Having been squarely blown away by another of his works, Erection, far away at a festival in Texas only a month ago, we couldn't stay quiet about Pierre Rigal coming back to London with Press. The two pieces compare interestingly: both are solos placing Rigal himself within tightly defined physical predicaments, and both involve him in silent, twitching negotiations with lighting systems so lifelike they're soon read as a second character. In Erection, the space grew as he learnt to walk. In Press, the opposite happens with the box he's confined to slowly shrinking over time. His Houdini-like escapes are that of a physical Oulipian, subtly inviting our expectations before dashing them, elegantly. Intellectual and physical rigour dovetailing as one would expect of a maths scholar turned professional athlete... turned dancer?! Rigal's CV is sickeningly impressive: fortunately he really manages to channel the mix of influences into the kind of unique vision so often missing from the "sport-inspired" art we're beginning to know too well.

NB: Press is performed at Sadler's Wells on 28/05, 29/05 and 30/05.

The theme of excavation sears through this adaptation of Anne Michaels' Orange Prize-winning novel about a writer, Jakob, who as a child fled Nazi occupied Poland -- saved by a benevolent Greek archaeologist who secretly evacuated him to the island of Zakynthos and later Canada. Metaphorically digging up the past, studying it and piecing it together has become Jakob's life work -- it consumes him to the point where living in the present becomes torture, and those forcing him to do so become his tormentors. Stephen Dillane is exceptional as the troubled author searching for answers in the dust, amongst the bones and rubble of six million persecuted Jews, as is Rosamund Pike, his perky girlfriend whose sunny disposition is to him as vitriol on glass. It's a shame that so much of the latter half of the novel is culled from this adaptation; Michaels' exploration of the complex impact of the holocaust on second generation refugees is one of the novel's USPs, but even though the film only touches upon this it retains its emotional potency, painting with lyrical poeticism a portrait of a man irrevocably scarred by the past.

NB: Anne Michaels' new book The Winter Vault is a similarly poetically moving account of love, grief and loss, set in Egypt and Canada. On 01/06 (6:30pm) catch her she gives a reading and talk at the Queen Elizabeth Hall. Fugitive Pieces is released in London on 29/05.

Taking inspiration from the unlikely combination of Dylan Thomas (for the location) and Noam Chomsky (for the title -- taken from his "Colourless green ideas sleep furiously" example for linguistic theory) this lyrically beautiful portrait of a year in rural Wales adds a further surprise with a subtle soundtrack by Aphex Twin. Focusing around the regular visits by the travelling library van driver (with his enthusiastic one-man literary recommendation service -- like a real life version of Amazon), the film chronicles the year's highs (lambing, the country fair, the choir) with the lows (the weather, the uncertainty of harvests) in a small, seemingly time-warped Welsh community. Contrasting the difficulties of isolated rural life with the beauty and serenity offered by that same isolation, the film is both both melancholic and joyous. The long shots and gentle pace reflect the tempo of change here, refreshingly free of the endless technology of the urban landscape; the only things twittering here are the sparrows.

NB: post screening director Gideon Koppel will be present for a Q&A. Sleep Furiously is released in London on 29/05.

Possibly not for the decaf drinkers amongst us, but unmissable for those who like it harder than reinforced, titanium nails. Known to his postman as Anthony Child, Surgeon has been bludgeoning wide-eyed crowds since the mid-nineties. It all began for the Birmingham-based producer after meeting ex-Napalm Death drummer Mick Harris (aka Scorn). The two exchanged ideas and pooled resources, and it wasn't long before England's second city was gaining global-recognition for a new, industrial strain of techno. Set to perform his new audio/visual live show, the brummie tops the bill, but this is by no means a one-man event. Detroit's Aux 88 (aka Tommy Hamilton and Keith Tucker) plan to tear through a live showcase of fierce, stateside electro, whilst Hacienda legend A Guy Called Gerald will stage a live acid set. Machine funk pioneer and general techno overlord, Luke Slater, will be spinning the eagerly anticipated material from his forthcoming Planetary Assault Systems album. Those unfamiliar with the project to date can probably already work out from the name that this isn't going be any more chilled than any of the above. Add Surgeon's right hand man, Ben Sims, and a host of like-minded residents to the bill and you've got yourself the sickest, straight-up techno line-up we've seen in a while.

Working in video, sound installation, sculpture and photography Jonathan Horowitz critically examines the cultures of celebrity, politics, cinema, war and consumerism. In his latest exhibition Free Store, the artist invites us to "please bring stuff that you can't use and take stuff away that you can" -- basically a request to bring in your old tat, and an imperative to take away someone else's. Perhaps an apt metaphor of today's media and entertainment strategies, offering an alternative for "real" personal emotions and daily mundane activities and replacing them by fabricated histories of celebrities, TV personalities, and unlikely doom and disaster scenarios. In the film Apocolypto Now, shown alongside the upside down pedestal bins and "reject" objects, we are presented with a video compiled from various found sources: a documentary on the history of Hollywood disaster movies, various televised media snippets, footage of climate change and movies which re-enact 9/11. Diane Sawyer interviews Mel Gibson, who is the protagonist and exemplary walking paradox of his own making. In Free Store Horowitz presents a nuanced critique of the spectacle culture and draws connections between disaster as entertainment, real life catastrophe, and the apocalyptic character of religious fundamentalist beliefs. All materials, energy sources and ideologies have been recycled for a must see show which ends this week.

NB: runs till 30/05.

Louis Thomas Hardin's posthumous fame continues to burgeon. The man better known as Moondog may have spent half his adult life living in homespun, druidic robes on the streets of Manhattan (hence this evening's sobriquet -- also the title of Robert Scotto's worthy Moondog biography) but he ended his days playing to European conservatory crowds. Since his passing, in 1994, the blind, Norse-obsessed American original has seen the influence of his unique, percussion-led hybrids of street jazz, hymnal canons and proto-minimalist compositions reach deep into contemporary leftfield (and centre-field, for that matter) music. This Barbican one-nighter does not, regrettably, feature stellar Moondog followers like Philip Glass, Steve Reich, Damon Albarn or Antony Hegarty, but we are promised turns from Andi Toma (of Mouse On Mars), the Britten Sinfonia conducted by Andre de Ridder, Gruff Rhys and Bunf (of Super Furry Animals), Lightspeed Champion and Max De Wardener along with Moondogian DJ sets by Caribou and Kieran Hebden. The evening's exact repertoire is undisclosed at the time of writing, but it's fair to assume there will be a smattering of the man's better known pieces for chamber ensembles, some intricate round singing and lots of strangely shaped pieces of wood being thumped and rattled in tricky, but oddly toe-tapping, time-signatures.

These two tremendous sextets, both written when their composers were just 25 years old, both written in Vienna and in different ways hommages to the musical tradition of that great city, though separated by only 40 years, point in two different directions. The first -- Brahms' Sextet No 1 -- is placed very much on the boundary between classicism and romanticism; the second -- Schoenberg's, though taking much from Brahms -- faces towards the atonality and fierce chromatism of early modernist music. Both are masterworks of the chamber repertoire. Verklarte Nacht (transfigured night), probably Schoenberg's most "accessible" work in its lyricism and sensuality, is based on a poem by Dehmel which tells of a moonlit meeting between two young lovers, the woman's confession that her unborn child belongs to another man, and her lover's reassurance that their love will transform the child into his own and bring a superior harmony between the three. Brahms' work, at once intensely sensuous and commanding -- it was further immortalised in Louis Malle's Les amants, as the music that accompanied the lovers' moonlit stroll -- demonstrates sublime writing for strings that has made it one the best-loved items from the Romantic chamber repertoire. The young and brilliant violinist Nikolaj Znaider will be leading the ensemble in this delectably sensuous programme.

After spending the end of 2008 perched atop many a critic's list thanks to the super awesome Saint Dymphna, all was going swimmingly for Gang Gang Dance in 2009 till the Amsterdam incident. A freak fire in the midst of their March European tour gutted all their equipment, causing the immediate cancellation of all further dates and disappointment for all involved. Some three months of fire-proofing drum sticks and synthesisers later, the Brooklynite cosmic art rockers finally make it to London to show off their intoxicating blend of eerie vocals, heavy percussion and strung out guitars. On record the aforementioned sounds sublime; performed live it is captivating. One has to wonder if recently crowned "Number 1" artist and Saint Dymphna guest vocalist Tinchy Stryder will grace the audience with his presence. Providing support are Plus About, who are so very EYOE. Alexis Talyor, the bespectacled midget from Hot Chip, fronts this collective of improvising musicians (including Charles Hayward) who mix up schizoid electronics with the relentless percussion of vintage cosmiche acts.

Hilarious, frightening and saddening all at the same time, Oladipo Agboluaje's new play Iya-Ile (The First Wife), directed by Femi Elufowoju Jr, never strays too far from the corruption inherent in Nigeria's political system. Agboluaje brings it down to the family unit as a parallel of the outer world -- Toyin, played majestically by Antonia Okonma, is the dominant female of Chief Adeyemi's household who treats her housemaid like a slave and, at the same time, tries to be a paradigm of "moral values". All around her there is a plethora of deceit, prejudice, corruption and sex. Agboluaje's writing wonderfully combines his sharp, all-encompassing sense of humour with his need to highlight the ills of his country. Although dealing with heavy issues at times, Tiata Fahodzi's production places side by side these negative aspects with the wonderful warmth, humour and energy of the Nigerian psyche. This play never lets you forget the ironies it deals with, yet ensures you have the maximum theatrical experience.

NB: runs till 20/06.

Not to be confused with sixties hearthrob Ian Whitcomb's 1965 single of the same name, Lindsay Anderson's This Sporting Life, adapted from the novel by David Storey, is made of the same gritty metal as Karel Reisz's Saturday Night And Sunday Morning, and Tony Richardson's The Loneliness Of The Long Distance Runner. Despite an Oscar-nominated performance from Richard Harris, it wasn't a commercial success and heralded the end of the British New Wave, and the era of the "angry young men". Life's pretty grim up North when seen through the eyes of cocky coal-miner turned rugby star Frank Machin (Harris), whose love object, the terminally frosty landlady Mrs Hammond, only has eyes for her dead husband's work boots. The brutal frays of professional rugby (no padding, no mouthguards) proffer Machin no escape from his daily doldrums, but do provide furious material for the match montage framing most of the action. And despite the quintessential doom and gloom, Anderson gives us more than the bog-standard kitchen-sink. The loosely-woven narrative, stylised aesthetic, and bristling subtext bring more than a little Bergman to Storey's bleak Yorkshire, and Harris' barely concealed sexual oomph makes every shot sing. But at over two hours long, This Sporting Life makes for one drawn out pull on the heartstrings.

NB: post screening David Storey will be present for a Q&A. This Sporting Life screens at the ICA from 03/06 till 22/06. The ICA is also screening a special programme of Lindsay Anderson shorts from 13/06 till 22/06.

Turning her hand to pretty much any art form is something that comes easily to Katie Mitchell who, in this one off event, works with tenor Mark Padmore and pianist Andrew West to present the full song cycle of Schubert's Winter Journey (Winterreise). Recently we have seen visual art and theatre coming closer in Punchdrunk's and the Old Vic's recent Tunnel 228 and Elmgreen & Dragset's Drama Queens, where Kevin Spacey's intention was to bring the two converging audiences together. Perhaps this is Mitchell's premise in One Evening. Her recent successes at the National Theatre with Waves and ...some trace of her turned the performance into a cross-art-form exploration. One Evening goes further than this by including music, theatre and psychology looking to explore Schubert's Winterreise through the eyes of Samuel Becket. Beckett had a life-long infatuation with this particular song cycle written in 1821 by Wilhelm Mueller, seen here in a new translation by British poet Michael Symmons Roberts. Mitchell inserts Beckett text throughout, alongside upright pianos, and whether you're a Beckett fan or not, there should be something for everyone here.

An often-overlooked aspect of architecture, at least on the part of its users, is the degree to which we are manipulated by it. The politics of space lead us, unwitting subjects, into a spatial encounter where we unknowingly perform the role of occupant, dweller, or passer by. Anyone who has been caught in the Gaudi Park or other elaborate outdoor scheme in a sudden shower can attest to the fact that whimsically winding paths leading nowhere become instantly less enjoyable when we are made aware of the nature of our participation -- indeed the nature of our performance. Vito Acconci's interest in architecture stems from the same root as his poetry and performance art, both deeply concerned with manipulating and coercing the reader or the viewer, the supposed passer by, into actively participating in his work. Acconci and architect Steven Holl collaborated in 1992 to redesign the facade for the Storefront For Art And Architecture, using a row of pivoting panels that spanned the entirety of the building's facade and adapting the triangular exhibition space to challenge spatial concepts of interior and exterior, by opening the entire space to the outside, causing passers by to participate. They will be speaking about the project with Storefront's director, Joseph Grima.

NB: this talk kicks off Tate Modern's Architecture + Art: Crossover And Collaboration series and is curated by the The Architecture Foundation.

Imagine a trio of people who finish each others' sentences and you have some idea of the interchange between artists Uri Aran, Darren Bader and Ara Dymond, currently sharing the inaugural exhibition in Ritter/Zamet's new space in E1. Aran's deadpan video, in which he intones in increasingly unlikely and unconvinced superlatives the unique importance of ballet dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov, generates a mood of hesitant scepticism underlined by a quiet mirth that somehow never seems smug. Bader presents a George Condo painting as if it is his own, in part mocking appropriation, although not feeling any need to bypass Condo's pricing structure. Dymond presents a sculpture and photograph, the latter being a floor based simulacra of an ugly and stained carpet, complete with an unlikely piece of white coral, somehow managing to be both beautiful and unbalanced. There is a lot of fun to be had in the speculative layers of this exhibition, and more enjoyment to be imagined from the future curatorial programme of Ritter/Zamet, which while always strong, laboured a bit under the oddness of the old space. This much smaller, sky lit gallery somehow feels more neutral and substantial while allowing the wit and delicacy of the current exhibition free play.

NB: runs till 13/06.

The age of the photograph as keep safe is fast becoming obsolete. Seamlessly replaced by the ease of storing images in digital form, where we can manipulate and share them at a moments notice, the time is ripe for an exhibition that considers the photograph as "object". It is just this materiality of the medium that is examined in The Photographic Object. The slice of life aesthetic of the photograph is tested and stretched to exceed the limitations of the medium. Whether it be in Catherine Yass' brutal treatment, drowning or burning her images to change their chemical make up or Maurizio Anzeri's surface interventions on antique portraits to highlight the decorative function of the medium, the eclectic mix of artists seek to reframe the photograph as an active site of representation. It is an impressive line-up for such a small exhibition and the chance to see Warhol, Wolfgang Tillmans and some Gerhard Richter gems at close proximity. Meanwhile the ground floor space displays work by sculptor Vanessa Billy which interrogates our constructed method of seeing and perception, harking back to the laborious origins of the camera.

NB: runs till 14/06.

For some, religion, and in particular Christianity, seems like an archaic and immovable obstacle on the road to social progress. Certainly the new Pope has been doing his best either to assert his obstacular position in this respect, or to cause the wave of hope and enthusiasm that broke under Pope John Paul II to recede back into total social irrelevance. But for many, Christianity provides answers to difficult questions, and faith fills in social and political gaps all over he world, for better or for worse. Co-authors of The Monstrosity Of Christ, Slavoj Zizek and John Milbank will discuss not only the value of theology in the rational pursuit of political and economic emancipation, but also the potential of Christ as a figurehead towards the instigation of change. For Zizek, an outspoken atheist, the marriage of religion and politics is inherently cynical and based on an impossible logic. For Millbank, theology is the cornerstone for the pursuit of knowledge of any kind. The ICA appears to have staged philosophical boxing match between materialism and correlationism using the current political climate as an arena, Giles Fraser the vicar of Putney as a referee, and following the rules outlined in their new book -- a fight for which you will surely want a front row seat.

NB: this event is close to selling out so buy your tickets now. Also of note is the ICA's MegaGod: The Evangelical Strain panel discussion on 22/06 (7pm).

Ornette Coleman is no stranger to controversy; throughout his career, he has sought out new ways to evolve and speak through his music, continually confounding pundits and critics alike for whom the extremes of his expression (ranging as it does from his free jazz of the 1950s and '60s, through the tribal electric funk of the '80s, to his more recent re-imagining of modern ensemble playing) has often meant he spent years in the wilderness. "I can't tell a promoter that I'm coming here to play. They have to tell me, that they want me to come and play, but I don't get lots of offers to do that ..." he says, explaining his relative absence since 1995, only to have been picked up again in the last few years by promoters around the world in the wake of his Pulitzer winning live recording Sound Grammar. Nevertheless, in an era of themed comebacks, reunions and farewell tours carefully designed to maximise profits, it would be easy to get the wrong impression about the "retrospective" concerts he's embarking on for this year's Meltdown. But as the man himself so eloquently puts it "... I think the reason why is, people say, that I'm gonna come and blow things that are not gonna please people, or whatever. But I think of playing things that heal people. You know what healing is? Something that brings tears and clarity to your heart. That's as close as I can get. And that's all I'm interested in."

NB: Ornette Coleman's other concert on 19/06 is already sold out so buy your tickets quickly for this one. Meltdown runs from 13/06 till 21/06.

Diane Arbus created some of the most iconic portraits of the twentieth century. Her images of dwarves, giants, nudists, twins, beauty queens and circus freaks shot between that late '50s and the early '70s are infinitely compelling. They also have the power to create a great malaise in whoever really looks at them. Indeed, her much documented suicide appears to cloud her incredibly lucid images with a murky film of tragedy so that it is often quite hard to see her work for its own merits. Even without prior knowledge of her untimely death, striking images like Child With Toy Grenade and Teenage Couple On Hudson Street have long polarised opinions: she was called a genius just as often as she was criticised, most famously by Susan Sontag who accused her of exploiting her marginal subjects. Yet Arbus claimed to be fascinated by her subjects because, "Most people go through life dreading they'll have a traumatic experience. Freaks were born with their trauma. They've already passed their test in life. They're aristocrats". Freaks or aristocrats, they transcend the frame and their frank stares will stay with you long after you have left the gallery, leaving you with the impression that you have not seen enough, not lived enough, that you have not passed your test.

NB: runs till 27/06.

Somehow, in a world where simulations are part and parcel of the reality they depict, 3D cinema still manages to bring a little bit of magic to a dark empty room. Simply watching people occupy a space in fully rounded dimensions, looking real, sounding real, and yet not being real, still feels thrillingly futuristic, albeit in a Doctor Who kind of vein. Artists Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard's latest video installation, in 3D, exploits our fundamental fascination with fakery and trompe l'oeil and goes one step further. Here, the scenes playing out in our disorientated frame of vision are plucked from the 1922 silent film The Man From M.A.R.S. -- one of the first films ever made in 3D, and deemed so dreadful it was pulled after 24 days. Forsyth and Pollard have brought it back from the dead. Furthermore in true mockumentary style, this is a rehearsal -- actors read from scripts, scenery is hefted on and off screen, and directors shout from the wings. Like the criss-crossing white lines splitting our floor space, and theirs, in two, Forsyth and Pollard have disconnected and relocated our perception of time, space, and authenticity, which is bewildering to say the least. Imagine a Charlie Kaufman film -- starring you.

NB: runs till 11/07. Catch Forsyth and Pollard for a discussion on 09/07 (6:10pm).

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