This week's arts dairy

It's back. One-On-One, the participatory event that caused a storm at Battersea Arts Centre last year (with 72 rooms offering everything from a Hebrew-speaking man waiting to kiss your feet to the chance to lie inside a coffin) returns in spring, as BAC celebrates its 30th birthday. "Faceyour fears," runs the tagline. "Come inside and play."This year, artistic director David Jubb, who claims he usually "loathes audience participation", is hoping to attract those who are, like himself, "scaredy cats" when it comes to the prospect of, say, slugging it out in a boxing ring in the name of art. "This event gets complete strangers talking to each other in a way they may not even talk to their closest friends," saysJubb. "Last year, we had people revealing their childhood fears to thebox office manager."This year's One-On-One, the Diary can reveal, will allow punters to ease themselves in, since it will offer "menus" ranging in extremity. The Immersive Menu will be gentler, while the Challenging Menu will be, well, justthat. Two other menus the Technologised and the Mind-Bending are currently in development. You havebeen warned.The royal wedding may be three months away, but the art world isgetting its responses in early. Last week, female students from the RoyalCollege of Art dressed up in the now-infamous blue wrap-style dress Kate Middleton wore to announce herbetrothal, lined up outside Buckingham Palace, and, ring fingers extended, would say only the followingto curious passers-by: "I'mKate. It's wonderful to meet you. I'm very excited about the wedding." And in February, Jennifer Rubell's Engagement, a life-size sculpture ofPrince William, will be unveiled. Spectators can link arms with it, Middleton-style, andimitate their engagement pose. Rubell is a food writer turned installation artist whose previous pieces include one ton of ribs dripping in honey suspended from a ceiling, and 1,521 dou! ghnuts h anging ona free-standing wall. "The royal wedding is a Prince Charming fantasy that still seems to speak to women," she says. "So I wanted to offer those women a chance to stand in Kate's place. I hope it's not just women who step up, though." The Diary looks forward to seeing who will take Kate's place, andwhat they intend to do on the prince's arm.Among the 35 dead at Moscow's Domodedovo airport on Monday was a talented young Ukrainian poet and playwright, Anna Yablonskaya. She hadbeen travelling to pick up an awardfor her play Pagans developed after a residency at London's Royal Court and scheduled for a rehearsed reading there before news came through of her death. Elyse Dodgson, head of the theatre's international department, said Yablonskaya was "one of the most brilliant, promising writers we have ever worked with". The reading will goahead in her memory on 7 April.

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