Brighton Festival is a large, annual, curated multi-arts festival in England. It includes music, theatre, dance, circus, art, film, literature, debate, outdoor and family events, and takes place in venues in the city of

Brighton and Hove Brighton and Hove () is a city and unitary authority in East Sussex, England. It consists primarily of the settlements of Brighton and Hove, alongside neighbouring villages. Often referred to synonymously as Brighton, the City of Brighton and H ...

in England each May.

History

In 1964 the first moves were made to hold a Festival in Brighton, and Ian Hunter, the eventual artistic director of the festival, submitted a programme of ideas. This was followed by a weekend conference in 1965, and the Board of the Brighton Festival Society was born. The first festival was held in 1967, and included the first ever exhibition of Concrete poetry in the UK, alongside performances by Laurence Olivier and Yehudi Menuhin. In the introduction to the 1968 Festival programme, Ian Hunter explained the original intentions of the festival: ''“The aim of the Brighton Festival is to stimulate townsfolk and visitors into taking a new look at the arts and to give them the opportunity to assess developments in the field of culture where the serious and the apparently flippant ride side by side.”'' In 2016 Brighton Festival celebrated its 50th year. The festival's biggest talking point was Nutkhut's ''Dr Blighty'', an ambitious, large-scale, free immersive, outdoor experience co-commissioned in partnership with

Royal Pavilion The Royal Pavilion, and surrounding gardens, also known as the Brighton Pavilion, is a Grade I listed former royal residence located in Brighton, England. Beginning in 1787, it was built in three stages as a seaside retreat for George, Princ ...

& Museums and 14-18 NOW, which highlighted the story of wounded Indian soldiers hospitalised in Brighton during WW1. Ending each night with a spectacular light display using projection-mapping, Dr Blighty set the city and social media abuzz and drew audiences of almost 65,000 over its five-day run. The festival regularly commissions new work from some artists and companies. The 2016 Brighton Festival featured 54 commissions, co-commissions, exclusives and premieres including the UK premiere of

Laurie Anderson Laurel Philips Anderson (born June 5, 1947), known as Laurie Anderson, is an American avant-garde artist, composer, musician, and film director whose work spans performance art, pop music, and multimedia projects. Initially trained in violin and ...

's unique ''Music'' ''for Dogs','' a concert specially designed for the canine ear; the UK premiere of '' Lou Reed Drones'', an installation of Anderson's late husband's guitars and amps in feedback mode which she describes as "kind of as close to Lou's music as we can get these days", a re-enactment of every onstage death from the plays of Shakespeare from Brighton-based Spymonkey and Tim Crouch; and Blast Theory & Hydrocracker's immersive undercover police drama ''Operation Black Antler.'' In 2020, the festival was cancelled for the first time in its history as a result of the

coronavirus pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identifie ...

Guest directors

Each year since 2009 the festival has appointed a guest artistic director. *2009:

Anish Kapoor Sir Anish Mikhail Kapoor (born 12 March 1954) is a British-Indian sculptor specializing in installation art and conceptual art. Born in Mumbai, Kapoor attended the elite all-boys Indian boarding school The Doon School, before moving to the UK t ...

*2010: Brian Eno *2011:

Aung San Suu Kyi Aung San Suu Kyi (; ; born 19 June 1945) is a Burmese politician, diplomat, author, and a 1991 Nobel Peace Prize laureate who served as State Counsellor of Myanmar (equivalent to a prime minister) and Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2 ...

*2012: Vanessa Redgrave *2013:

Michael Rosen Michael Wayne Rosen (born 7 May 1946) is a British children's author, poet, presenter, political columnist, broadcaster and activist who has written 140 books. He served as Children's Laureate from 2007 to 2009. Early life Michael Wayne Ro ...

*2014: Hofesh Shechter *2015:

Ali Smith Ali Smith CBE FRSL (born 24 August 1962) is a Scottish author, playwright, academic and journalist. Sebastian Barry described her in 2016 as "Scotland's Nobel laureate-in-waiting". Early life and education Smith was born in Inverness on 24 ...

*2016:

*2017:

Kae Tempest Kae Tempest (formerly Kate Tempest; born 22 December 1985) is an English spoken word performer, poet, recording artist, novelist and playwright. At the age of 16, Tempest was accepted into the BRIT School for Performing Arts and Technology in ...

*2018:

David Shrigley David John Shrigley (born 17 September 1968) is a British visual artist. He lived and worked in Glasgow, Scotland for 27 years before moving to Brighton, England in 2015. Early life and education Shrigley was born 17 September 1968 in Maccles ...

*2019:

Rokia Traoré Rokia Traoré (born 24. January 1974) is a Malian-born singer, songwriter and guitarist. She made six albums between 1998 and 2016. ''Bowmboï'' (2003) won the Critics Award category at the BBC Radio 3 Awards for World Music in 2004 and ''Tcham ...

*2020: Cancelled due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...

;

Lemn Sissay Lemn Sissay FRSL (born 21 May 1967) is a British author and broadcaster. Sissay was the official poet of the 2012 London Olympics, has been chancellor of the University of Manchester since 2015, and joined the Foundling Museum's board of trus ...

was to direct *2021: Lemn Sissay

References

External links

Brighton Festival
– Brighton Festival official website
Brighton Festival Chorus
– website for separate element of the Brighton Festival {{Brighton and Hove Arts festivals in England Festivals in Brighton and Hove Festivals established in 1966 1966 establishments in England Music in Brighton and Hove

History

Guest directors

See also

References

External links