Festival Fringe Programme
Sunday 5 July | |||
Exhibition Opening | Opening reception for the art exhibit Evolving Darwin’s Gaze. The installation uses computer-based Darwinian evolutionary to evolve families of related generative portraits that strive to resemble Darwin's gaze from Collier's 1883 portrait (at Cambridge in the Fitzwilliam during the show) where portraits can favour wider creative artistic exploration over dogged resemblance. Meet the artist and interact with the evolved artwork. Refreshments will be served. See www.darwinsgaze.com for details. | 15:00 - 16:30 | King's Art Centre, Kings College, King's Parade Admission: free |
Film | Darwin Originals: Shorts (Cert TBC) Directors: Lemn Sissay, Graeme Miller, HenryMontes, Curious, Lucy Cash, Bobby Baker, Anne Bean, Ackroyd & Harvey. UK 2009. 30 mins. Poetic, unorthodox, political, humorous and unexpected, Darwin Originals is a series of eight artists' films inspired by the life, work an legacy of Darwin. The films explore the artists' personal fascinations with Darwin, from the meals Emma Darwin prepared for her invalid husband to the continent of plastic waste in today's Pacific Ocean, and from Darwin's 'thinking path' at Down House to the genetics of red hair. The films have been funded by the Gulbenkian Foundation, and the Wellcome Trust. | 18:00 - 19:00 | Cambridge Arts Picturehouse, 38-39 St Andrew's Street Tickets: 0871 704 2050 www.picturehouses.co.uk |
| Darwin's Nightmare (Cert TBC) Director: Hubert Sauper. Austria 2004. 107 mins. Exploring the effects of the introduction of a new fish into Lake Victoria, this incisive documentary presents a damning analysis of the global economic and political interests at play in one of Africa's most beautiful and fertile regions. Often filming undercover, Sauper and his collaborator Sandor Rieder gained unprecedented access to many of the people involved, producing a broad ranging exposé that has the deceptively intimate feel of an ethnographic study. | 14:30 | Cambridge Arts Picturehouse, 38-39 St Andrew's Street Tickets: 0871 704 2050 www.picturehouses.co.uk | |
Monday 6 July | |||
Street Performance | Be entertained, surprised and amazed by a cornucopia of street entertainment during the Festival week, which will be taking places at several locations throughout the city centre. Why not learn something from the Festival's Darwinian characters or its psychedelic, evolutionary mind reader when you encounter them in the street, or let our street comedians bring a smile to your face? And be sure not to miss our street performers' interpretations of the evolution of juggling, music, the voice, and, not to be missed, the one and only Darwin martian! | 12:30 - 16:00 | City centre (Grand Arcade if wet) |
Storytelling, Poetry and Music | Tangled Stories - an informal event for all, with storytelling and poetry. Join us for an exchange of words, exploring paths that lead away from the Darwin 200 celebrations to uncover alternative imaginations. Have you been involved somehow with Darwin themes? Bring us a poem, story or song that takes you somewhere else. Are you in the dark about bearded Victorian naturalists? Give us your own take on the tangles of natural and human transformation. A receptive environment in which to voice your experience and imagination - or simply bring your ears and soak up other people's stories. All welcome. Perhaps some of the museum exhibits might even have their say... | 18:00 - 19:30 | Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Downing Street, Cambridge To offer your story, poem or song please email katy.price@anglia.ac.uk. To let us know you are coming to listen please also send an email so that we know how many people to expect. Admission: free |
Tuesday 7 July | |||
Street Performance | Be entertained, surprised and amazed by a cornucopia of street entertainment during the Festival week, which will be taking places at several locations throughout the city centre. Why not learn something from the Festival's Darwinian characters or its psychedelic, evolutionary mind reader when you encounter them in the street, or let our street comedians bring a smile to your face? And be sure not to miss our street performers' interpretations of the evolution of juggling, music, the voice, and, not to be missed, the one and only Darwin martian! | 12:30 - 16:00 | City centre (Grand Arcade if wet) |
Debating Workshops and Performance | The Triple Helix Darwin Festival Schools Debates and Performance is a series of debating workshops involving six undergraduates and twelve sixth former from schools around the region The workshops culiminate in a final debating performance. There will be three debates: Should great apes have the same rights as humans? Humans vs Pathogens - who will win the evolutionary arms race? Designer babies - what would Darwin think? | 15:00 - 17:00 | Leverhulme Centre for Human Evolutionary Studies, The Henry Wellcome Building, Fitzwilliam Street Admission: free |
BBC Documentary | The Faraday Institute will be putting on a showing of the BBC documentary, Did Darwin Kill God? which will be introduced by the presenter, Conor Cunningham, who will also answer questions afterwards. | 17:45 | Mill Lane Lecture Room 3, Mill Lane Admission: free http://www.st-edmunds.cam.ac.uk/faraday/index.php |
Rap Performance | The Rap Guide to Evolution explores the history and current understanding of Darwin's theory, combining hilarious remixes of popular rap songs with clever lyrical storytelling that covers natural selection, artificial selection, sexual selection, group selection, unity of common descent, and evolutionary psychology. The entire script has been vetted for scientific and historical accuracy, making it a powerful teaching tool as well as a laugh-out-loud comedy experience. The show also engages directly with challenging questions about cultural evolution, asking the audience to imagine themselves as the environment and the performer as an organism undergoing a form of live adaptation. This event is sponsored by theLeverhulme Centre for Human Evolutionary Studies. | 19:30 - 21:00 | Leverhulme Centre for Human EvolutionaryStudies, The Henry Wellcome Building, Fitzwilliam Street Admission: free www.babasword.com |
Wednesday 8 July | |||
Street Performance | Be entertained, surprised and amazed by a cornucopia of street entertainment during the Festival week, which will be taking places at several locations throughout the city centre. Why not learn something from the Festival's Darwinian characters or its psychedelic, evolutionary mind reader when you encounter them in the street, or let our street comedians bring a smile to your face? And be sure not to miss our street performers' interpretations of the evolution of juggling, music, the voice, and, not to be missed, the one and only Darwin martian! | 12:30 - 16:00 | City centre (Grand Arcade if wet) |
Film | Angels and Insects (18) Director: Philip Haas. Starring: Mark Rylance, Kristin Scott Thomas, Patsy Kensit, Jeremy Kemp. USA/UK 1995. 117 mins. This elegantly perverse film observes the rituals of the natural world everywhere, even within the confines of exaggeratedly polite society. Examining Victorian repression with a scientist's fascination, director Philip Haas shows his characters to be both obsessed by phenomena of the insect world and exemplary of them. The tale weaves complex, unnerving parallels between human life and the more sinister mysteries of nature. Peter Raby of the University of Cambridge will introduce the screening. | 15:00 | Cambridge Arts Picturehouse, 38-39 St Andrew's Street Tickets: 0871 704 2050 www.picturehouses.co.uk |
| Darwin Originals: Shorts (Cert TBC) Directors: Lemn Sissay, Graeme Miller, HenryMontes, Curious, Lucy Cash, Bobby Baker, Anne Bean, Ackroyd & Harvey. UK 2009. 30 mins. Poetic, unorthodox, political, humorous and unexpected, Darwin Originals is a series of eight artists' films inspired by the life, work and legacy of Darwin. The films explore the artists' personal fascinations with Darwin, from the meals Emma Darwin prepared for her invalid husband to the continent of plastic waste in today's Pacific Ocean, and from Darwin's 'thinking path' at Down House to the genetics of red hair. The films have been funded by the Gulbenkian Foundation, and the Wellcome Trust. Four of the films have also been produced with Channel 4, and will be broadcast as part of their '3 minute wonders' series in February. | 18:00 - 19:00 | Cambridge Arts Picturehouse, 38-39 St Andrew's Street Tickets: 0871 704 2050 www.picturehouses.co.uk | |
Book Launch | Darwin's Sacred Cause: Race Slavery and the Quest for Human Origins by Adrian Desmond and James Moore. James Moore will talk about and sign copies of their new book at Heffer's Bookshop. Darwin's Sacred Cause revolutionizes our understanding of Darwin's path to human evolution. New insights from fresh sources have driven Darwin scholars Desmond and Moore to re-think the basis of Darwin's theories, providing a completely new explanation of how Darwin came to his shattering views on human origins. | 18:00 | Heffers Bookshop, Trinity Lane Admission: free |
Theatre | Darwin's Notebook - SIN Cru presents a piece of spectacular site-specific dance-theatre and live art under the whale on the balcony, at the Cambridge University Museum of Zoology. Through sporadic bBoyin' to electric Body Poppin', you will be taken on a tour of the Museum of Zoology, to witness some of Darwin's theories in action. More jaw-dropping than Ben Stiller's "Night at the Museum", Darwin's Notebook features the up and coming talents of SIN Cru's Participate programme and the champion JNR Sinstars! Not to be missed! | 19:30 | Cambridge University Museum of Zoology, Downing Street Admission: donations |
| This View of Life, by Matt Wilkinson, is the story of one man's struggle to give Darwin's revelation to the people, and to find meaning in this most wondrous and dangerous of ideas. Thomas Henry Huxley - Charles Darwin's steadfast and belligerent champion - has just given his last public lecture on the subject of evolution. | 19:30 | ADC Theatre, Park Street Admission: £6 and £5 01223 300085/www.adctheatre.com | |
| Edward FitzGerald and Charles Darwin, 1859 - A Meeting of Poets & Scientists, a short play by Rani Drew, celebrating 150 years of science and poetry, joining forces against the orthodoxy of religion, and highlighting the contemporary political and colonial events that were taking place in other parts of the world. | 20:00 | Judith E Wilson Drama Studio, West Road Admission: donations | |
Thursday 9 July | |||
Street Performance | Be entertained, surprised and amazed by a cornucopia of street entertainment during the Festival week, which will be taking places at several locations throughout the city centre. Why not learn something from the Festival's Darwinian characters or its psychedelic, evolutionary mind reader when you encounter them in the street, or let our street comedians bring a smile to your face? And be sure not to miss our street performers' interpretations of the evolution of juggling, music, the voice, and, not to be missed, the one and only Darwin martian! | 12:30 - 16:00 | City centre (Grand Arcade if wet) |
Lecture | Cambridge Philosophical Society Lecture by Professor John Parker - Voyaging to the Beagle letters: Henslow, Darwin and the Philosophical Society. | 17:30 | Bristol-Myers Squibb Lecture Theatre, Department of Chemistry, Lensfield Road Admission: free |
Lecture and Demonstration | Darwin, Creativity and Evolutionary Programming. Can you bring the ghost (creativity) out of the machine (the computer) using the ghost of Charles Darwin – both his namesake evolutionary discoveries and portrait gaze? Cognitive scientist, Steve DiPaola, will discuss and demonstrate his work recently highlighted in the journal Nature, and shown at the MIT Museum which combines research on human creativity with evolutionary computer algorithms. The goal is to create computer algorithms that are creative on their own (for use in science, art and design) but in doing so learn more about what makes human’s creative. See www.darwinsgaze.com for details. | 18:00-19:00 | King's Art Centre, Kings College, King's Paradee Admission: free |
Theatre | Darwin's Notebook - SIN Cru presents its theatre adaptation of this spectacular site-specific dance-theatre piece. Through sporadic bBoyin' to electric Body Poppin', you will be taken on a tour of the Museum of Zoology, to witness some of Darwin's theories in action. More jaw-dropping than Ben Stiller's "Night at the Museum", Darwin's Notebook features the up and coming talents of SIN Cru's Participate programme and the champion JNR Sinstars! Not to be missed! | 19:30 | The Junction, Clifton Way Admission: £8 and £5 01223 511511/www.junction.co.uk |
| Evolving Words - Darwin. School Bullies. Natural Selection. Eugenics. Evil Genes. The Dating Game. Mothers. Individual Significance and everything in between. Polarbear, one of the most exciting spoken word poets in the UK, and scientist/anthropologist, Djuke Velhuis, have worked with six aspiring young performance writers to create spoken word pieces that question how evolutionary theory applies to real life. This is a one-off special event that everyone willl leave talking about. Evolving Words is produced in association with the Wellcome Trust. | 20:00 | The Junction Studio, Clifton Way Admission: £5 and £3 01223 511511/www.junction.co.uk | |
| Re:Design written by Craig Baxter; directed by Paul Bourne; featuring Terry Malloy as Charles Darwin. Based on Darwin's correspondence with devoutly Christian Harvard Botanist, Asa Gray. | 19.45 | ADC Theatre, Park Street Admission: £9 and £7 01223 300085/www.adctheatre.com | |
| Edward FitzGerald and Charles Darwin, 1859 - A Meeting of Poets & Scientists, a short play by Rani Drew, celebrating 150 years of science and poetry, joining forces against the orthodoxy of religion, and highlighting the contemporary political and colonial events that were taking place in other parts of the world. | 20:00 | Judith E Wilson Drama Studio, West Road Admission: donations | |
| This View of Life, by Matt Wilkinson, is the story of one man's struggle to give Darwin's revelation to the people, and to find meaning in this most wondrous and dangerous of ideas. Thomas Henry Huxley - Charles Darwin's steadfast and belligerent champion - has just given his last public lecture on the subject of evolution. | 22:30 | ADC Theatre, Park Street Admission: £6 and £5 01223 300085/www.adctheatre.com | |
Friday 10 July | |||
Street Performance | Be entertained, surprised and amazed by a cornucopia of street entertainment during the Festival week, which will be taking places at several locations throughout the city centre. Why not learn something from the Festival's Darwinian characters or its psychedelic, evolutionary mind reader when you encounter them in the street, or let our street comedians bring a smile to your face? And be sure not to miss our street performers' interpretations of the evolution of juggling, music, the voice, and, not to be missed, the one and only Darwin martian! . | 12:30 - 16:00 | City centre (Grand Arcade if wet) |
Workshop | The Evolution of Rap What are the current theories inevolutionary psychology? How did the use of creative languag evolve? And, more importantly, how has rapdeveloped as an art form that caters toour instincts for "displays of verbal acuity", of which rhyme is a primary example? Join the Festival Fringe's one and only rapper Baba and find out what rapping is really all about. | 16:15-17:15 | Leverhulme Centre for Human Evolutionary Studies, The Henry Wellcome Building, Fitzwilliam Street Registration: £5 on the door www.babasword.com |
Lecture | Darwin and the Descent of Emotionally Modern Man: How humans became such "other-regarding" apes - a 50 minute illustrated lecture by Professor Sarah Blaffer Hrdy (Department of Anthropology, University of California) | 15:30 - 17:00 | Dept of Social Anthropology, Free School Lane http://www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/ |
Theatre | This View of Life, by Matt Wilkinson, is the story of one man's struggle to give Darwin's revelation to the people, and to find meaning in this most wondrous and dangerous of ideas. Thomas Henry Huxley - Charles Darwin's steadfast and belligerent champion - has just given his last public lecture on the subject of evolution. | 14:30 and 22:30 | ADC Theatre, Park Street, Cambridge Admission: £6 and £5 01223 300085/www.adctheatre.com |
| Re:Design written by Craig Baxter; directed by Paul Bourne; featuring Terry Malloy as Charles Darwin. Based on Darwin's correspondence with devoutly Christian Harvard Botanist, Asa Gray. | 19:45 | ADC Theatre, Park Street Admission: £9 and £7 01223 300085/www.adctheatre.com | |
| Carole Jahme is Sexually Selected is a one-woman comedy show using authentic evolutionary psychology to find an alpha male and an alpha female from the audience. A light, comic relief from the more formal side to darwinian thought. | 20:00 | The Junction J2, Clifton Way Admission: £10 and £8 01223 511511/www.junction.co.uk | |
| Edward FitzGerald and Charles Darwin, 1859 - A Meeting of Poets & Scientists, a short play by Rani Drew, celebrating 150 years of science and poetry, joining forces against the orthodoxy of religion, and highlighting the contemporary political and colonial events that were taking place in other parts of the world. | 20:00 | Judith E Wilson Drama Studio, West Road Admission: donations | |
Rap Performance | The Rap Guide to Evolution explores the history and current understanding of Darwin's theory, combining hilarious remixes of popular rap songs with clever lyrical storytelling that covers natural selection, artificial selection, sexual selection, group selection, unity of common descent, and evolutionary psychology. The entire script has been vetted for scientific and historical accuracy, making it a powerful teaching tool as well as a laugh-out-loud comedy experience. The show also engages directly with challenging questions about cultural evolution, asking the audience to imagine themselves as the environment and the performer as an organism undergoing a form of live adaptation. | 19:30 - 21:00 | Michaelhouse Cafe, Trinity Street Tickets: £8 available on the door www.babasword.com |
Saturday 11 July | |||
Theatre | Re:Design written by Craig Baxter; directed by Paul Bourne; featuring Terry Malloy as Charles Darwin. Based on Darwin's correspondence with devoutly Christian Harvard Botanist, Asa Gray. | 19:45 | ADC Theatre, Park Street Admission: £9 and £7 01223 300085/www.adctheatre.com |
| This View of Life, by Matt Wilkinson, is the story of one man's struggle to give Darwin's revelation to the people, and to find meaning in this most wondrous and dangerous of ideas. Thomas Henry Huxley - Charles Darwin's steadfast and belligerent champion - has just given his last public lecture on the subject of evolution. | 22:30 | ADC Theatre, Park Street Admission: £6 and £5 01223 300085/www.adctheatre.com | |
Exhibitions | |||
2nd - 20th July | Images of Change - Darwin Festival Fringe and Cambridge News Online Photography Competition Exhibition - winning entries from the photography competition depicting mid Anglian photographers' view of change. | Open: daily 12:15 - 14:00 and 18:00 - 20:00 | Cambridge University Centre, Main Dining Hall, Granta Place Admission: free |
3rd - 20th July | (En)tangled Word Bank - a collaboration between designer Stefanie Posavec http://www.itsbeenreal.co.uk/ who works for Penguin Books, and Greg McInerny, an ecologist at Microsoft Research, Cambridge Visualisations that bring words out of line and illustrate the development of the Origin of Species through the six editions produced during Darwin's life. | Open: daily 12:15 - 14:00 and 18:00 - 20:00 | Cambridge University Centre, Main Dining Hall, Granta Place Admission: free |
27th June - 18th July | Voyage of Discovery - an exhibition by Helen Birmingham whose work (much of it mixed media) has arisen from her fascination with the science of heredity. The exhibition is structured in three parts: (1) Geology / Fossils, rocks - earth movement - volcanoes - earthquakes - erosion. (2) Transmutation / Evolution, tree of life - progression - stages of development. (3) Writing/Experiments, postcards - letters - books - experiments - research. A 'line (voyage) of discovery' runs through the whole exhibition. | Open: Wednesday to Saturday 10:30 - 17:30 | Broughton House Gallery, 98 King Street 01223 314960 www.broughtonhousegallery.co.uk Admission: free |