Select tickets
About the Night:
A View from the Banjo is an offering from vocal trio The Ruffians, in collaboration with Amber Priestley and CN Lester. Three pieces for voices and noise makers (Priestley) – one of which is a new commission and world premiere – sit alongside settings of Gertrude Stein (Lester). This is an exercise in absurdity, a provocation of mundanity and a celebration of smallnesses. Through video installation, factory-like production lines and household objects, The Ruffians invite accidental, incidental and coincidental sounds onto the stage.
| The first half of the concert will be Contemporary Vocal Sünds, a bold recital of new vocal music co-curated by Eleanor Westbrook and Oskar McCarthy. It explores what voices can do when freed from tradition, combining experimental vocal techniques, theatricality, and improvisation into a bold and captivating live experience that reimagines the dynamics between singers and audience. |
About the Artists:
The Ruffians (Hestor Dart, Amy Kearsley & Miranda Ostler) are a new music collective with a taste for the experimental and the absurd. They specialise in unaccompanied vocal repertoire and have given multiple premieres of new works for vocal ensemble. Since their debut in May 2022, they have been growing an audience across London, and were Highly Commended at the 2023 Gladys Puttick Memorial Prize for Improvisation. Recent credits include Acoustic Ruminations (Nozstock Festival, July 2024; Queen’s House, Greenwich, November 2023); the world premiere of Requiem Moderna by Barbs Dudek (Blackheath Halls, June 2024); the world premiere of A Woman's War by Kornélia Nemcová and Natália Štojková (Blackheath Halls, June 2024), a subsequent performance at Bath Abbey in February 2026, and the animated film of the same (BBC Television Centre, Outernet Global London, and Riverside Studios).
Eleanor Westbrook is an interdisciplinary performer and maker working across opera, physical theatre, clowning and experimental music. Her practice reimagines classical forms through surrealist storytelling, physicality and contemporary performance. She has created work for Eavesdropping, Soho Theatre’s Fool’s Moon and the De La Warr Pavilion. As Artistic Director of TUFT, she produces ambitious, site-responsive work and recently premiered a multidisciplinary production of Titus Andronicus.
Oskar McCarthy is an actor-singer working across contemporary opera, new music, experimental performance and improvisation. His practice explores the voice beyond traditional operatic contexts, from new opera and concert work to durational performance and installation. He has premiered works by Laura Bowler, Avner Dorman and Robert Reid Allan, and collaborated with artists including Jennifer Walshe, Philip Venables and Zeo Fawcett. He is co-Artistic Director of contemporary vocal ensemble Festival Voices.
Accessibility:
Please note, we are on the second floor of a warehouse building, accessed by a staircase only. We regret that we cannot currently adequately support wheelchair users and those for whom stairs are a barrier.
We are committed to removing other barriers to access. If you would like to talk to us about your access needs, please contact: frances@chisenhaledancespace.co.uk. Read more about our commitments to anti-ableism as part of our Artist Community Culture Document
About DIY Nights:
DIY Nights are CDS’s performance programme created in the spirit of grassroots, low stakes performance making and sharing.
Anyone can apply to run a DIY Night, and CDS programmes them on a rolling basis for artists looking for a way to try out new ideas with low financial risk.
If you are interested in running your own night, you can learn more and apply here.