REVOLUTION17
CAFÉS - 2013
The Dash Café with Radio Gagarin present: Necrorealism
4th December 2013 | Rich Mix, London
In darkest December the Dash Cafe conspired with Radio Gagarin to bring you, literally, a night to die for.
We explored all things deathly with an evening inspired by St. Petersburg's underground enfant terrible: Necrorealism. An exquisitely disturbing selection of films was screened, followed by a conversation on Death with necro-experts and aficionados:
Chaired by Founding Joint Artistic Director Tim Supple with:
Ivan Gololobov: Doctor of Philosophy, Associate Research Fellow, Department of Sociology, University of Warwick
Alexander Kan: Arts and Culture Correspondent for the BBC World Service
Inese Strupule: Founder and editor in chief of Obskura Soviet cinema club and portal www.obskura.co.uk
After the discussion songs of death, decadence and decapitation rung out from the banjolele-wielding bard Nigel Burch, accompanied by his Flea-Pit Orchestra: Dylan Bates the fragrant fiddler and the infernal double-bassist Richard Lee
DJ Mourrka: London's only Russian gangster cat closed the night playing her finest selection of soul-destroying melodies which made out hearts weep andour feet skip.
The Dash Café and Pushkin House present Russian on the International Stage
6th November 2013 | Rich Mix, London
Looking ahead to 2014's much feted UK/Russia Year of Culture, we held a discussion on Russian Culture on the International Stage with music impresario Olga Balakleets, journalist Peter Pomeranzev and London-based Russian artist Alexei Blinov chaired by Dash Arts' artistic director Josephine Burton plus London-based troubadour Sasha Ilyukevich and his British band ‘The Highly Skilled Migrants’ created an incomparable brew of post punk electric energy and folk lyricism.
About our Guests
Olga Balakleets
Born in the south of Russia and trained from an early age as a professional pianist, Olga has studied at the prestigious St. Petersburg Conservatory and later as a postgraduate at the Royal College of Music, performing as a soloist with many world famous orchestras, including the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra, and Belorussian State Orchestra. She founded Ensemble Productions in 1998, producing events including Russian Festival Maslenitsa on Trafalgar Square 2011-2013 and a series of ballet galas - Russian Ballet Icons Galas (2006 - 2013) at the Royal Opera House.
Olga acts as an adviser on cultural matters to various governments and Ministries of Culture and works closely with the Mayor of London, British Parliament, Russian State Duma and Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation. Olga has been an Artistic Director of the British-Russian Cultural Association, and is now the Head of the Culture and Governmental Communications Session of the Russian Speaking Council in the UK. For her services to Russia she has been given a number of prestigious awards including a Special Medal from President Medvedev (September 2010) and an Order "For the Services to the Fatherhood" of St. Prince Dmitry Donskoi and St. Sergey Radonezhsky" (December 2010). In October 2013 she was awarded by the Russian Union of Merchants and Industrialists an Order “For the Glory of Motherland”.
Peter Pomeranzev
Peter Pomerantsev is a British author and documentary producer. His writing on Russia features regularly in the London Review of Books, Newsweek/Daily Beast, openDemocracy, Le Monde Diplomatique and other European and US publications. He has also worked as a consultant on EU and World Bank development projects in the former USSR. He is the winner of the SOPA (Society of Press in Asia) award for writing about Mongolia and was a fellow of the 'Russia in Global Dialogue' programme at the Institut für die Wissenschaften vom Menschen (IWM) in Vienna. His first book on society and politics in 21st Century Russia will be published by Faber in 2013.
Alexei Blinov
Alexei Blinov was born 1964 in Russia and is a London-based electronic engineer and new media artist. He was trained as a doctor before moving to the UK. In the early 1990s he specialised in large scale high quality laser projections. Since the late 1990s he has produced a wide variety of interactive audio-visual installations. Over the past few years, he has been the creative force behind many interactive audio-visual art projects in the UK. As founder of experimental new media organisation "Raylab" he has collaborated with a number of creative artists including Jamie Reid. Since 1997 Alexei has worked mainly in the UK creating interactive audio-visual installations at a number of important art galleries including the ICA and the Barbican Art Centre, London.
Sasha and the Highly Skilled Migrants
London-based Belarusian troubadour Sasha Ilyukevich and his British band ‘The Highly Skilled Migrants’ create an incomparable brew of post punk electric energy and folk lyricism. This is one of those rare bands, which transcends their inspirations to create powerful and original music of its own, ‘Belarusian Rock ’n’ Roll’. Ilyukevich sings in Russian, his lyrics play on images from Eastern Slavic Folklore and Russian Literature, the characters of his songs, brimming with satirical and provocative mischief. His vocals swoop from soft whispered melodies to raucous screams, defying language barriers to deliver songs that are uplifting, intelligent, macabre, romantic and melancholic.
Founded in the 1950s, Pushkin House has become the leading centre for showcasing Russian culture in London. With a focus on Anglo-Russian exchange, Pushkin House provides education and information, events and a centre for networking by individuals and institutions interested and involvement in Russian culture and its place within British society. www.pushkinhouse.org
The Dash Café and The British Georgian Society present 'My Grandmother'
2nd October 2013 | Rich Mix, London
Imagine Harold Lloyd starring in Terry Gilliam's BRAZIL and you'll start to get an idea of what MY GRANDMOTHER is like. --imdb.com
As part of the 3rd British Georgian Society Film Festival we were thrilled to present this fascinating film with live accompaniment.
MY GRANDMOTHER (1929) is a Soviet Georgian silent film by director Kote Mikaberidze. It was banned upon release and the director banished to Siberia by the Soviet Regime for its anti-bureaucratic content.
Forgotten for a half-century, Kote Mikaberidze’s MY GRANDMOTHER (CHEMI BEBIA/1929) is a delightful example of the Soviet Eccentric Cinema movement as well as an irreverent satire of the then still-young Soviet State system. Noted for its anarchic styles—which include stop-motion, puppetry, exaggerated camera angles, animation and constructivist sets—the film unspools the foibles and follies that abound when a Georgian paper pusher, modelled on American silent comic Harold Lloyd, loses his job.
Along with the British Georgian Society, we welcomed Reso Kiknadze and the Reso Kiknadze trio who performed their new score for this wonderful film.
Reso Kiknadze performs all over the world both as saxophone-player and computer musician in various forms of jazz, contemporary music and free improvisation. He is a composer and co-author of many projects collaborating with dance, visual arts, poetry, theatre and cinema. Reso is currently professor for Electroacoustic Music at the Ilia State University in Tbilisi, Georgia since 2008 and rector of the Tbilisi State Conservatoire since 2011. His film work includes Gzajvaredini (Crossroad) 1991 dir. Levan Kitia, Khakhvis cremlebi (Onion Tears) 2002 dir, Levan Glonti - shown at the BGS Georgian Film Festival 2005, Shin da ukan (Home And Back) 2004 dir. Levan Glonti, Das Elternhaus (Parents’ House) 2005 dir. Hening Timm, Guchis dgheebi (Street Days) 2010 dir. Levan Koguashvili (which opened the 2nd BGS Georgian Film Festival) and Jim Shvanthe (Salt for Svaneti) 1930, dir. Mikhail Kalatozov - Reso's 2010 score had it's World premiere at the 2nd BGS Film Festival.
The Dash Café with Russian Revels present a Pop-Up Siberian Canteen
4th September 2013 | Rich Mix, London
We teamed up with theatrical chefs Katrina and Karina from Russian Revels to bring you an entirely unique Soviet Dining Experience.
We transformed the main space at Rich Mix into a Soviet Factory Canteen. Our audience were treated to a feast for all the senses with the evening hosted by esteemed Factory Director DJ Max Reinhardt and with fantastic live music from Elena Dana and Igor Outkine.
This was a night to forget the worker blues and celebrate some Russian hospitality.
Our workers dined on the freshest Siberian dishes such as:
home-made pelmeni (dumplings) with free-range pork and juicy beef
Ode to a Buterbrod’
(open sandwiches with such toppings as aromatic sprats, potato and caraway bread with roasted garlic, Kamchatka crab and sweet cucumber pickle)
Siberian pinenuts, cowberries and condensed milk Mess
Katrina and Karina from Russian Revels are two Russians who want to revolutionise the image of Russian food, by serving light, luscious and sexy Slavic dishes at characterful venues across London. Check out their website for their next culinary adventures www.russianrevels.co.uk
You can see images and film clips from our Dash Cafes on our Facebook page.
The Dash Café with the British Georgian Society
Film screening of “Lucky Village”
3rd July 2013 | Rich Mix, London
The Dash Café presented this special event in partnership with the British Georgian Society: a rare screening of the fascinating 1993 Georgian film “Lucky Village”, directed by
Giorgi Levashov-Tumanishvili and starring Tim Pigott-Smith, Zurab Kipshidze and Shota Kristeshasvili.
The ward of the Narcotics Unit of the Tbilisi mental hospital, Georgia, is an unexpected safe haven
from the civil war which rages beyond the bars and walls of the hospital. A new patient is admitted - a middle-aged alcoholic. As a voluntary inmate of ’Lucky Village’ he pieces together the fragments of his childhood in the streets of Stalin's Georgia. Into this world arrives Michael, a British diplomat, with the DTs. “Lucky Village” began filming in Georgia in May 1991 and was completed in extraordinary conditions of counter-revolution and imperial collapse, military take-over and civil war.
The screening was accompanied by a Q&A with Marina Tsitsishvilli, co-producer of Lucky Village.
The Maspindzeli Choir preceeded the film and sung songs from the ancient polyphonic tradition of Georgia.
The Dash Café, in partnership with English PEN and the PEN Atlas and the British Ukrainian Society, presents a literary evening with Oksana Zabuzhko
5th June 2013 | Rich Mix, London
We brought famed Ukrainian author Oksana Zabuzhko to London, for this event in collaboration with English PEN, to discuss her latest novel The Museum of Abandoned Secrets (English translation by Nina Shevchuk-Murray, published by AmazonCrossing, October 2012).
Spanning sixty tumultuous years of Ukrainian history, this multigenerational saga weaves a dramatic and intricate web of love, sex, friendship, and death. At its centre: three women linked by the abandoned secrets of the past—secrets that refuse to remain hidden. From the dim days of World War II to the eve of Orange Revolution, The Museum of Abandoned Secrets is an “epic of enlightening force” that explores the enduring power of the dead over the living.
Oksana participated in a panel discussion with Igor Pomerantsev and Dr Andrew Wilson: exploring the historical and politicial context of modern Ukrainian literature, and the role of fiction writers in determining the country’s contemporary identity.
Oksana Zabuzhko is Ukraine’s leading contemporary author. She has worked as a Research Associate for the Institute of Philosophy of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences, lectured in the US on Ukrainian culture (at Penn State University, 1992, Harvard University, and University of Pittsburgh, 1994), and worked as a columnist for some of the Ukraine's major journals. Her 1996 novel Field Work in Ukrainian Sex was described as “the most influential Ukrainian book for the 15 years of independence”.
Poet and writer Igor Pomerantsev was born in 1948 in Saratov, and grew up in Ukraine. In 1970 he graduated from the Faculty of Philology at Chernovtsy State University. He emigrated to Germany in 1978. He has worked for the BBC Russian Service, and for Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty as a broadcaster and presenter of Russian cultural programme “Above the Barriers”. He is the prize-winning author of numerous books of fiction, non-fiction and poetry, which have been published in Russian and in translation, and has been a guest at the International Writers' Festival in Prague.
Dr Andrew Wilson is senior Lecturer in Ukrainian Studies at SSEES, UCL. He has written extensively on politics and culture in independent Ukraine, and on the comparative politics of post-Soviet democracy, particularly its corruption by so-called 'political technology'. Recent publications include Ukraine's Orange Revolution (Yale University Press 2005); Virtual Politics: Faking Democracy in the Post-Soviet World (Yale University Press 2005); and The Ukrainians: Unexpected Nation (Yale University Press 2000, revised paperback edition 2002).
This Café also featured music from Ukrainian performer and composer Olesya Zdorovetska, whose deep love of musical expression transcends genre and style. Recent solo projects include explorations of traditional music from her native Ukraine, investigations of Spanish poetry from the Middle Ages to the Twentieth Century, and ‘Texts for Nothing’, based on the work of Samuel Beckett. Collaboratively, she sings with celebrated Salsa band ‘Dislocados’ and electro-acoustic chamber ensemble, Sefiroth Ensemble.
English PEN is the founding centre of a global literary network. They work to defend and promote free expression, and to remove barriers to literature.
The PEN Atlas, a project of English PEN, acts as a gateway to a world of literature, posting weekly literary dispatches from around the world and showcasing the very best international writers.
A not-for-profit organisation, the British Ukrainian Society seeks to raise the profile of Ukraine in Great Britain and strengthen relations at all levels between the United Kingdom and Ukraine. It provides a network for people from both countries to interact and cooperate.
Photos and video clips from the event can be seen on our Facebook page.
The Dash Café – A Rocking Live Gig with Abdelkader Saadoun and Band
30 May 2013 | Rich Mix, London
The Dash Café presented the second of two special events in partnership with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, to mark their new focus on the countries of the southern and eastern Mediterranean including Egypt, Jordan, Morocco and Tunisia.
This event took place at the EBRD’s headquarters at One Exchange Square, London EC2A 2JN.
Following our screening in March of the tender, funny, quietly revolutionary Egyptian film ‘Microphone’, we presented a live concert from one of the most celebrated names in modern North African roots music, Abdelkader Saadoun. Abdelkader led his band of musicians, who hail from across the countries of the southern Mediterranean, in a dynamic musical journey through the traditional and modern sounds of their homelands. This show presented a narrative of the origins of the diverse musical traditions of the region, and their evolution and resonances in the modern day.
Algerian-born Abdelkader Saadoun is a renowned master of RAI music – which originates from traditional Algerian music (Chaabi, Kabil, and Chawia) and also encompasses Pop, Jazz, Funk, Rock, Reggae, Fusion, and Blues. Based in London, he is a formidable band leader with a great track record in bringing together musicians from diverse cultures to create dynamic live gigs which combine these different musical stylings to extraordinary effect.
The Dash Café with Radio Gagarin
1 May 2013 | Rich Mix, London
This café had experimental nomadic arts pioneers Radio Gagarin follow the previous year’sfestive Gagarin special, which featured live music, film and performance art all with a decidedly feminist spin.
We united with Radio Gagarin for an eclectic evening of post-Soviet sounds – featuring music and experimental audio performance from concretist/electronic music collective Langham Research Centre; a roof-raising live set from “Belarusian Rock’n’Roll” band Sasha Ilyukevich and The Highly Skilled Migrants; and a DJ set from Max Reinhardt.
Langham Research Centre are a British musique concrete group who give authentic performances of classic electronic music, and compose new music from an instrumentarium of vintage analogue devices. Founded in 2003, LRC employ open-reel tapes, oscillators and homemade instruments to conjure an extraordinary soundworld. Their performance for the Dash Café featured a selection of archive Belarusian electronic music, together with new material inspired by Radio Moscow; re-mixed versions of Soviet military music and Communist party speeches; and new soundscapes which draw on secret Soviet coded messages and space transmissions.
London-based troubadour Sasha Ilyukevich and his British band ‘The Highly Skilled Migrants’ create an incomparable brew of post punk electric energy and folk lyricism. Sasha’s rebellious single ‘KOLYA’, rocks against the repression in his home country Belarus. This is one of those rare bands that transcends its inspirations to create powerful and original music of its own, ‘Belarusian Rock ’n’ Roll’.
Growing up behind the iron curtain, Sasha Ilyukevich later settled in the UK and his songs explore the contrast between the climate of repression in Belarus and the greater possibilities for the individual in the West.
Sasha Ilyukevich and 'The Highly Skilled Migrants' are currently touring with the film 'The Nonsense Express', which documents their eye-opening recent tour of Russia and Belarus.
Max Reinhardt is one of the regular presenters on that voyage into uncharted waters that is Radio 3's Late Junction. He has been known to crop up on the BBC World Service intermittently, also as music consultant/co-scriptwriter on Radio 2's South African music series Freedom Sounds, and has featured in a Radio 4 documentary on his theatre piece 'Ketubah'. In summer 2009 Max curated the huge Late Night Radio Event at Tate Britain, and he worked on a commission for the 2010 Spitalfields Festival.
Radio Gagarin is an occasional, travelling, Eastern-European, supra-socialist club night in London.
The Dash Café: Oliver Bullough in conversation with Orlando Figes
3rd April 2013 | Rich Mix, London
Dash Arts presented an evening of literature and conversation, to celebrate the publication of Oliver Bullough’s much-anticipated new non-fiction work, The Last Man in Russia, and to bring Oliver together with one of the leading historians of the Soviet Union, Orlando Figes.
From Oliver Bullough, the acclaimed author of the Orwell Prize-shortlisted Let Our Fame Be Great, came a new study - part travelogue, part political analysis - of a nation in crisis.
In the 1960s, while the Soviet Union was building 'heaven on earth', the Russian nation began to drink itself to death. For a while, government income from vodka surpassed their income from oil. Fifty years later, with the Soviet state dismantled, this is still a country where Muscovites might drink a bottle of vodka before breakfast and demographers look with astonishment as the population of the world's largest country continues to fall, far beyond the rate of decline in the West.
In The Last Man in Russia, award-winning writer Bullough uses the life of Father Dmitry, an extraordinary Orthodox priest, to find out why. Through diaries and sermons Bullough reconstructs the world he experienced: famine, occupation, war, the frozen wastes of the Gulag, the collapse of communism and the giddy excesses that followed it. While the story of Russia's self-destruction is shrouded in secrecy and denial, Dmitry's words give an insight into life in a totalitarian state, unmediated and raw, exposing the spiritual sickness at the heart of the country's long communist experiment.
Oliver Bullough read extracts from the book and was joined in a panel conversation with celebrated writer and historian Orlando Figes, whose works on Russia include Just Send Me Word: A True Story of Love and Survival in the Gulag, The Whisperers: Private Life in Stalin's Russia,Natasha's Dance: A Cultural History of Russia, and the prize-winning A People's Tragedy: The Russian Revolution, 1891-1924. The talk was chaired by Dash Arts’ co- Director Tim Supple and discussed themes arising from both authors’ work: the act of reconstructing history from personal testimony and memory, alcoholism in contemporary culture, the impact of totalitarian government on private life and the political landscape of Russia today.
The evening also featured music from the Kibbitz Ensemble, with acclaimed Ukrainian songstress Iryna Muha on vocals, guitar and hurdy-gurdy, and Abel Chaude on accordion. Kibbitz are a folk ensemble playing Ukrainian, Russian, Serbian, French, and Bulgarian traditional melodies; firing Klezmer tunes and borderless Gypsy music.
The Dash Café with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development: Film screening: Microphone (2010)
7th March 2013 | Rich Mix, London
The Dash Café presented the first of two special events in partnership with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, to mark their new focus on the countries of the southern and eastern Mediterranean including Egypt, Jordan, Morocco and Tunisia.
A free screening of celebrated Egyptian film “Microphone”:
When Khaled (Khaled Abol Naga) returns to his native Alexandria after years of travel he finds a much-changed city. Khaled tries to restore ties with both his father and his former lover but soon realises that his efforts are in vain. While walking the streets of Alexandria, he stumbles across the underground art scene with its street musicians, skateboarders and graffiti artists. It’s not long before their story intertwines with Khaled’s and he discovers himself once again through the world of art and music.
“Microphone” was the second feature film by Egyptian film director, editor and screen writer Ahmad Abdalla. The film had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival 2010 and has since received many international awards including the Golden Tulip from the Istanbul International Film Festival in 2011, the Best Arabic-language film Award from the Cairo International Film Festival 2010 and the Tanit d'Or from Journées Cinématographiques de Carthage 2010.
“Thought-provoking … an insight into the life of Alexandrian youth struggling to sing, perform and create art without the support and approval of the state. … the film has a great and varied soundtrack of rap, hip-hop, rock and oriental vibes.” Arab British Centre
“Microphone is a bold and often engagingly freewheeling attempt to focus on modern-day subculture in Alexandria, looking at how young rappers, rockers and graffiti artists live alongside the more traditional aspects of this bustling Egyptian city.” ScreenDaily
This screening was followed by Q&A session with the director.
Film screening: How To Re-Establish a Vodka Empire
With music from Iryna Muha and the Kibbitz Ensemble
6th March 2013 | Rich Mix, London
The Dash Café presented an exclusive screening of the offbeat autobiographical documentary How To Re-Establish a Vodka Empire. The film charts the journey of film director Daniel Edelstyn as he tracks down his long lost Jewish Ukrainian heritage and then attempts to relaunch his great grandfather’s once glorious vodka empire.
Distinctive, funny and illuminating, the film constitutes a whirlwind journey through European and post-Soviet times and spaces. The story has it all, revolution and romance, exile and entrepreneurship, and at its heart lies a life changing discovery of a vodka distillery in Ukraine.
"A barnstorming tale of vodka and revolution” BBC Radio
"A tender, extraordinary underdog tale filled with humor, fear and above all, spirit. A heady delight of a documentary that will warm your cockles." *** Empire Magazine
The screening will be followed by a Q&A with Daniel Edelstyn, chaired by Dash Arts' co-Artistic Director Josephine Burton.
The evening also featured music from acclaimed Ukrainian songstress Iryna Muha, playing in dynamic trio The Kibbitz Ensemble. Kibbitz are a folk ensemble playing Ukrainian, Russian, Serbian, French, and Bulgarian traditional melodies; firing Klezmer tunes and borderless Gypsy music.
The Kibbitz Ensemble are:
Abel Chaude – clarinet, accordion (France)
Melina Saxena – soprano saxophone (Norway)
Iryna Muha – double bass, hurdy-gurdy, vocals (Ukraine)
Music and Film from Pop-Up Circus
6th February 2013 | Rich Mix, London
The Dash Café presented a night of music and film with Pop-Up Circus. The evening will be a mix of contemporary and traditional music and short films from Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Russia, and other former Soviet Union states. Featuring a new musical ensemble comprising Aisha Orazbayeva on violin, Gregor Riddell on cello, Kit Downes on keyboards and Simon Roth on drums and percussion.
Pop-Up Circus is a multi-disciplinary platform for artistic things happening now. They promote and stage music, art, film, theatre, writing, food and photography in traditional and non-traditional venues throughout London.
The Dash Café with the Open Society Foundations: Celebrating Muslim Cultures Across Europe
31st January 2013 | Rich Mix, London
The Dash Café presented an evening of film and music, celebrating the cultural diversity of Europe's Muslim communities. This event was in partnership with the Open Society Foundations – to celebrate their At Home In Europe Project, which explores the diverse experiences of Muslim communities throughout Europe.
We proudly presented, courtesy of Pathé International, an exclusive screening of acclaimed French film Hold Back (Rengaine). Directed by Rachid Djaïdani, the film thrilled audiences at Cannes and the London Film Festival last year. Set in modern-day Paris, it tells the story of Dorcy, a young Christian black man, who wants to marry Sabrina, a young Arab girl. It would be simple and easy if she didn’t have forty brothers, and if this carefree proposal didn’t raise all the taboos still heavily anchored in both communities. Slimane, the elder brother of Sabrina’s family and keeper of the traditions, will try to oppose their union by any means necessary.
A fearless, funny and provocative film, whose dynamic camerawork and editing bring alive the diverse and bustling back-streets of Paris, and carry the audience along from start to finish.
Winner of the Cineuropa Award, Lisbon & Estoril Film Festival 2012, and of the “Prix Nice Time” for best feature film in competition, Festival Tous Ecrans, Geneva, 2012.
“Brisk and brash, the latest twist on well-worn Romeo and Juliet/West Side Story themes has an irresistibly youthful zest that easily transcends and justifies the rough edges of its unvarnished approach. … It's a deceptively smart take on hot-button racial issues”
Neil Young, Hollywood Reporter
This Café also sees the return of two bands who have taken the Dash Café by storm in the past: the Yaz Fentazi Trio and Abdelkader Saadoun. Yaz Fentazi has previously fronted the Fantazia Duo who were the Dash Café’s regular house band during our Arabic Series from 2010-2012: now returning in the form of a trio, he and his band play a breathtakingly rootsy blend of Gnawa, Chaabi and Dance which draws on the vibrant rhythms and rich musical tradition of North Africa. Abdelkader Saadoun is known as the “King of Rai”: he and his band play the dynamic and danceable sound of Rai, which is rooted in the fast rhythms of traditional Algerian music and also encompasses Pop, Jazz, Funk, Salsa, Rock, Fusion and Blues.