NEWS: Battersea Arts Centre announces programme for 'HOMEGROWN FESTIVAL'

            Battersea Arts Centre - Homegrown Festival (30 March – 9 April 2020)

• Battersea Arts Centre announces the programme for Homegrown Festival (30 March - 9 April 2020), showcasing a huge range of performances and creative projects from London’s next generation of artists
  
• Part of Tarek Iskander’s inaugural season Going Global, the diverse range of creative artists will invite audiences to explore wellness, activism and the digital world
  
• All tickets in the festival are available for £10 or less
  
• Recently launched as the world’s first Relaxed Venue, every performance and project across the festival will be relaxed
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Battersea Arts Centre today announces the programme for Homegrown Festival 2020 (30 March – 9 April), an annual celebration of emerging talent from London’s next generation of artists. This year the annual festival forms part of Going Global, Tarek Iskander’s inaugural season as Artistic Director of Battersea Arts Centre, focusing on reaching outwards and creating connections between the UK and the world at a time of national introspection.

                                                                                                                                                                                                     

The unique building will become home to over 20 companies across the festival, showcasing the huge range of creative practitioners currently making vibrant new work in London. This year’s takeover features performances, gigs, exhibitions and workshops which tackle urgent global questions from a fresh perspective; grappling with the concept of wellness in an increasingly digital world, calling out for activism and exploring cultural migration through the eyes of today’s descendants.

Battersea Arts Centre is a Relaxed Venue, the first to have gone through Touretteshero’s brand new method of identifying and dismantling barriers to access, and strives to radically embed inclusivity across all its activities. For Homegrown Festival, this includes making every ticket available for £10 or less and every component of the festival being Relaxed. At Battersea Arts Centre, this means a relaxed attitude to noise and movement during performances and events, a designated 'chill-out space' for guests and ear defenders made available for those with sensory sensitivities. 

Nurturing young people’s creativity is central to Battersea Arts Centre’s mission; to inspire people, to take creative risks, to shape the future. The Homegrown programme is a year-round incubator of theatre and music-making and producer development, just one of several programmes to co-create work which is underpinned by Battersea Arts Centre’s Scratch methodology for testing out new ideas and ways of doing things. Homegrown Festival is an opportunity to platform their creative projects which this year includes:

• Members of the BAC Beatbox Academy, whose production of Frankenstein: How to Make a Monster is currently receiving rave reviews at the Adelaide Fringe Festival in Australia, will perform a Showcase (2 April) of emerging talent, and appear in the Scratch Bar Open Mic Nights to test out new material (various dates).
• Creative Entrepreneurship project The Agency supports young people to become ‘agents of change’ in their community through training, seed funding, continuing support, as well as specialist advice from tailored experts to activate their ideas for positive social change. Hosted by some of these Agents, Homegrown Wellness Day (2 April) will provide a space to explore wellness and mental wellbeing. Free activities include a tea party from Baby Reign, DIY body scrub workshop from Sydney’s Naturals and facials made from all natural products from The GLOW Up.
• The latest instalment of IAMNEXT (9 April) from Youth Music Entrepreneur Award-winner Seshie Henry. The youth-led networking project has been developed as part of The Agency, and supports underground aspiring artists to break into the music industry, develop artistically and grow their fan base.
• Grand Hall Takeover – Battersea Arts Centre’s Young Producers will stage a raucous party in the Grand Hall and its surroundings (including the beautiful gothic corridors and ornate Octagonal Hall) including artists from all walks of life.

Over eleven days, Battersea Arts Centre will be bursting with bold performance, dance, live music, parties, live podcast recording and free exhibitions, installations and workshops. Further highlights include:

• Celebrating work from diverse voices: Pepa Duarte uses live onstage cooking in the full-length premier of EATING MYSELF (1-4 April), a communal experience to examine what it means to be a woman in Peruvian society; Deaf Rave (3 April) presents a line-up of d/Deaf performers and DJs for a night of dance, sign songs and visual vernacular (sign language story telling) for audiences of all hearing abilities; award-winning Hip-Hop Artist and international storyteller Alim Kamara (TEDxTottenham) performs his unique style of African and Islamic storytelling (Stories, 3-4 April), for the first time paired with an explosive live musical finale featuring exclusive new tracks (Personal, 9 April);  multidisciplinary artist tyroneisaacstewart presents the premier of S!CKnotes (7-9 April), a performance in three parts inspired by his upcoming UK Jazz debut album S!CK.
  
• Interrogating life in the digital world: Close Encounter Club (2 April) touches down after a year of sold-out immersive live shows, the conceptual live music night returns with  psychedelic live sessions from Weird Milk and more of the hottest Indie/ Alternative bands; Zimbabwe-born spoken word artist and theatre maker Tatenda Matsvai shifts between memory and fiction in the premier of TRANSIT (3-4 April), using live music, poetry and BSL to create visceral landscapes through the manipulation of sound, space, projections and the body; Claire Gaydon blends social experiment, live performance and multimedia in See-Through (7–9 April); the premier of Chaotic Silence’s Hidden Smiles (7-9 April), asking how self-care might protect users from the destructive influence of social media.
  
• Exploring activism; the premier of EcoChambers (2 – 4 April) developed with Battersea Arts Centre, this daring interactive game by Exit Productions places audience members at the heart of Eco-protests; throughout the festival internationally acclaimed artist Kay Rufai displays his bold portraiture exhibition S.M.I.L.E-ing BOYS, created to combat negative imagery of young black Londoners who are disproportionately affected by discrimination and criminalisation; a free video installation by film maker Izzy Inkpen to provoke action in the face of the climate crisis.
  
• Encouraging wellness; along with the Homegrown Wellness Day (2 April), collaborators Mia and Theïa look at connection, conversation and community in their participatory installation HOMELAND which runs across the whole Homegrown Festival.