We are hosting an outstanding cellist, Boris Andrianov — winner of the International Shostakovich Competition, the Mstislav Rostropovich Cello Competition, the Tchaikovsky Competition, and dozens of other prestigious competitions. Boris has performed with Krzysztof Penderecki, Akiko Suwanai, Giovanni Sollima, Janine Jansen, Julian Rachlin and many other remarkable musicians. The newspaper Berliner Tagesspiegel has called him nothing less than “a young god”; his recordings have been shortlisted for the Grammy Awards and included in Gramophone’s list of the best classical albums. Many publications consider Boris to be among the most talented cellists in the world.
He will be joined by composer and conductor Gabriel Prokofiev — one of the most striking figures on the contemporary British classical scene and the grandson of Sergei Prokofiev. His music has been performed at the BBC Proms and in leading concert halls across Europe and the United States, and he is known for bold projects at the intersection of classical music, electronics and performance. Gabriel has worked with major orchestras and ensembles, created pieces specifically for unconventional spaces and formats, and is regarded as one of the key artists reinventing the language of contemporary classical music.
Asya Bykova: Body Awareness Practice - Softening and letting go
We’re delighted to welcome dancer and certified Somatic Movement teacher Asya Bykova to Arc on Saturday, 23rd May for the very first Softening and Letting Go — a gentle practice of embodied awareness.
What is it?
This is a practice of coming home to your body. We shift attention away from the busy stream of thoughts and begin to notice, with curiosity and without judgement, how we breathe, how we move, and where we’re holding on.
In everyday life, our attention is so often absorbed by tasks, decisions and the quiet hum of staying in control. The body quietly contracts around all of that: breath becomes shallow, tension builds, and trying harder to switch off only adds to the load. In this session, we practise noticing. And then, gradually, letting go — through movement and attention, rather than effort.
What tends to follow: a softer body, a quieter mind. More stillness, more clarity, more ease.
This practice is especially for you if you:
* find it hard to slow down or step out of your own head
* carry tension in your shoulders, back or breath
* feel worn down by the need to keep on top of everything
* work in an intellectually demanding environment and want more grounding through your body
Equally at home for those with an established movement practice and those who are completely new to it.
What to expect
The session runs for two hours. We’ll move slowly and with plenty of pauses: working with breath, attention and the ordinary movements of daily life, exploring where we can ease unnecessary effort. The invitation throughout is to stay curious about process: what does the body feel like from the inside, and where might something be released?
Your teacher
Asya Bykova is a certified Somatic Movement teacher, dancer and cultural scholar. Since 2019, she has been developing her own practice and helping others find their way back to themselves — steadily, calmly, through the body.
Important information:
• The workshop will be conducted in Russian
This week, two incredible Pascol vocalists are opening the doors into their own vocal practices at @the.arc.space in London.
This Saturday, 9 May, Pascol founder @sashavinogradovamusic will lead her Vocal Circle, a 3-hour immersive session of collective singing, improvisation, rhythm and deep listening. A space to reconnect with your voice, creativity and each other.
On the 17th of June @phoebespockets launches BIG SING, a vocal improvisation workshop built around intuitive music-making, playful structures, movement, rhythm and collective singing. No experience needed, just curiosity and a voice. There are still a few spots left to join.
Both workshops take place at @the.arc.space
(13 Tottenham Mews, W1T 4AQ, London)
Links and details in stories and in Phoebe & Sasha’s accounts.
Pascol project is built around voice, connection and collective presence, so it feels especially beautiful to see our performers creating spaces like these beyond the stage 💫
We’re once again inviting you to our joint event with the Pascol project — vocal circles. We tried hosting it here before, and it turned out to be absolutely incredible.
What are vocal circles? It’s a session for everyone — for those who can sing and those who think they can’t, for professional musicians and for people who can’t tell one note from another. Over the course of three hours, you squeak, hum, sing, make sounds, and learn to hear and listen to your body, to connect voice and movement, to sound together with others, to feel the support of the group and your own voice. It’s an ideal practice for absolutely anyone.
Who is it for?
• Those who’ve always wanted to try singing but never dared
• Those who sing occasionally and want to reconnect with inspiration
• Those who love music and want to experiment with their voice
Sasha Gefen is one of the creators of the vocal performance project Pascol (/pascol_project
), a graduate of RBMA 2018, and a participant of the international residency 1beat.
Kostya Benkovich
“Fight the Power”
The first London solo exhibition of one of the most compelling contemporary artists. Alongside Timofey Radya, Kirill Kto, and Filipenzo, Kostya Benkovich has helped shape the language of protest art in Russia, becoming one of the most prominent voices of his generation. His works are held in both private and museum collections, and have been exhibited across Europe and Russia.
Created using steel, rebar, and welding techniques, his works explore themes of resistance to control, social pressure, and the pervasive influence of social media.
At the core of the exhibition is a series dedicated to the so-called “20/21 Club” — young rappers who died at the age of 21 at the height of their fame, victims of gun violence and drug abuse. Among them are Juice WRLD, Jimmy Wopo, XXXTentacion, Lil Peep, and Pop Smoke.
The exhibition runs from May 23 to June 22 and is organised in collaboration with Arc Space, Bird & Carrot Productions, and Developing Artists.
The Practice of Looking: How to Watch Contemporary Dance
How can we navigate the vast diversity of dance projects today? How do we begin to understand what is happening on stage? How can we find what truly resonates and make sense of the landscape of contemporary dance? What distinguishes the work of Pina Bausch from mainstream shows like Dances on TNT, and how do performers convey complex emotions through movement?
Join a conversation with choreographer Nikita Beliakov — a laureate of the Golden Mask Award, choreographer at the Theatre of Nations and the Moscow Art Theatre, as well as a teacher and performer — as we explore these questions together.
Nikita Beliakov completed a residency within the American Dance Festival (USA) programme at the Sobinov Saratov State Conservatory and trained with leading international choreographers, including Rachid Ouramdane (L’A Dance Company, France), Jan Fabre (Troubleyn, Belgium), Philippe Decouflé (DCA, France), Nicole Seiler (Théâtre Arsenic, Switzerland), Guilherme Botelho (Alias Dance Company, Switzerland), Akram Khan and Nicola Monaco (Akram Khan Company, UK), Dominic North and Ashley Shaw (Matthew Bourne’s New Adventures).
He is a participant of Biennale Danza 2024 and is currently completing an MA in Choreography at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance.
Language: Russian
Heads Will Roll—and Perhaps Fly: The Literary and Visual Legacy of the Guillotine in France
The French guillotine stands as one of the most charged instruments of modernity: an engineering feat codified in the late eighteenth century to rationalize state execution, with the ambition of rendering it more egalitarian and—strikingly to us today—more humane. Yet its function cannot be disentangled from the profound psychic and cultural shockwaves it produced, particularly during the Reign of Terror, when mechanized death transformed the executioner into a mere agent and the act itself became at once spectacle and routine.
What is remarkable is not only its political significance, but the rich afterlife it generated across artistic and literary domains. Reports of post-mortem blinking, animated bodies, and an obsessive fascination with severed, seemingly “living” heads reveal a collective preoccupation with the limits of vitality. Imbued with an uncanny persistence, these fragments blur the threshold between life and death, returning as motifs that oscillate between horror, fascination, and a dark aesthetic charge within the artistic production of the period.
By tracing the guillotine’s visual and literary haunting manifestations in 19th and 20th century France, we begin to grasp its peculiar legacy: not merely as a technology in the service of abjection, but as an ambiguously potent image-making force that continues to shape the imagination.
French-born Laetitia Barbier is a tarot teacher, cartomancer, and independent scholar. She is the author of Tarot and Divination Cards: A Visual Archive (2021) and Jesus Now: Contemporary Art + Pop Culture. She holds a BA in Art History from Sorbonne University (2009) and served as Head Librarian and Programming Director at Morbid Anatomy from 2012 to 2024. Her work explores art, esoterica, and the cultural function of images, with a particular interest in their symbolic and historical resonances. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.
Language: English
On April 18, Sasha Gefen will return to Arc to lead her vocal circles!
We’re once again inviting you to our joint event with the Pascol project — vocal circles. We tried hosting it here before, and it turned out to be absolutely incredible.
What are vocal circles? It’s a session for everyone — for those who can sing and those who think they can’t, for professional musicians and for people who can’t tell one note from another. Over the course of three hours, you squeak, hum, sing, make sounds, and learn to hear and listen to your body, to connect voice and movement, to sound together with others, to feel the support of the group and your own voice. It’s an ideal practice for absolutely anyone.
Who is it for?
• Those who’ve always wanted to try singing but never dared
• Those who sing occasionally and want to reconnect with inspiration
• Those who love music and want to experiment with their voice
Sasha Gefen is one of the creators of the vocal performance project Pascol (/pascol_project
), a graduate of RBMA 2018, and a participant of the international residency 1beat.
Friends, this Saturday we have an unexpected and unforgettable event — Taiwanese Song Day. You asked for it — we made it happen.
Our friend, a cinematographer and film school student, will present 10 to 15 of his favorite songs and music videos, and talk about key Taiwanese artists, how they differ from Chinese and other musicians, and the unique features of Taiwan’s music culture.
The lecture will be held in English. During the event, traditional alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks from the region will be served.
Make sure to register soon.
The medieval Church is often imagined as something dark: strict rules, the persecution of heretics, and an all-consuming seriousness that leaves no room for foolishness. And yet, upon opening a 14th-century Latin liturgical manuscript, one may be surprised to find texts celebrating drunkenness, sex, and other rather indecorous things. How did they end up there?
Parodic prayers, the lives of invented saints, and even mock biblical texts coexisted alongside serious Christian writings—and not only were they not forbidden, they spread widely across Europe.
To whom did medieval gamblers pray? How did a herring go from being the killer of an abbot to a holy great martyr? And how can one use the Gospel to ask for a loan?
We’ll explore all this in our new lecture.
Language: Russian
Tickets in BIO
