Live Music: Improv Night

Thursday 20 June / 6 - 8.30pm / Free

This event is an open session for musicians, sound artists and non-musicians who are interested in exploring improvisation and developing new musical relationships. Bring your own instruments/ equipment/ objects (and amplification should you require it). MK gallery will provide the PA, Mics, DI's and the space for exploration.

Email us for more information with the subject title 'Improv Night'.

Flux: Pop Magic Cabaret

Friday 19 July / 7 -11pm / £5 on the door plus a free drink for advance bookers

A Cabaret night to remember, hosted at MK Gallery Event Space as part of MK Festival Fringe, the night will be compered by Mark Neil, MK’s poet Laureate and acts will include:

Plus, headlining the evening, Boogaloo Stu with his "...dazzling, rip-roaring, ridiculous and wonderfully participatory show..." Pop Magic.

The evening will also include vintage pop videos, compiled by Rachael Wright for Independent Cinema MK as part of their Flux programme. Audience members will be invited to assist in the song-writing and recording process, culminating in a live lip-synch and dance performance to make a pop video for the song which will then be uploaded to social network platforms. In this digital age, launching a pop career has never been simpler, but the competition is tough! Join DIY pop star and musical alchemist Boogaloo Stu in a tongue-in-cheek bid to create an instant Number One Pop Smash Hit in just one hour. With a spin of the Pop Wheel, Stu launches into his quest to craft a pop nugget. It could be Disco, Dubstep or Death Metal - no genres are off-limits. 

Please feel free to dress up as your favourite pop star!

Pop Magic Cabaret website

Summer Party and MK Calling Preview

Thursday 27 June 2013 / 6 - 10 pm / All Welcome

MK Calling is the Gallery’s summer programme, featuring 100 artists, musicians and performers from Milton Keynes. This dynamic season of painting, video, dance, music, poetry and much, much more will showcase MK’s finest emerging and established talent.

Speeches from 7pm followed by music by a New Orleans jazz band and a hog roast.

Find out more / RSVP

Neil Young: Journeys, 2012

Dir: Johnathan Demme / 87 mins / Cert PG

Friday 28 June 2013

7pm / £5 (concessions £3) Free complimentary drink for advance bookers

Pre-book on 01908 676 900

In May, Neil Young drove a 1956 Crown Victoria from his idyllic hometown of Omemee, Ontario to downtown Toronto’s iconic Massey Hall, where he played the last two nights of his solo world tour. There are songs taken from his album Le Noise (2010)  as well as classics and previously unreleased songs.

This is the third collaboration between filmmaker Johnathan Demme and Neil Young.

Town Planners presents:

TX-OGRE, Carousel Soundlab, Hipnoninja and Circuit Breaker

Saturday 22 June 2013 / 7.30pm / £4 on the door

This gig offers an insight into the nascent local "BIY" (build-it-yourself) music scene which includes DIY electronics, circuit bending, and instrument-building in the pursuit of new and different methods of music-making. TX-OGRE is the current recording alias of Bristol-based Henry Collins (Planet Mu), Having abandoned the jungle-gabba-mashup madness of his SHITMAT project, Henry has since turned his attentions to making wildfire noise from scratch; sound art, instrument building, circuit-bending and abstract noise. When playing live, TX- Ogre uses familiar household tools and items in unusual ways, promising "cassette player guitars", a stringed chair, vacuum-cleaner "doom guitar", and possible "noise tombola"!

See examples of Henry’s instruments HERE

Carousel Soundlab is a music studio based in Great Linford, geared towards sonic experimentation." Visitors are encouraged to construct their own instruments, or devise their own methods of working with the existing collection. The approach of building simple but functional instruments from basic materials is partly inspired by experimental luthier Yuri Landman; two of his instruments are part of the Soundlab’s permanent collection".

To visit Soundlab’s instruments or get involved see HERE

Hipnoninja is the solo multi-media project of the very dreadlocked Tim Stapley, who as Hipnoninja performs live his live funk/d'n'b sets using many instruments he has built himself, including "cello-sitar" and double-bass, augmented with loops, gadgets, and synth-pads. Among his many experiences as a technician (including playing guitar on the "Have I Got News For You" theme) and as sound man for Jools Holland, he is currently working on new music with Ninja Tune artist EMIKA.

Listen to examples of some Hipnoninja music HERE

Circuit Breaker is the longtime noise/electronic project of brothers Peter and Ed Simpson, originally from Leighton Buzzard. Circuit Breaker have been providing dementedly mashed-sounding gigfuls of damaged, PiL-inflected electronic noise around Milton Keynes since 2006. They have played alongside such noise-music luminaries as Cold Cave, Prurient, and Bo Ningen, and were recentlygiven a favourable review by Julian Cope who wagered that "you’ll soon be wandering around impersonating troubled vocalist Peter Simpson, declaiming and denouncing portentously as you engage with the housework".

Find out more HERE

Why BEAT?

This year ICMK and MK Gallery have been curating a diverse programme of music and moving image events. We have also been working to develop the opportunities for filmmakers to screen new work in Milton Keynes through MK Film Network.

Submissions are invited in 4 categories: experimental film, video art, personal documentary and animation inspired by the word BEAT. 4 prizes will be awarded in each category. A panel made up of artists, curators and filmmakers will meet to consider submissions and a programme of films selected will be screened at a 1 day Festival.

Deadline for Submissions: 5pm, 31^st May

Click here for the entry form

Part of FLUX:

A series of screenings in 2013 inspired by the connection of music and film

Funded by Arts Council England 

Delicacy, 2011

Dir: David Foenkinos & Stéphane Foenkinos / 130 mins / Cert PG

Friday 21 June 2013

7pm / £5 (concessions £3) Free complimentary drink for advance bookers

Pre-book on 01908 676 900

A French woman mourning over the death of her husband three years prior is courted by a Swedish co-worker and her slick Parisian boss in a romantic comedy that is as touching as it is charming.

Documentary Film Screenings:

Thursday 13 June / 6.30pm / Free

Become a Microscope: 90 Statements on Sister Corita, 2009.

A documentary directed by Aaron Rose.

Sister Corita (1918-1986) was an artist, teacher, philosopher, political activist and possibly one of the most innovative and unusual pop artists of the 1960's. However, what is perhaps even more incredible is the fact that she was a Catholic nun. She was a multi-faceted artist who practiced painting, photography, typography and graphic design, but she became most well known for her colorful serigraphs. In the 1950s, she began teaching art at the Immaculate Heart College in Los Angeles and due to her unorthodox teaching methods, quickly gained an impressive roster of supporters. Creative personalities such as Alfred Hitchcock, Charles and Ray Eames, Buckminster Fuller and John Cage all became a part if Corita's network of friends.

Dieter Roth Puzzle, 2009

A Documentary by Hilmar Oddson

In 1957 a young, unknown Swiss artist, DIETER ROTH followed the woman he loved to Iceland. After 7 years amongst people who had little understanding of his talent he left the country, his wife and three children to become one of the most influential artists of the 20th. century. He spent most of his working life in Switzerland and Germany but Iceland remained a refuge, an inspiration and a second home to Dieter, who left a distinctive mark on the local art scene as well as the philosophy and work of other artists.

Start the Art

Tuesday 25 June / Drop-in 11am - 12 noon / Free

Do you have a child under 4 who can't wait to get their hands dirty? Join our friendly artists who will help you and your child explore the joys of art through a range of multi-sensory activities, including painting, drawing and mark-making.

Start the Art

Tuesday 18 June / Drop-in 11am - 12 noon / Free

Do you have a child under 4 who can't wait to get their hands dirty? Join our friendly artists who will help you and your child explore the joys of art through a range of multi-sensory activities, including painting, drawing and mark-making.

Start the Art

Tuesday 11 June / Drop-in 11am - 12 noon / Free

Do you have a child under 4 who can't wait to get their hands dirty? Join our friendly artists who will help you and your child explore the joys of art through a range of multi-sensory activities, including painting, drawing and mark-making.

Saturday 29 June / 1-3pm / Free

Please check back soon for further details.

Saturday 22 June / 1-3pm / Free

Please check back soon for further details.

Saturday 15 June / 1-3pm / Free

Further details TBC

Saturday 8 June / 1-3pm / Free

Please check back soon for futher details.

Saturday 1 June / 1-3pm / Free

Please check back soon for futher details.

Start the Art

Tuesday 28 June / Drop-in 11am - 12 noon / Free

Do you have a child under 4 who can't wait to get their hands dirty? Join our friendly artists who will help you and your child explore the joys of art through a range of multi-sensory activities, including painting, drawing and mark-making.

Start the Art

Tuesday 4 June / Drop-in 11am - 12 noon / Free

Do you have a child under 4 who can't wait to get their hands dirty? Join our friendly artists who will help you and your child explore the joys of art through a range of multi-sensory activities, including painting, drawing and mark-making.

Andrea Büttner In Conversation with Ben Borthwick

7 June 2013

6.30pm / All Welcome

An opportunity to hear Andrea Büttner discuss her current exhibition and artistic practice with curator Ben Borthwick

Ben Borthwick is an independent curator and writer. He was previously Director of Artes Mundi, the international exhibition and art prize at National Museum Wales. While Assistant Curator at Tate Modern he curated exhibitions by Gilbert & George, Rosa Barba and others. He was on the selection panels for both Wales in Venice and the British Pavilion for the 2013 Venice Biennale.

Thursday 27 June 2013 / 6 - 10 pm / All Welcome

Speeches from 7pm followed by music by a New Orleans jazz band and a hog roast.

MK Calling is the Gallery’s summer programme, featuring 100 artists, musicians and performers from Milton Keynes. This dynamic season of painting, video, dance, music, poetry and much, much more will showcase MK’s finest emerging and established talent.

Black Martis, Pete Odd, Jausme Stonkute and Peter Lloyd

Saturday 25 May / 7.30pm / £3 on the door

Black Martis is an instrumental piano based trio from Milton Keynes. Whilst their set-up may resemble that of a standard jazz trio, the music does not. Mixing pounding rock and samba-fuelled rhythms, aggressive bass lines and flowing piano riffs (along with the occasional 4/4 time signature), Black Martis create a sound big enough to surprise the unsuspecting onlooker in more ways than one.  Loyalty to any particular genre goes out of the window and what is left is a truly passionate sound unrestrained by what is expected. Imagine if the collective members of And So I Watch You From Afar, Fugazi and Explosions in the Sky were to come together and form a piano trio.

Pete Odd (TBC) is the solo project of former 1000 hertz/Odd man out Guitarist, Pete Bagnell.

Lithuanian Singer and Guitarist Jausme Stonkuté and saxophonist Peter Lloyd were spontaneously placed together at one of our recent Improv Nights which resulted in this new musical collaboration. Expect a heady mix of Free Jazz Skronk, Soulful vocals sung in English and Lithuanian, melodic guitar and perhaps a Radiohead cover or two. 

Open Mic

Thursday 23 May / 6.30pm

An open event for all poets and writers based in the area. It is an opportunity to test out new work in a supportive and engaged environment. If you are interested in presenting, please contact info@mkgallery.org for more details.

Dress a Girl Around the World with The Sip & Sew Society

Saturday 25 May / 1-3pm / Free

The Sip and Sew Society, in collaboration with MK Gallery and Dollar Shake, will be hosting an event for parents and children to create simple dresses to be distributed to difficult parts of the world to children who have very little. Promising a relaxing afternoon for families, the finished clothes will be sent to children, some of whom may have no parents, and very likely this will be the only pretty dress they will own.

As part of Mini Makers, and inspired by Story Of Mum in the Project Space, this fabulous event invites parents and children to decorate and embellish pretty materials with somerset puffs, flowers and other motifs. The dresses, based on a design made from a pillowcase, will then be transformed by the Sip & Sew Team into gorgeous dresses ready for distribution.  If you are a confident sewer and wish to bring along your own machine to assist in the dress-making do feel free. And to top of the event and thank you for all you hard-work enjoy vintage tea and cakes with Dollar Shake.

Start the Art

Family Matters

Tuesday 21 May / Drop-in 11am - 12 noon / Free

Do you have a child under 4 who can't wait to get their hands dirty? Join our friendly artists who will help you and your child explore the joys of art through a range of multi-sensory activities, including painting, drawing and mark-making.

Come along and decorate your own 3D Family Tree or contribute to the Start the Art wall climber, bringing together all the faces of participants in individual 3D flowers.

Beasts of the Southern Wild, 2012

Dir: Behn Zeitlin / 90 mins / Cert PG

Friday 14 June 2013

7pm / £5 (concessions £3) Free complimentary drink for advance bookers

Pre-book on 01908 676 900

Faced with both her hot-tempered father’s fading health and melting ice-caps that flood her ramshackle bayou community and unleash ancient aurochs, six-year-old Hushpuppy must learn the ways of courage and love.

The Good,The Bad and the Ugly, 1966

Dir: Sergio Leone / 161 mins / Cert 18 / 161 mins

Friday 7 June 2013

7pm / £5 (concessions £3) Free complimentary drink for advance bookers

Pre-book on 01908 676 900

In the last installment of the“Dollars” trilogy of Sergio Leonedirected “spaghetti westerns,”Clint Eastwood reprises the roleof a taciturn, enigmatic loner. Here he searches for a cache of stolen gold against rivals the Bad(Lee Van Cleef), a bounty hunter,and the Ugly (Eli Wallach), aMexican bandit. Though dubbed“the Good,” Eastwood’s character is not much better than hisopponents - he is just smarter and shoots faster.

Half Term Workshops with Festive Road

Friday 31 May / 10am-12noon & 2-4pm / Free

Drop-in session for 7+ year olds and their families

Festive Road artists Manuela Benini and Jessica Rost invite you to explore the art of performance. Join in with warm up games, performance exercises, comic techniques and experimentation with props and materials. Filled with plenty of opportunities to ‘play’ these sessions will take participants through the steps of creating and staging your own performance using body extensions, puppets, shadows, movement, lighting and sound!

Manuela and Jessica have both worked in performance art for many years. Manuela has a classical dance background, working with many well-known theatre and dance companies internationally. While Jessica comes from a Fine Art background, exhibiting her sculpture internationally, performing her own work and producing outdoor theatre shows for MK based Festive Road.

Family Flux: Live Music and Film Event

Friday 31 May 2013

4.20pm / £5 (concessions £3) Free complimentary drink for advance bookers

Pre-book on 01908 676 900

Mary O’Connor studied at Dartington where she majored in performance and studied violin with Oliver Butterworth.Whilst teaching she became increasingly interested in the approach of Jaques Dalcroze which tied together her skills as a musician, contemporary dancer and silent film accompanist. In 2008 Mary started her training as a Dalcroze Eurhythmics teacher with Karin Greenhead, Cyrilla Rowsell and Jacqueline Vann.

Leave 'em lauging, 1928

Dir. Clyde Bruckman. Cert U. 21 mins

Leaving the dentist’s office, where Hardy’s teeth have been extracted by mistake, the boys, still under the influence of laughing gas, meet up with a traffic cop (Kennedy) and cause a huge traffic jam.

You're Darn Tootin', 1928

Dir. Edgar Kennedy. Cert U. 20 mins

Classic comedy famous for the pants-ripping scene at the end. Laurel plays the clarinet, and Hardy plays the French horn in a band. During a concert, they destroy a musical performance and drive the conductor crazy and are fired from their jobs.

Warp Films Shorts and Q&A with 2013 Bafta winner Diarmid Scrimshaw

Friday 24 May 2013

7pm / £5 (concessions £3) Free complimentary drink for advance bookers

Pre-book on 01908 676 900

The evening will play host to one of Milton Keynes sons!

Diarmid Scrimshaw is producer at Warp Films and winner of this year’s Bafta in the Best Short Film category. Diarmid will introduce his two short films and talk about his career at Warp.

Dog Altogether, 2007

Dir. Paddy Considine Cert 15. 16 mins

Dog Altogether is the story of Joseph, a man plagued by violence and rage and driven to self destruction. As he falls further into turmoil, Joseph scours the landscape in search of a single grain of redemption that might restore hope to his fractured life.

Swimmer, 2012

Dir. Lynne Ramsay Cert UC. 18 mins

Lynne Ramsey’s Swimmer sees a young man swimming through the rivers and lakes of Britain to a soundtrack of assorted nationalistic music. As he passes people on the banksides including children, lovers and a tramp he hears their thoughts and conversations.

Tamzen Moulding: TessaraeA work in progress performance

Thursday 6 June / 6.30pm / Free

An evening of physical performance and stunning acrobatics. In Tessarae four performers are thrown, dive and are caught in powerful feats of strength and poise. Passing constantly through acrobatic moves, each person interlocks with the next in a constantly shifting puzzle.

Tamzen MouldingTamzen Moulding is a professional circus performer and dancer.  She began as a gymnast, competing at International level, then did a degree at London Contemporary Dance School before moving into circus. Using all these skills she now choreographs work that crosses boundaries between circus/acrobatics and dance.

http://tamzenmouding.wix.com/inverted