Events 2020/21.
Scroll back to October 2020-March 2021 on the calendar below and explore the event archive. Also, head over to the Catch-up page where all of the live-streamed events from the 2020-2021 festival are ready for you to engage with, plus the Writing page that documents some of the words from people responding to the 2020-2021 festival themes.
“We are excited and curious to see how our festival develops over the coming months. And in turn, to see who we might all be when we emerge next Spring. Our hope is that the festival gives us something to be connected to, to get involved in, and to grow from and through over the six months between October 2020 and end of March 2021.
These are tough times and we are all vulnerable right now. Maybe this festival is something for us all to hold on to? Whether first time attendee, participating artist, volunteer, organiser, or avid community player. All we know is that we need each other, now perhaps more than ever. We need community.
This festival belongs to all of us.”
For 2020, we explored the concept 'the growing versus the knowing' brain. "This isn’t about not learning, or that knowledge isn't important, but that sometimes we can hold on to thinking we 'need to know', and that can stop us from connecting to each other, growing towards each other, and learning to 'know' in a new way. As we move into a future where so many processes will be operated by machines, we might also explore our human qualities that perhaps can't be emulated. The hidden within our brains and our beings. Under this, we also explored 'touch' and 'power' in connection to the overall theme.
EVENT CALENDAR
Victoria Melody | Professional Stranger (7-8pm) | Q&A (8-8.45pm)
LIVE ONTO YOUR ZOOM
BOOKING REQUIRED
Award-winning Victoria Melody, “the female theatrical Louis Theroux” (Oxford Mail), embarks on the difficult business of being funny, embedding herself into the world of British amateur stand-up comedy. Despite a surprise diagnosis and a comedy teacher telling her to give up, can she be funny enough to make it?
Always the obsessive Victoria will be wearing technology that shows in real-time what happens to the brain when you tell jokes. It’s a genuine rip-roaring insight into the brain and the secret world of stand-up.
In the past Victoria has become a pigeon fancier, northern soul dancer, beauty queen, championship dog show handler and a funeral director all for material for her theatre shows.
Following the performance, there will be a Q&A with Vic, neuroscientist Sylvana De Pirro, & members from our local community. Dr Silvana De-Pirro is a neuroscientist. She is a researcher at the Centre for Social and Affective Neuroscience, in Sweden and the Sussex Addiction Research & Intervention Centre (SARIC) and at the Human PsychoPharmacology Unit (Sussex Neuroscience and School of Psychology).
The research and development for this project has been supported by the Watershed’s Winter Residency, Farnham Maltings, South Street, SARIC – University of Sussex and Arts Council England.
Check out Victoria’s website HERE.
BOOK HERE.
Leo Bill | Buenos Aires (7-8pm)| Q&A (8-8.30pm)
LIVE FROM QUARTERHOUSE, FOLKESTONE - & - BROADCAST LIVE ON FACEBOOK/THIS WEBSITE
ENSURE YOU HAVE FULL SCREEN WHEN WATCHING
Whilst a man attempts to unpick a long distant memory, he finds himself struggling to understand his own past, present and future. As memories collide Leo Bill takes us on a passionate, tequila fuelled trip down the strange alleyways of his own remembrance.
Leo Bill will perform this piece having not read the script in over a year. As the actor attempts to recall the performance, the character grapples with the order of his life.
Following the performance, there will be a Q&A with Leo, our resident neurologist & neuroscientist Tim Rittman - who specialises in rare types of dementia - and members from our local community.
“I remember it like that. I just remember things differently. And I like how I remember things. Differently. It’s just a different memory to the one I’m supposed to be remembering but…”
“Time here…At this moment… This timeless memory … Leaves me”
Leo Bill is a prolific actor, writer and director based in London. Most known for his performances in the films ‘Rare Beasts’, ‘In Fabric’, ‘The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’ ‘28 Days Later’; TV work includes ‘Taboo’, and Leo’s recent theatre performances include ‘Duchess of Malfi’ and ‘ ‘The Tragedy of King Richard the Second’ at the Almedia, ‘Hamlet’ at the Barbican. This event represents a step into new modes of performance for Bill.
BOOK HERE.
Silvia Mercuriali | Swimming Home
FRI 26 MAR: 10.30AM, 3PM, 7PM
SAT 28 MAR: 10.30 AM, 3PM, 7PM
SUN 28 MAR: 10.30 AM, 3PM, 7PM
TICKETS ARE FREE, BUT BOOKING IN ADVANCE IS NEEDED
Are you ready to dive in?
Swimming Home is Silvia Mercuriali's latest audio theatre piece, leading participants through a private meditation, all the way to the bottom of a deep pool.
You will be immersed in an aquatic and sonic world in which the ordinary becomes fictional and your familiar surroundings take on a new poetic meaning. Written following interviews with swimmers, swimming coaches and water lovers from all over the UK, the piece gently suggests a new look at the ritual of bathing.
YOU WILL NEED
A swimsuit, swimming goggles and a big towel.
Make sure your phone is fully charged and that you have a good internet connection.
The piece is to be experienced with headphones in your own bathroom (wireless headphones are preferable but not necessary).
Breathe. Dive in.
“Swimming Home plays with the gap between imagination and reality and urges you to let go and float away. When you are finally allowed to submerge and dip your head under the water, it is oddly exhilarating.” ✭✭✭✭ The Stage
“Silvia Mercuriali created the future. Just do it. Extraordinary.” Audience member
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Download the app & find out more HERE - National Ear Theatre, to access the show directly from your phone. MERCURIOUS NET is available worldwide.
BOOK HERE.
Jim Lockey | FAUST.US
ONLINE
ACCESSIBLE VIA WEB BROWSER | NOW LIVE
Explore an online interactive story directed by you (the viewer) to uncover a bizarre tale of knowledge, power, and secrets; inspired by the legend of Faust. Combining visuals, text, and recorded audio performance FAUST.US asks for your participation as the story heads to its inevitable conclusion.
Those who complete the whole story will be provided with a link to a PDF download to additional materials to continue the experience. Those who reach the conclusion on March 28, 2021 will also have the opportunity to book a live zoom session with the creator to explore the additional materials.
FIND OUT MORE HERE.
The Scar is the Score: Liberation Through Limitation
…With Lucy Thane of Folkestone dance
11:00 - Warm-up / 11:30 - 1:00 - Sessions| Workshop 1: Limitation | Workshop 2: Liberation
ON ZOOM
Join Lucy for a Tamalpa based drawing, writing movement workshop with prompts for optional drawing and writing in between. Inspired by her journey through physical impairment and pain as she awaits a hip operation in these uncertain times; Lucy has been exploring the physical, mental and emotional gifts, frustrations, and lessons such experiences can give. And she imparts these gifts to us all too via this workshop.
It is recommended but not compulsory to attend both Saturday and Sunday sessions - 1. Limitations 2. Liberation. They balance each other out, but you ought to feel supported by attending either session. Lucy will create worksheets for both sessions so that everyone feels informed.
Find out more about Lucy HERE.
BOOK HERE FOR WORKSHOP ONE / BOOK HERE FOR WORKSHOP TWO
Non-Knowing Walk with Philip Cowell
ON ZOOM
SIGN UP VIA STREET WISDOM WEBSITE TO RECEIVE ZOOM LINK
LIMITED NUMBERS
Join Folkestone-born festival favourite Philip Cowell for an online walk, celebrating Non-Knowing Growing as a way to explore the world around us. Philip will use the renowned Street Wisdom approach to tune us all in to the world around us, exploring new ways of seeing and setting intentions for the rest of the weekend. Take part from wherever you are, using Zoom. If you can participate on your phone while walking outside in a safe way, that's amazing, but you can also feel free to take part from inside your home! Just dial in using the internet or a local phone number and if you’d rather, you’re welcome to join on audio-only. Get in touch if you have any questions!
Find out more about Philip HERE.
BOOK HERE.
(it speaks) by Clare Unsworth - World premiere | followed by Q&A & conversation
ON FACEBOOK, YOUTUBE & WEBSITE HOMEPAGE
We are delighted to be hosting the World Premiere of the first autobiographical short film from Folkestone’s arguably most in-demand filmmaker, Clare Unsworth. (it speaks) is a quiet, meditative film, intimately exploring psychosis, connection and communion with chaos, the universe and the minutiae of everything.
Join us for the screening, followed by a conversation & Q&A between Clare, and other members of our festival community.
Since Normal? Festival of the Brain’s inception, Clare has been documenting the festival, and her work locally has grown to encompass the enabling of so many creatives’ visions. Clare’s prolific output most recently includes Folkestone Book Festival 2020’s ‘Folkestone Reads: Modern Nature’ and ‘a:dress’ made with Leah Thorn.
After her work supporting other creatives, we’re excited to showcase Clare’s solo creative vision.
INSTA TAKEOVER by Jim Lockey
Local artist Jim Lockey takes over our instagram grid for 2 days @normalfestival. Check-in with the feed to watch an unplanned image expand over multiple posts, as Jim investigates the changing speed of social media and the way we consume narrative through it.
Saturday Night Live Art Fever
Every Saturday for 6 weeks
In addition to the Church of the Latter Day Sinners, Stacy also invites you to Saturday Night Live Art Fever!
Stacy believes that creativity is our birth right; it’s not just for the naturally creative. And if we don’t use our creative gifts, it’ll come back and kick our ass! So, if you struggle with perfection and long to belong, boogie-down with Stacy at Saturday Night Live Art Fever!
This is a live art show-and-tell club to help you explore your own creativity. It is a safe space to share and connect with fellow creative spirits. Stacy provides a creative atmosphere that shuns imposter syndrome and welcomes imperfection.
Everyone is welcome, no experience necessary and no requirement to take part – just come along, bring a friend and see what’s happening. Saturday Night Live Art Fever will take place on Zoom. To be part of Saturday Night Live Art Fever you must attend the Church of the Latter Day Sinners the previous week to be provided with creative prompts and the relevant Zoom links.
This series of events is presented as part of Normal? Festival of the Brain.
Saturday Night Live Art Fever has been developed for Future Arts Centres’ Here and Now. Here and Now is a national and local celebration of culture within communities. 40 brand new projects will take place in and around 40 arts centres across the country during 2020-21, led by artists and co-created with local people. The project is supported by Arts Council England and Future Arts Centres, marking The National Lottery’s 25th birthday.
Saturday Night Live Art Fever Sinners is produced by Artsadmin and supported by Live Art Development Agency’s Arthole Award.
Stacy Makishi: Church of the Latter Day Sinners
Every Sunday for 6 weeks
You are invited to a congregation like no other. Join Stacy Makishi for the Church of the Latter Day Sinners and celebrate all your flaws, foibles and f*ck ups.
More mess than messiah, Stacy Makishi makes sermons out of the muck and miracle of being human. Everyone is welcome at this digital Sunday service, as it offers a different kind of communion where people can come together to share joys and sorrows, do uncool dancing and meditate on what being human in 2021 really means. Imperfect people welcome!
Church of the Latter Day Sinners sessions will take place on Zoom. Everyone is welcome, and no experience is necessary – just come along, bring a friend and see what’s happening.
This series of events is presented as part of Normal? Festival of the Brain.
Church of the Latter Day Sinners has been developed for Future Arts Centres’ Here and Now. Here and Now is a national and local celebration of culture within communities. 40 brand new projects will take place in and around 40 arts centres across the country during 2020-21, led by artists and co-created with local people. The project is supported by Arts Council England and Future Arts Centres, marking The National Lottery’s 25th birthday.
Church of the Latter Day Sinners is produced by Artsadmin and supported by Live Art Development Agency’s Arthole Award.
BOOK HERE.
Byron Vincent: FILM - INSTAGRAMMING THE APOCALYPSE | Q&A & DJ SET *Adult Content*
LIVE WATCH PARTY, FOLLOWED BY Q&A & DJ SET - on VIMEO / FACEBOOK LIVE / WEBSITE HOMEPAGE
At 8pm, head over to Normal? Festival of the Brain’s Facebook page, or the Normal? website, to watch Byron Vincent introduce his ground-breaking new film.
After the introduction, it’ll be time to start our Watch Party! Click on this link to watch the screening of Instagramming the
Apocalypse: https://vimeo.com/506113503. The password to watch the film is NORMALFEST.
Following the Watch Party – around 9:15pm - Byron will be in conversation about the film back on Facebook and on the Normal? website. Those watching from Facebook Live can pop questions in the chat and join in the conversation. Then, continuing on Facebook Live and on Normal? fest, Byron will fire up the party by hitting the decks and bringing us some post-apocalyptic tunes to dance along to til 10:30pm.
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In a new film, performer and festival friend Byron Vincent brings the force of his wit and wisdom to shine a spotlight on the post-satire age. Byron has an anxiety disorder – but with dying icons, impending climate catastrophe and that bloke from Home Alone 2 in charge of the world's largest nuclear arsenal, isn’t blind panic the only sane response? It’s a glib, postmodern world in which cynicism is cool, modern life is rubbish and sincerity is for suckers.
As concepts like truth, peace and hope become risible anachronisms, maybe it’s time to re-evaluate our perspective. In a post-satire age, what’s so funny about peace, love, and understanding? This is a premiere screening of a new film developed from the stage show Instagramming the Apocalypse.
Following the Watch Party Byron will be in conversation about the film, with 3 Festival attendees, and all can join in the discussion. Then Byron, who has been making quite a noise with his DJ parties during lockdown, will hit the decks and bring us some tunes to dance along to at home – apocalypse or not.
Byron Vincent is a writer, performer, broadcaster and activist. He also has a diagnosis of PTSD and bipolar disorder. He has been with us since day one of Normal? back in 2015. As a spoken word artist at music and literary festivals, he was picked as one of BBC poetry season’s new talent choices. In more recent years he has turned to theatre, working as a writer, director and performer for the RSC, BAC and other notable acronyms. Now he’s turning to film as a chance to reach even more people than before. Byron is a passionate social activist with lived experience of issues around poverty and mental health. Byron has written and presented for BBC Radio 4 on the social problems arising out of poverty, ghettoization, and mental ill-health.
Most suitable for audiences 16+, contains adult content
LEARN MORE ABOUT BYRON HERE.
BOOK HERE.
DRAWING POWER with poet & artist, Sophie Herxheimer
ON ZOOM
Where do you keep your power?
Is it in your magic running shoes, that take you round the park at dawn?
Is it in knowing that you have a couple of good friends?
Is it in the amazing soup you made for your child when they were sad last week?
Sometimes we feel powerful for a reason, and sometimes it’s hard to say why. Then there are so many times we might feel completely powerless, maybe when life seems extra lonely or difficult and you are in the middle of lockdown number three!
Have you got a particular story of a time when you rose to the occasion and felt powerful? Or of when you had a powerful idea and it worked? Or perhaps it didn’t work!? Artist and poet Sophie Herxheimer will listen to your personal power struggles, triumphs and tales, and draw them for you live in ink, over zoom, in your own personal 20 minute session.
Sophie will use her magic inky drawing power to get something surprising and powerful down on paper for you and about you. Later you will be sent a same size print of your own drawing to keep.
No need to prepare something to say, it’s fun to have the conversation, and see what pictures and words appear...
Find out more about Sophie HERE. TWITTER INSTAGRAM
Slots available 10:00 – 16:30 :
BOOK HERE.
Growing The Stuff Of Thought - Cocktail Hour
FACEBOOK LIVE & WEBSITE HOMEPAGE
Join 4 of the biggest brains, most fun people, and forces for good in cutting edge neuroscience research, writing, and artwork.
We first met artist Charlie Murphy and Professor Selina Wray, when they trialled their now award-winning, ‘Neuronal Disco’ at Normal? Festival a couple of years ago. The following year, we featured Charlie’s ‘Brains in A Dish’ installation, which documented Charlie and science writer Philip Ball’s experience of having a little lump taken from their arms and turned into rudimentary brains, grown in a dish! Philip subsequently wrote the book ‘How to be Human’ as an ‘attempt to make sense of that strange experience and to understand the implications of our new-found power to transform cells.’
Grab a cocktail or a cuppa, and expect our minds to be blown as we hear from Professor Selina Wray telling us about her most recent work using cutting-edge techniques with stem cells to unravel the causes of dementia; Philip Ball shares insights and a reading from ‘How To Grow A Human’; and Charlie Murphy with electronics engineer Robin Bussell discuss their latest responsive artwork Spontaneous Synapses, informed by how their skin cells grew into brains... Then get involved in asking questions and saying what you think – no questions too simple, and all thoughts welcome.
Keep an eye on our social media for Brain Tickler and Teaser cocktail recipes from the team.
The event will be hosted by Normal? co-curators.
Find out more about Philip Ball HERE.
Find out more about ‘Brains in A Dish’ HERE.
Follow Selina Wray’s Twitter HERE. Read “Barnsley’s Selina Wray made a Professor of dementia research” HERE. Read “Meet the Yorkshirewoman growing brain cells in a lab to find a cure for Alzheimer’s” HERE.
Louise Webb | Digital Disconnections - 2020.
Interactive digital artwork
Louise will be creating a digital, interactive and visual artwork, collaborating with sound artist Greg Ireland, to represent the distorted conversations being created by the interference of AI and technology.
Louise’s practice currently explores communication, miscommunication, misinterpretation and mistakes. Through the use of moving images, Louise has been investigating the intimacy of electronic devices and digital hospitality observing how new social histories and fictional realities are being created through shared technologies. She is interested in how these inevitable formats of communication can be used to share collective joy, resistance and hope while being faced with the difficulties of privacy, false news and hidden algorithms. This correlates with her involvement in facilitating workshops inspired by accessible and collective learning.
For Normal? Festival of the Brain, Louise will investigate the isolation of communication devices that can occur in public spaces, and the way everyday AI is changing the way we communicate in person. This has been highlighted by recent events’ reliance on technology to communicate, and how social distancing is changing the way we use space, making us more aware of people in the space we use.
What’s Happening?
Responding to popular geo-tagged locations on Instagram, Louise Webb has created a work which moves around Folkestone’s Harbour Arm. The full film is accessible via a QR Code which can be found on location - viewers are invited to watch the film on their devices whilst walking around the area.
Digital Disconnections comes at a time of social distancing, where we must disconnect to connect. As reliance on technology increases, and inequalities of power are exacerbated, we are asked to pause ‘touch’ and form closer bonds with our screens.
This powerful work highlights the uncomfortable effect digital technology has on our perceptions of public spaces, and the correlation and contrast with a new hyper-awareness we must have now due to the act of social distancing. Louise Webb is interested in the multiple elements involved in experiencing public space now, the need to document, the need to be distracted, and the need to navigate the space.
The sound represents a distorted relationship between the inner voice of a person and the digital narrative created by a phone, particularly highlighting the influence of spell check and how it learns your speech and mimics a person's intimate language.
The full works will be available online for those of us unable to access the walk.
Stacy Makishi | Performance | Post-Performance Session
6th, 13th, 20th December 2020
Performance times: Every half an hour, 11:00-17.30
Duration of each call: 25 minutes
A magical one to one performance over the phone with multi award-winning artist Stacy Makishi. How do we satisfy our longing to touch? How do we continue to make meaningful contact? Will we choose to hold or withhold our love? How can being house-bound set us free?
Homeward (House) Bound offers homemade rituals to help us surf through uncertainty, boredom, re-runs and grief. Mundane encounters with household appliances are suddenly charged with gravity and magic. Familiar actions like opening a window become a moment of transformation; an epiphany along the long road to redemption.
Homeward (House) Bound will set your heart free.
'a performer whose generosity… makes the audience feel uplifted and empowered' - Exeunt Magazine
This is a show about grief and loss so please consider when booking if this may be a trigger for you.
Once you have booked you will be sent a follow up email on the day before your phone call, and this will tell you all the information you need to know. Please ensure your email and phone-number on your booking account are up to date.
This production was originally a New Earth Theatre Homemakers commission in association with HOME, Manchester and is developed for Future Arts Centres’ Here & Now presented as part of Normal? Festival of the Brain. Learn more about Stacy Makishi HERE.
BOOK HERE
December Crafts
From 5th December, join in 12 days of slow making for us all to relax into slowing down for the festive season. Led by the fantastic local artist Susan McKenna and featuring live daily prompts from Susan.
Join Susan live on our Facebook page and here at 2.30pm on Sat 5th December.
The Taxidermist | Live Bookshop Reading
LIVE ON NORMAL? FESTIVAL OF THE BRAIN INSTAGRAM
Shazea Quraishi is a Pakistani-born Canadian poet and translator based in London.
A taxidermist on an artist retreat in Mexico enquires into her artistic impulse and explores the meaning of after-life
who is this for?
what remains of us?
The poems in this book-length sequence play with form and investigate the boundaries of poetry and prose. Enquiry is at the centre of my work as a Living Words artist, poet and educator. I am interested in the idea of Negative Capability, which Keats spoke of in reference to craft and art, as “being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts, without... reaching after fact and reason.”
Touch Workshop | Avni
ONLINE WORKSHOP | 1400 - 1530
Avni Trivedi is an experienced and intuitive practitioner using touch and movement to help people to connect with their bodily wisdom. She is a Women’s Health and Paediatric Osteopath, Birth Doula, Zero Balancer and Non-Linear Movement Teacher. Her podcast, Speak From the Body’ explores themes such as embodiment, stress, trauma, hormones and pleasure. Avni runs regular workshops called ‘Moving Through Loss’ to gently address grief in the body.
This workshop will connect you to your body, exploring reaction, sensitivities and connection to touch.
USEFUL LINKS
Speak From the Body Podcast | Website | Instagram | Twitter
BOOK HERE.
Normal? Salon exploring poetry and ‘negative capability’
Live on our FACEBOOK page to interact, or on this website’s HOME page to simply view.
Come along to our festival salon session, with poets Shazea Quraishi & Sophie Herxheimer in conversation with Folkestone’s Poets Corner.
Exploring the notion of Growing V Knowing from the poet’s perspective, the poets will share their creativity and writing practices, and the need for a poet to create within uncertainty.
Bloodaxe poet Shazea is interested in the idea of ‘Negative Capability', which Keats spoke of in reference to craft and art, as “being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without… reaching after fact and reason.” Her brand new pamphlet ‘The Taxidermist,’ explores process of creation, while playing with form and investigating the boundaries of poetry and prose. FIND OUT MORE ABOUT SHAZEA HERE.
Sophie Herxheimer is interested in the impulse and channelling needed to connect and birth both poetry and drawing. Sophie is a prolific artist, her work includes the award winning ‘Velkom To Inklandt’, ‘60 Lovers To Make and Do’ and ‘The Practical Visionary’. FIND OUT MORE ABOUT SOPHIE HERE.
Folkestone’s Poet’s Corner are Faith Warn, Dave Horn and Anthony B. Together they curate and organise poetry events across Folkestone, encouraging others to write, share and publish, as well as building up their own work.
Non Knowing Growing
View LIVE on our Facebook page or on this website’s home page
Join author of The Overweight Brain and co-founder of the East Side Institute, the NYC-based home of social therapeutics, Lois Holzman, in conversation to explore the value of 'non-knowing growing'. Being in the world as a knower keeps us stuck. It constrains creativity and risk taking, keeps us small, stops us from learning new things, and stifles our capacity to create new possibilities for ourselves, families, communities and the entire world. Come along to listen, question and discuss as Lois shares her thoughts and findings from a four decade career working in psycho-social interventions & community organising the world over.
At this time, right now, we are in a fight for humanity. We are living in such uncertainty, being confused by fictions and truths, and questioning everything. It can become way too easy to get stuck in our heads and not connect to those around us.
FIND OUT MORE ABOUT LOIS HERE.