Big Audio Dynamite were an English band, formed in London in 1984 by Mick Jones, former lead guitarist and co-lead vocalist of the Clash. The band mixed various musical styles, incorporating elements of punk rock, dance music, hip hop, reggae, and funk. After releasing a number of well-received studio albums and touring extensively throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Big Audio Dynamite broke up in 1997. In 2011, the band embarked on a reunion tour.
Glastonbury Festival is a five-day festival of contemporary performing arts held near Pilton, Somerset, England in most summers. In addition to contemporary music, the festival hosts dance, comedy, theatre, circus, cabaret, and other arts. Leading pop and rock artists have headlined, alongside thousands of others appearing on smaller stages and performance areas. Films and albums have been recorded at the festival, and it receives extensive television and newspaper coverage.
An art car is a vehicle that has had its appearance modified as an act of personal artistic expression. Art cars are often driven and owned by their creators, who are sometimes referred to as "Cartists".
The British Independent Film Awards (BIFA) is an organisation that celebrates, supports, and promotes British independent cinema and film-making talent in the United Kingdom. Nominations for the annual awards ceremony are announced in early November, with the ceremony itself taking place in early December.
Julien Temple is a British film, documentary and music video director. He began his career with short films featuring the Sex Pistols, and has continued with various off-beat projects, including The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle, Absolute Beginners and a documentary film about Glastonbury.
Joe Rush is a British artist. He is the founder of Mutoid Waste Company, a performance arts collective that has performed at Glastonbury Festival.
Quintessence was a rock band formed in April 1969 in Notting Hill, London, England. Their style was a mixture of jazz, psychedelic rock and progressive rock with an influence of music from India.
Franz André Heller is an Austrian artist, author, poet, singer, songwriter and actor.
The Roughler chronicled life in Ladbroke Grove in the 1980s and 1990s before the last Bohemians were forced out. The magazine was single-handedly produced by Ray Roughler Jones, a refugee from Swansea, and contained contributions from The Clash, Will Self, Jock Scott, Shane MacGowan, Neneh Cherry, Joe Rush of Mutoid Waste, Keith and Kevin Allen plus local heroes such as Steve Underground, John The Hat and Ian Bone of Class War. It was headquartered in West London. It was published between 1983 and 2004.
Christian Ristow is an American robotic artist. He is known for his robotic performance art under the name Robochrist Industries, his animatronics work in film and television, and his large-scale interactive sculptures.
Anne Pigalle is a French singer and multimedia artist.
Matthias Leupold is a German photographer and professor who lives and works in Berlin. His father Harry Leupold was set designer at the D.E.F.A. studio for feature films in Potsdam.
Lady Emma Louise Vickers is a British circus trapeze artist, stuntwoman, and teacher of circus arts.
Artcirq is an Inuit circus performance collective based in Igloolik, Nunavut, Canada. It was co-founded in 1998 by Guillaume Saladin and several circus artists from Montreal and youth from Igloolik, with the financial support of Igloolik Isuma Productions, Canada's first Inuit independent production company and Cirque Éloize. Its activities provide Inuit youth with a vehicle for creative expression that maintains strong links to Inuit traditions and performance styles.
The 2012 Summer Paralympics opening ceremony was held on 29 August 2012, starting at 20:30 BST and marking the official opening of the 2012 Summer Paralympics in London, England. The show – named Enlightenment – had Jenny Sealey and Bradley Hemmings as its artistic directors, leading a team that included Jon Bausor as set designer and Moritz Junge as costume designer. Queen Elizabeth II officially opened the Games. The ceremony was performed in the Olympic stadium in London in front of a capacity audience of 80,000 people.
The closing ceremony of the 2012 Summer Paralympics, also known as The Festival of the Flame, was held on 9 September at the Olympic Stadium in London. Kim Gavin served as director for the ceremony, while Stephen Daldry served as its executive producer. The ceremony was themed around festivals and the four seasons, with the artistic programme being set to performances by British band Coldplay. The band were joined by guests such as the British Paraorchestra, Rihanna, and Jay-Z.
Arcadia Spectacular, known colloquially as "Arcadia", are a performance art collective that combine elements of sculpture, architecture, recycling, pyrotechnics, lighting, circus and music into large scale performance and dance spaces. Best known for their 50-tonne "Spider", they rework ex military machinery and industrial components into installations and 360 degree arenas, following a transformational and environmental ethos.
Harold Crooks is a Canadian-American filmmaker. He began his career as an investigative journalist covering environmental issues in Canada during the 1980s and 90s. His films cover the subjects of political economy and the impact humans have on their environment through technology and capitalism. Most recently he co-directed a documentary with the art writer Judd Tully about the artist David Hammons.
