Beatabet Alphabet

"Stimulating creativity in the community through interactive workshops and performance"

Beatabet Alphabet' will be the first of a series of high profile multimedia events that the Beatabet Arts and Music Collective will run in and around Brighton during 2008. The Beatabet Collective invade the disused spaces under Brighton Station to showcase a thrilling selection of live music, installations, animations and performances. 25 members of the collective will transform the three empty rooms and surrounding loading bay into a live stage, a cinema and a gallery to present new works. The collective invite members of the public to participate in four creative workshops from noon, which will introduce members of the public (of all ages) to new concepts in creativity, using positive techniques to stimulate imaginative thinking and community awareness. Evening live entertainments kick off at 1930: seven bands including award winning new jazz heros 'Porpoise Corpus', three performances including Seiriol Davies, 2007's Beckett Theatre Prize winner and much much more.

Beatabet, founded in 2002, is a collective of professional creative individuals from a broad range of disciplines who provide a network of skills, resources and opportunities for each other. As a collective, Beatabet has curated dozens of Audio-Visual events around the UK and has been invited to exhibit in several larger group shows. Beatabet is a not-for-profit collective that pools the resources of its individual participants, as well as their expertise and verve, in order to offer wide-ranging artistic opportunities that might not otherwise be possible or affordable for them. We also run a record label (Limited Liability Partnership), to offer a professional outlet for our members’ work. As an organisation Beatabet believes in:

• collaboration
• connecting people
• creating opportunities for its members
• innovation: be it new music, inter-disciplinary work or performance
• sharing of skills and technical expertise

Beatabet's main focus is an on-going annual peer-to-peer artistic summer residency programme. This comprises of a rotating group of 10-15 Artists (at any one time) from many disciplines, living and working together in an isolated converted farmhouse in southern France. The centre benefits from:

• 2 permanent recording studios
• video editing equipment
• countless instruments
• art materials
• workshop space
• etc.

The project runs for 4 months a year. The backbone of the schedule comprises of group workshops, group criticism sessions, improvisation sessions and creative games; participants are encouraged to share skills and explore their own practice through the development of new material both collaboratively and through individual expression. Links and partnerships forged during the residency go on to produce fruitful working relationships back in the UK.  

As relative newcomers to Brighton, Beatabet is rapidly becoming an important player in the
local music and arts scene, with it's members popping up all over the place. Come witness
what will surely be one of the highlights of the Fringe as this talented collective show you
why all eyes will be on them in 2008.