munnery with magician Christian Lee, artist David Blandy who presented his White and Black Minstrel Show: The Dark Night of the Soul and artist Donald Urquhart who was Judy Garland in The Stars Have Lost Their Glitter.
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Between performances, guests explored the faded beauty of Bethnal Green's former Town Hall; watched Hitchcock's The Lodger (A Story of London Fog) through the fug of the smoking cinema; commissioned shadow-portraits by roving silhouettist Charles Burns; and sipped gin distilled by artist collective Puss & Mew while browsing the books and curiosities of the Library of the Night.
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Because the Night also re-presented the past projects commissioned for the Nights of London series: Radio Nights, a documentary film on West London's rich music culture by David Blandy with young pirate radio fans; When Night Draws In, fantastical nightscapes drawn and modelled by Sarah Woodfine with members of Wandsworth MIND; NightJam: bittersweet songs for the sleepless city by Scanner with young homeless people in King's Cross; To the Man in My Dreams, a collection of letters written by George Chakravarthi in collaboration with members of SW5, the support service for male sex workers; images and sound from A Night Sublyrical, a dance and poetry performance in the dark directed by Jonzi D with performers recruited from London's evening-classes; and Nick Silver Can't Sleep, Janice Kerbel's radio play for insomniacs performed by Rufus Sewell, Josette Simon and Fiona Shaw, and produced by BBC Radio 3 - The Verb. This is also a chance to see Francis Alÿs' film The Nightwatch, an Artangel commission from 2005.
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Artangel Interaction's Nights of London is a series of artist-led projects exploring the nocturnal city with the people who wake, work or watch over it. With grateful thanks to those who have volunteered their stories, experience and expertise to enable the projects in this series. www.artangel.org.uk/nightsoflondon
