This term brings a wealth of art and theatre to our doors in the form of three arts festival, TSAF (Turl Street Arts Festival), Somerville Arts Festival, and Keble Arts Festival. Coming up first is TSAF with its programme just officially released, which takes place in 5th week. The festival is a combined effort between the three colleges based on Turl Street, Lincoln, Exeter and Jesus, who put aside college rivalries for the week for the sake of the arts. Offering a huge variety of events spanning across the week, you would be hard pressed not to find something of interest to you.
From a theatrical point of view, the festival is putting on several rehearsed readings. These include a rehearsed reading of the iconic The Vagina Monologues, raising money for charities working against sexual violence, and a rehearsed reading of Nick Payne’s Constellations. The President of the festival, Florence Read, is also the author of Twin Primes, a new play that will be being staged that week as part of the New Writing Festival. All this and the Greek play Sparagmos means you will certainly not be short of theatre this week!
Outside the sphere of strict theatre, Lincoln Bar will be hosting an acoustic open mic night for all those musicians out there, whilst the Missing Bean will play host to a poetry and spoken word open mic night. Live jazz will be combined with drawing and designing the cover of the TSAF magazine one evening, and a mass Valentine’s themed welfare tea will be sure to cure those 5th week blues.
For those interested in debate and discussion, TSAF is putting on several debates and talks over its duration. Amongst these will be a discussion on female sexuality in art, as well as the political nature of art particularly in relation to satire. A talk entitled ‘How to be Beyonce’ (something that we all dream about achieving), about the cultural importance of pop music, could not help but catch my eye.
The week is all packed full of musical events, including the collaborative evensong between the three colleges, an organ recital and acapella. For the more cinematic amongst you, the Torch Song Trilogy will be presented in an LGBTQ film screening.
The week will culminate in a cut and stick workshop to put together a magazine of work created during the festival, and even boasts an after party to end in style. From life drawing, to live music, to clothes customisation workshops, the festival seems to offer something for everyone.
It looks set to be a promising start to the run of arts week that we have ahead of us. Keble is also happening in 5th week, whilst Somerville takes place in 7th week, ending in an art exhibition for which it is currently accepting submissions. They will also be putting on the opera, Coronation of Poppea in the chapel, featuring cast members from the recently successful production of Dido and Aeneus.
PHOTO/ TSAF
