Everyone keeps asking me about this year’s festival. The problem is that Garry, Murakawa and I are the world’s worst procrastinators. Garry has little time as it is as his Lucha Britannia Mexican-style wresting project has become massive and he’s filming with Jonathan Ross. Add to that the fact that Mack has moved house, is in the midst of renovations and has had the IT problem from hell so communications with Japan have been slow, also Kinoko has been unable to commit due to plans to open a new club around September. As for me, I seem to be constantly multi-multi-tasking. You can see why this is not moving fast. Anyway, we all only seem to work under pressure. OK, enough of the excuses!
So, what news? Well, in spite of appearances, I have been doing some work on this. Last year set the bar incredibly high with an unprecedented number of top performers from Japan with Kinoko Hajime and Kazami Ranki topping the bill. My big problem was where to go from there? Mind you, we have said that every year and somehow manage to pull something even better out of the bag. The downside of having so many incredible artists from Japan last year was that we had to take the agonising decision of excluding a lot of western talent. This year we will make up for it. We have quite a few names in mind but we welcome applications from riggers who can provide evidence of being able to perform and not merely demonstrate technique. Exposure at LFAJRB can make or break your reputation; there are too many knowledgeable audience members to get away with anything other than a totally professional show and, of course, we have the festival’s high standards to maintain. So, no pressure 😀
Of course, we will have at least one big name from Japan to star and run master classes. In the frame so far are Kazami Ranki, who ran a very successful 5-day master class here recently, and Kanna, who is perhaps the most respected ‘bakushi in Japan and a disciple of the ‘grandfather of shibari’, Akechi Denki. Kazami has also mentioned the possibility of bringing over one of their best female riggers. Who or what combination we will be able to arrange for this year is yet to be decided. One or other will certainly be running master classes before or after the festival.
I have no reason to believe that the festival will not be at Resistance Gallery in late September but we will need to check for clashes with other major events. I will be pushing to get more space in an adjoining unit as I am sure it will sell out again and people will be selling their souls for tickets. In addition to allowing extra capacity, it would also be more conducive to running workshops or shows in parallel.
We welcome applications for running workshops/classes and from others wishing to present relevant work or subjects, e.g. art, photography, cultural interest.