Four authors reading at the Insulting Cabaret

Four very exciting – but very different authors will be reading as part of The Insulting Cabaret at the Southwark Playhouse on Friday 17 April.  Tickets for the event are available here – http://preview.tinyurl.com/dn8hny

 

Born in 1948 in Bois Colombes, Catherine Millet is a French art critic, curator, and founder and editor of the prestigious magazine Art Press. She is best known as the author of the 2002 memoir The Sexual Life of Catherine M. which was translated into 40 languages and sold over a million copies. She lives in Paris with the poet and novelist Jacques Henric.  Find out more in this Observer interview with Catherine – http://tiny.cc/FW9mo

 

Christian Jungersen’s novel The Exception, about four female employees who make life hell for each other in the small office of the Danish Center for Information on Genocide, has been translated into 15 languages. It was named an Editor’s Choice by the New York Times, won the Golden Laurels prize in Denmark, and has been nominated for awards in Ireland, France, the UK and Sweden. He lives in Dublin and New York City.  His web site is http://www.christianjungersen.com/

 

Lee Stringer’s landmark 1998 memoir, Grand Central Winter: Stories from the Street, came out of 12 years of homelessness and addiction on New York’s streets. This was followed by his award-winning book about his preteen years, Sleepaway School: Stories From a Boy’s Life (2004). In 2002, he collaborated with novelist Kurt Vonnegut on Like Shaking Hands With God: A Conversation About Writing. Lee Stringer lives in New York.   Read more at  www.leestringer.net

 

Karen King-Aribisala was born in Guyana. She is Professor of English at the University of Lagos, Nigeria. Her short story collection, Our Wife and Other Stories, won the Best First Book Prize in the Commonwealth Prize (African Region) 1990/91. Her second work,

Kicking Tongues, transposes Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales to modern-day Nigeria. Her latest novel, The Hangman’s Game, won the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize (Caribbean region) in 2008.   Read more about Karen in this interview – http://tiny.cc/hqlxG

 

You can find out more about the Free the Word Festival and International Pen here:-

 

www.internationalpen.org.uk

http://tiny.cc/wbQbY (free the word)

We look forward to seeing you at The Insulting Cabaret

Perunika – Heavenly voices from Bulgaria

Perunika promo

Opening the Insulting Cabaret are Perunika – a trio of London based Bulgarian singers.  You can see and hear more of their music at www.myspace.com/perunika .  Don’t forget tickets for the event at the Southwark Playhouse on Friday 17th April are available here – http://preview.tinyurl.com/dn8hny

Their official biography reads as follows:-

Enchanting, spine-tingling Bulgarian a’ capella harmonies with Russian and Macedonian traditional songs and Orthodox chants thrown in for good measure. A happy marriage of lilting melodies and irregular rhytms;and strange , clashing diaphony taking turns with more classical Western-style harmonies.

 

PERUNIKA a’ capella trio was formed in October 2005 by Eugenia Georgieva (artistic director), Victoria Mancheva and Victoria Evstatieva (currently replaced by Dessislava Vasileva). The singers met through their work with London Bulgarian Choir, voted BBC3 Choir of the Year 2006 in the Open category, and decided to go their own separate way.

 

The trio took part in a number of UK folk festivals – Eastbourne Folk Festival 06, Eltham Bulgarian Culture Festival, Dance around the World at Cecil Sharp, First Bulgarian National Gathering 07, Mayor’s Thames Festival 08, Sunrise Celebration@The Big Chill 08. The singers participated in the Voice Lab initiative lead by Mary King and performed for “The Singing River” project, celebrating the re-opening of the Royal Festival Hall, as a part of “Surge” Choir in June 2007. They performed at the prestigious Llangollen Musical Eisteddfod in July 2008 in Llangollen, Wales, and went on to win the third prize in Folk Song Group category.

 

http://www.eisteddfod-ryngwladol.co.uk/latest-news/2008-results/21-folk-song-groups/

 

Incorporating Bulgarian, Macedonian and Russian traditional music and Orthodox chants into a broader Slavic repertoire, PERUNIKA are rapidly gaining recognition and were invited for an interview and live session with Mark Coles at BBC World Service’s programme The Ticket in July 2008.  PERUNIKA’s debut album “INTRODUCING Perunika Trio” was released worldwide on 17th March 2008 to a critical acclaim

 

Instrumentation:

Eugenia Georgieva (singer) – mezzo/ alto

Victoria Mancheva (singer)- mezzo/ alto

Dessislava Vasileva (singer)- alto

 

Discography:

“Introducing Perunika Trio” – WMN/ Introducing, 2008

“Never Mind the Balkans: Here’s Max Pashm” – 2008 (featured artist)

“The Virgin Queen” Soundtrack (as part of London Bulgarian Choir)- 2006. Winner of Ivor Novello award for Best Television Soundtrack

Tom’s Heaven and Earth

‘My Favourite Place on earth… this would have to be in the pub, with my best mates who I’ve known since school. Rather predictable for a 23 year old male, but you really can’t beat it. This could easily become my idea of heaven if there’s an England V Australia cricket match at Lords on the television…’

‘My idea of heaven… this is rather cheesy unfortunately, but my idea of heaven is pretty much anywhere with my beautiful girlfriend, but mostly in bed on a Saturday morning, or at a music festival! The picture was actually taken at Creamfields last year, where the majority of people probably BELIEVE they’re in heaven depending on how many illegal substances they’ve consumed before breakfast. ‘

 

 

Andi’s Heaven and Earth

Heaven: not sure how it applies to atheists, so I checked the dictionary and went for definition #6: a place or state of supreme happiness.Cheeseburger Supreme for me then please.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Earth: a heavenly image of the Texan town Earth. So man-made organised yet still bearing an immense sense of the vast expanse of our planet.

Send us your pics of Heaven and Earth

Our theme for this years Insulting Cabaret is Heavan and Earth – and we’d love you to get involved. We’d like you to send us two pictures – one that represents your image of heaven and one that is of your favourite place on Earth.  It would be great if you could include a few lines of explanation too!  Send them to us at intern@thehubuk.com.  The images will be used for projections at the event itself as well as on this blog (but do make sure you have permission to use the image from the copyright holder!)

 

Don’t forget tickets for the event are available here – http://preview.tinyurl.com/dn8hny

The playlist for Insulting Cabaret

Jason Phipps has updated his play list for the Insulting Cabaret.  Not only will there be some fabulous music played – but there are also are some extra ordinary stories behind the music too.  Check it out here:-

http://insultingcabaretbannedandblurred.blogspot.com/

Insulting Cabaret 17 April 09

After its sell out success last year the hub are once again working with our friends at International Pen to produce The Insulting Cabaret. Once again the event is a key part of Pen’s fantastic free the word festival.

This year the Insulting Cabaret takes place at Southwark Playhouse on friday 17 april starting at 10pm. Once again the cabaret contains a potent mix of authors, comedians, musicians and poets. This year the line up includes Catherine Millet, Christian Jungersen, Inua Ellams, Luke Wright, Karen king Aribisala, Lee Stringer and Perunika all musing on the evening’s theme of Heaven and Earth.

You can find out more about the festival through its blog – freetheblog.typepad.com – and the playlist for the -Insulting Cabaret at censoringsong.blogspot.com.

Tickets priced just six pounds are available from Southwark Playhouse on 0207 7407 0234 or online at southwarkplayhouse.co.uk