Public lectures at the Sallis Benney Theatre, Mondays in October.
15 Aug 2013
Monday Lecture Autumn 2009
Open free to the public
Sallis Benney Theatre 12noon- 1:30pm
(12noon-1pm presentation, 1-1:30pm Q&A)
The Monday Lecture series has been running since 1997 as a series of weekly presentations by contemporary artists and cultural practitioners who work across disciplines. This is an opportunity to hear artists, writers, cultural activists talk about the history of their practice and show examples of their work. The lecture series is coordinated for the University of Brighton Faculty of Arts as part of the Sallis Benney public lecture programme.
Billy Cowie is a Scottish choreographer/composer/filmmaker/writer. He works principally in the area of dance/theatre performance, screen dance and installation. He has choreographed over twenty live performance pieces (in collaboration with Liz Aggiss) for the company Divas Dance Theatre, which has toured Europe extensively, and he has completed five major dance screen projects, two BBC Dance for Camera commissions and two ACE Capture projects and a Channel 4 commission. A book about this work entitled 'Anarchic Dance' was published by Routledge in January 2006.
His stereoscopic installation In the Flesh has been presented at South East Dance, Sampled Sadler’s Wells, the Victoria and Albert Museum, Empac in New York State, Shoot Festival Sweden, TTV Festival Riccione, Bargate Gallery Southampton, Dancebase Edinburgh, Julidans Amsterdam, Biarritz Dance Festival, and won the Delegates Prize at the 2007 IMZ Dancescreen Festival in the Hague. His installation The Revery Alone was premiered by South East Dance. His latest work Ghosts in the Machine was commissioned by Lighthouse and premiered there during the Brighton Festival and will be screened at the Traverse Theatre in Edinburgh in November 2009.
Billy Cowie has composed music for three BBC Radio projects: Shakespeare’s 'The Tempest', Philip Pullman's 'Dark Materials Trilogy' (both dir by David Hunter) and ‘Thinking Earth’ (dir Pam Marshall). He has also composed music for film directors Tony Palmer, Chris Rodley, Stephen Frears and Bob Bentley. Twelve Cds of his music have been released by Divas Records. Billy Cowie's novel 'Passenger' was published by Old Street in March 2008.
Felix Cross has been Artistic Director of Nitro since 1996 - Britain's longest running black theatre company (formed 1979); he is a composer, playwright and director with over 100 productions in UK and worldwide, from musicals to Bollywood to opera and hip hop theatre. Nitro’s work concerns the development of new musical theatre – either as touring productions or through the several festivals he has produced including, Nitrobeat at the South Bank, A Nitro at the Opera, with the Royal Opera House and Musical Futures. As a writer and/or composer his own works include Mass Carib, Glory!, Passports to the Promised Land, Slamdunk, The Wedding Dance. http://nitro.co.uk/
Away from Nitro, he has written or composed works for many companies, most recently Out of Joint, Tamasha, the Royal Court and Sydney Theatre Company. Felix has also composed music for several Radio 4 and World Service dramas.
He has been a member of the BRIT Panel and the Stabilisation Panel, as well as numerous committees and ad hoc groups for Arts Council England. He chairs many conferences and seminars for organizations, ranging from Equity to ITC and has written numerous papers and articles for conferences and journals, particularly on issues of cultural diversity and the arts.
