24 Hour International Theatre, Live Art, Dance and More Set for NIGHT WATCH at Cambridge Junction, Today-15

Night Watch is a new 24-hour long, non-stop marathon of cutting edge unusual and experimental contemporary theatre, dance, live art, cabaret, installation, music, food...and football coming to Cambridge Junction in June, running from noon on Saturday 14 to noon on Sunday 15.

Picking up where SAMPLED Festival (the venue's previous highly regarded annual weekend of performance) left off, Night Watch goes nocturnal and condenses enough shows for a whole season into just 24 intense hours. Simultaneous performances will take place throughout the day and night in every nook and cranny of the venue. There are highlights aplenty as durational performances, short interventions and installations run alongside hand-picked stage shows.

Cambridge Junction is renowned as a venue that takes chances, gives artists a space to experiment and as a hotbed of creativity. Night Watch continues and develops this tradition, inviting the audience to really immerse themselves in a full day and night of thought provoking activity as artists from three continents prepare to excite, entertain, shock and challenge the senses.

Arts Producer Daniel Pitt commented 'We like to think of Night Watch as the theatre equivalent of an all night club (which the venue is also famous for), and an experiment in how we can create a festival that's a unique event in itself. Performers of all styles will create unusual experiences in every corner of the building, and the audience can drop in and out as the mood takes them. I'm especially excited that we are presenting the only UK performance of infamous New York performance artist Ann Liv Young's new show in a programme that ranges in length from a few minutes to 24 hours, for audiences ranging in size from one to our full theatre'.

In Us, provocative American Ann Liv Young takes the saccharine sweet, family friendly tone of 60s and 70s light entertainment and variety shows to saturate the audience with an overkill of campy 'folk' tunes and forced banter. With artist Kevin Wratten she will perform songs, one-liners, stale jokes and improvised repartee leading up to a surprise finale that will have the audience "in stitches". Previous works have included moments in which she has rolled around in her dog's ashes, had sex with her co-stars, covered herself in blood, drank urine and attacked a PETA activist. Always brave, always controversial and always utterly original.

Australian former footballer and choreographer Ahilan Ratnamohan opens proceedings with the UK premiere of his football themed dance piece SDS1, before he takes the follow up to LIFT the following weekend. From the same country Sarah Rodigari brings another UK premiere; a 4 hour nocturnal piece toasting the people of Cambridge. Her UK premier of A Filibuster of Dreams offers people the chance to make their own dedication for whatever reason in an orgy of gratitude, love, loss, honour and unwavering hope.

There's also more football as art when England's World Cup encounter against Italy is screened live, accompanied by a specially comissioned one-off live art commentary from Richard DeDomenici and Kim Noble. Match of the Day will never seem the same again.

Slap Talk is male/female live art duo Action Hero's 5 hour durational feast of insults, hurled at each other via autocue. Inspired by the self-aggrandising of boxers at a pre-fight weigh in, Slap Talk is a reflection on the violence present in everyday language.

Christopher Brett Bailey's This Is How We Die is a spiralling odyssey of pitch-black humour and nightmarish prose. Savage, surreal, hypnotic and apocalyptic, This Is How We Die blends spoken word, storytelling, caustic humour and gutter philosophy into a dizzying exorcism of a world that is convinced it is dying.

Co-commissioned with Camden People's Theatre's SPRINT, Ipswich's PULSE and Bristol's MAYFEST Search Party's My Son and Heir is an anarchic celebration of the everyday heroism of parenthood. Set amongst a never-ending mess of plastic, flashing-beeping, bubble-blowing chaos this is a playful examination of the relentlessness of raising children, and the guilt-ridden one-upmanship of mainstream baby culture.

Your comperes for the event are the mischievably ground-breaking GETINTHEBACKOFTHEVAN creating their longest durational performance yet: the full 24 hours of introductions, welcomes and entertainment between shows.

The bar will be open all night and there will be a selection of food stalls serving around the clock including Cambridge favourites Steak and Honour and Urban Street Kings. The venue's iconic gig space will be transformed into a soft sleeping space with mattresses - just bring your own sleeping bag and your toothbrush.

Tickets are available now, £24 for the full 24 hour event or £18 each for either just the day or night shift (noon - midnight or midnight - noon). 24 hour and night shift tickets include breakfast. For more information, visit www.junction.co.uk/artist/6154.

DETAILS:

Sat/Sun 14/15 June noon - noon

Night Watch

All day/night marathon of the best in contemporary theatre, dance, live art, installation, music, food ... and football!

Cambridge Junction, Clifton Way, Cambridge, CB1 7GX 01223 511 511 www.junction.co.uk

PERFORMER LIST:

ACTION HERO: Slap Talk

Five hour argument to camera, reflecting the violence present in everyday language

CHRISTOPHER BRETT BAILEY: This Is How We Die

Motor-mouthed collage of spoken word, story telling and black humour

JO BANNON: Exposure

Intimate one to one performance, tender and tentatively asking how fully we can reveal ourselves

NIGEL BARRETT AND LOUISE MARI: A Conversation

Instruction on how to mingle and converse with one another, essential to survive the 24 hour experience

JOHN BOURSNELL: Writer in Residence

Unique written response to the work at Night Watch, at the end of the 24 hours short zine will be published

HESTER CHILLINGWORTH:

New installation, making the building itself 'perform', from Artistic Director of GETINTHEBACKOFTHEVAN

RICHARD DEDOMENICI & KIM NOBLE: England v Italy

One-off live art commentary to accompany England's opening world cup match, which will be screened live

FIGS IN WIGS: We, Object

Absurdist amalgamation of visual puns, wordplay and dance dealing with objects, objectification and objection

SHEILA GHELANI: Rambles with Nature

Four film works based on the humble English hedgerow and two site specific rambles (one at sunset, one at sunrise)

SUSANNAH HEWLETT: Lottery

24 hour long sound installation

LIVE ART LOCK IN: Through The Early Hours

Chaotic cabaret styled show of the unusual and the subversive

PANIC LAB: Throb

Dance piece from choreographer and performance maker Joseph Mercier

DEBORAH PEARSON: The Future Show

A thoughtful end to a festival bringing the audience together, watching and sleeping throughout the night. (The show

is re-written each time it is performed. 'The Future' will be written in public on the Saturday)

AHILAN RATNAMOHAN (Australia/Belgium): SDS1

Solo dance work exploring the game of football as an art form and a psychological journey

SARAH RODIGARI (Australia): A Filibuster Of Dreams

Four-hour durational performance through the early hours of the night. A toast to everyone in the phone book

SEARCH PARTY: My Son And Heir

Anarchic celebration of the everyday heroism of parenthood

SLEEPWALK COLLECTIVE (Spain/UK): Karaoke

Deadpan vapid performance about love & rockets for 2 performers and an autocue

THEATRESTATE

Childhood evoking sleepover for one in a tent

THE ANNA WILLIAMS TRUST: Woman's Hour

A relaxed morning of dance to recorded, but unlistened to, episode of BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour

ANN LIV YOUNG (USA): Us

Songs, one-liners, stale jokes and improvised repartee in provocative show based on 60s and 70s light entertainment and variety

SHINDIG

Three doses of live music bordering on performance art from local Cambridge promoter Louise Orwin and Amy Lord: Breakfast With LEMONADE AND LAUGHING GAS

Breakfast for the body and soul, an unusually colourful and coloured communal performance meal.

Souvenir badge artwork from LOW PROFILE for those who make it to the end of the festival

Compered By LUCY AND JEN, GETINTHEBACKOFTHEVAN

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