BASS Festival (British Arts and Street Sounds) is the UK’s only month long celebration of Black Music and Art. Every June, the UK comes alive with a phenomenal line up of events, new commissions, gigs, exhibitions, master classes, showcases, club nights, theatre, conferences and film.
Produced by Punch in partnership with Baby J and 2Funky Arts the key aims of the festival are to:
- Forge communicative and appropriate artistic partnerships between venues, artists and promoters
- Challenge programming and audience development practices in an attempt to expand, diversify and improve the image and accessibility of urban arts.
- Build concrete foundations to establish the festival as a long-term feature of the region’s and the UK’s annual cultural programme.
Now in its 4th year BASS has established itself as a driving force on the UK’s festival scene and has huge outreach to a fantastically diverse audience base.
Events are held mainly in the Midlands region (Birmingham, Nottingham, Leicester and Derby) with satellite events in cities such as London, Manchester and Bristol. They are delivered in a range of contrasting venues from universities, museums, galleries, bars to public spaces. This approach ensures that a huge cross section of the region’s communities have unrivalled exposure and easy access to the festival.
BASS creates platforms for artist based commissions that initiate and develop new networks for dialogue. In June 2009, the Midlands will host specially commissioned work in art, music, theatre and dance from internationally renowned artists such as T*Magic and Lemi Ghariokwu, Fela Kuti’s sleeve designer.
2008 saw over 55 events delivered in five cities with a total audience of 31, 000.
Every year the BASS festival follows a theme to help develop a united, innovative, challenging and progressive method to showcase urban arts.
Previous themes have included:
2006 Urban Art in New Venues
2007 Internationalism
2008 The Five Elements Hip Hop
The theme for 2009 is
‘Inspired by Africa and Africans’
The aim of this year’s theme is celebrate and explore Africa’s influence on the UK arts scene. Working with mainstream and grassroots organisations, we will also be encouraging a broad range of audiences to participate in and experience the global impact of African cultural expression.
BASS 09 isn’t just about djembe drumming! We will be celebrating the wealth of African talent present in the UK through international artistic exchange, major presentations of contemporary work, new installations, artist lounges, concerts and masterclasses.
