Navigators Art are going underground for experimental Basement show of left-field music, words & performance on Sunday

Wire Worms: Performing their “Doom Folk” music at YO Underground on Sunday at The Basement

YORK arts collective Navigators Art will play host to its second YO Underground experimental night on Sunday at The Basement, City Screen Picturehouse, York.

This weekend’s performance showcase will be feature Wire Worms, the Leeds Doom Folk five-piece, whose dark, folk-rooted but boundary-stretching debut album, The First To Come In, explores weird, supernatural and experimental notions, inspired by the traditions of Mumming and Guising found throughout the British Isles.

On the 6pm to 9pm bill too will be Fin O’Hare, who improvises with DIY mechanical devices and repurposed and recycled objects; Some Crew musician Si Micklethwaite; storyteller Lara McClure; Bobby Olley, Muttley and NDE Poetry. For tickets, go to: bit.ly/nav-YOU2.

“The YO Underground title is apt, not only because our venue is The Basement at City Screen Picturehouse,” says Navigators Art co-founder Richard Kitchen. “The format will be familiar from the group’s popular Basement Sessions but features original music, spoken word and comedy with a more experimental edge than usual.

Navigators Art’s poster artwork for YO Underground’s second night of live and left-field music, words and performance

“It’s a platform for local and regional performers whose work may wander off the beaten track but definitely deserves an audience. New and emerging artists will have equal billing with more established names.”

The first YO Underground bill on March 15 presented Say Owt Slam winner and Newcastle stand-up poet Cooper Robson; Leeds Conservatoire performance artist and writer Carrieanne Vivianette; inspiring young poet Oliver Lewis; University of York champion beatboxer Cast; genre-crossing psych-folk musical duo Gorgo, from York St John University,  and internationally renowned singer Loré Lixenberg.

“I first met Cooper at a Howlers open-mic night at the Blue Boar in York and he’s become extremely popular with his in-your-face style of performing,” says Richard. “It was a real coup to get Loré Lixenberg to do something so informal. That was major news for us.

“People were knocked out by the show, seeing performers trying out something different. What I liked was that it was very much a  platform for performers to experiment with something they might not have done elsewhere.

Bobby Olley: York poet and songwriter taking part in YO Underground on Sunday

“It’s a bit of a departure from the Basement Sessions, our music, comedy and spoken-word venture, which is doing fine and we’ll continue with that series, but it becomes more difficult to find new acts that haven’t been booked in elsewhere already, so we thought we should do something more left field as well and see how that goes.”

Buoyed by the success of the first night, Richard has pencilled in an October date, with the possibility of another night before then too. “We’re lining up York electronic musician John Tuffen and talking to Leeds musician Pefkin about taking part,” he says.

He does not want to pigeonhole the kind of acts that might play a YO Underground showcase. “I think definitive labels are a mistake, as there’ll be crossovers, but we have been trying to seek out acts who are obviously attempting something different in what they do, doing something that’s a little ‘wayward’,” he says.   

 “Maybe performers who are challenging to audiences in York, whereas Leeds and Sheffield already have an alternative scene for cutting-edge acts. We’ve been given good links to artists from Sheffield and Leeds, comedians from Newcastle, for example, who are edgy in terms of content or style of presentation.

Lara McClure: Spinning stories on the YO Underground bill

“Those links allow us to fill the next couple of events, and once word gets out about YO Underground, maybe it will also be a case of performers being courageous and saying, ‘well, I do this, how about me?’.”

Richard is delighted that Navigators Art has built up such a fruitful relationship with City Screen Picturehouse for events and exhibitions. “We’re thankful particularly thankful to [City Screen general manager] Cath Sharp and to all the staff, who are always very welcoming,” he says.

“We started using The Basement after Covid, when no-one else was using it, and we did our first event for the York Festival of Ideas there a couple of years ago. That going things rolling again in there, so it’s been mutually beneficial.”

On May 9, Navigators Art will present Opened Ground, A Creative Tribute To Seamus Heaney, devised and curated by Oliver Lewis at The Basement from 7pm to 10pm.

“We’re very big on spoken-word, and last October we held a creative exploration of York-born poet  W H Auden in our Co-Audenation night of spoken word, live music and performance art at The Basement,” says Richard.

Oliver Lewis: University of York poet curating Navigators Art’s Seamus Heaney night, Opened Ground, on May 9

“On the spur of the moment , we were talking about poets and reflecting on the Auden night, and we thought, ‘that went really well, let’s do another one’. This one is being curated by Oliver Lewis, an extremely promising writer, aged 20, who’s studying at York St John and has a couple of books out already.

“I came across him at Howlers, where we just got talking and I realised we had something in common, so he took part in the first YO Underground.”

Lewis has lined up a bill of Mexborough love poet Ian Parks; folk duo Where The Deer Go; York-based Irish poet and teacher Aimée Donnell, whose first collection, We Are All Creatures Of Struggle, was published by Olympia, on March 13; White Sail’s Jane Stockdale, setting Heaney poems to music, and York mythical/mystical duo Adderstone, performing a condensed version of Sweeney, their interpretation of Heaney’s work in music and song. Lewis himself will perform with musician Christian Bell in a collaboration premiering new works. 

“The idea of the evening is that it’s a creative response to Heaney’s writing, so there’ll be a combination of readings, interpretations of his poems and material inspired by his poetry,” says Richard. Box office: https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/navigators-art-performance/opened-ground/.

Looking ahead, he adds: “Navigators Art encourages innovation, improvisation and collaboration, as well as excellence, and would like to hear from performers in any medium who might suit future events.” Email navigatorsart@gmail.com or follow @navigatorsart on Facebook and Instagram.

Jane Stockdale: Taking part in Opened Ground at The Basement, City Screen Picturehouse on May 9

REVIEW: Martin Dreyer’s verdict on University of York Music Department’s Practical Project, Antigone

The artwork for the University of York Music Department’s Antigone

University of York Music Department Practical Project: Antigone, Sir Jack Lyons Concert Hall, University of York, November 3 to 5

REWRITING Sophocles is a dangerous exercise. The tragedy Antigone is the last of his so-called Theban trilogy and a cornerstone of western drama, as relevant today as when it was written nearly 2,500 years ago.

Seamus Heaney wrote a concise version of the story, leaning towards poetry, while Jean Anouilh’s play, inspired by the Nazi occupation of Paris, explores its meaning.

Sadly, Jon Hughes’s abridged paraphrase is not in either category. Its use in the university music department’s latest Practical Project, a rite of passage designed to welcome and incorporate the latest intake of undergraduates, meant that barely half the evening, its incidental music, was devised by the students themselves.

His introduction mentioned Antigone’s possible parallels with Greta Thunberg or Malala Yousafzai. Yet his play remained rooted firmly in ancient Greece, whereas a modern scenario – surely not beyond the wit of these talented students – might have justified reinterpreting this ancient text.

The net result was that the ‘theatrical’ side of this drama, co-directed by Lucy Grehan-Bradley and Roseanna Schmidt, was seriously undercooked. Despite the use of face microphones, too few of the actors observed two basic rules: face your audience and project to the back row. Dialogues were carried on quietly like conversations over a cup of coffee rather than shared with the audience.

There were notable exceptions. Kieran Crowley’s Tiresias, who also voiced the prologue, made a laudable attempt to inject drama into his lines. So too did Christina-Alexandra Higgins as Antigone’s sister Ismene, albeit in a much briefer appearance.

Dom Sutton’s Creon, a pivotal figure here, at least made us aware of his dilemma as a ruler whose power base might crumble. But Katerina Poulios, despite singing her lament with conviction, otherwise gave a shy, retiring Antigone, quite the reverse of the figure found in Sophocles. Several lesser characters despatched their lines robotically, as if barely involved.

Things were altogether better on the musical front. The seven episodes of the drama were interwoven with 11 musical interludes which generally exhibited admirable craftsmanship. Musical director Becky Lund, who took the lion’s share of the conducting with considerable authority, also contributed a War Prelude of heavy percussion and catchy rhythms. Helen Southernwood offered a passionate lament for Ismene in modal minor style, although her concept of ‘continuo’ – unabated background noise, even during the interval – was less appealing.

There were several attempts to bring back choral speaking, which enjoyed a certain fashion before the Second World War. But this hall is so unkind to speech that they were regrettably doomed to failure and proved virtually unintelligible.

Anna Benton’s neo-Romantic lament for Antigone was intriguing, however, and Anna Nightingale’s two odes used a wide range of techniques. Both choir and orchestra showed great commitment under duress. But in the end the formula was too prescriptive, as if to ward off failure rather than taking risks and allowing full rein to the new students’ imaginations.

Review by Martin Dreyer