In this edition we look forward to a special Abandon Normal Devices Halloween broadcast on BBC Radio Merseyside, announce the winner of the Lakes Alive 2011 photo competition and celebrate the participation of Blaze Young Producers in an event at 10 Downing Street.
Abandon Normal Devices 2011
ROMEO ECHO DELTA interrupts the airwaves this Halloween!
Tonight Abandon Normal Devices (AND) interrupts the airwaves for a special Halloween broadcast on BBC Radio Merseyside. ROMEO ECHO DELTA is a new sound project by artists Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard. Produced especially for AND festival, it is inspired by a long line of hoax alien invasions and fake UFO scares, most famously, Orson Welles’ radio play of H.G Well's science fiction novel War of the Worlds broadcast for Halloween in 1938. The BBC Radio Merseyside broadcast on 31 October 2011 at 10.30pm will be accompanied by an ominous red light in the night sky above Birkenhead.
Plugging into an age-old fascination with the red planet and the possibility of earth invasion from another world, Forsyth and Pollard aim to unpick the nature of contemporary reporting, where breaking news stories are frequently caught in a suspended limbo before any real facts emerge. ROMEO ECHO DELTA occupies this same space.
Watch the skies this Halloween and be part of this exciting experiment in radio history.
Find out more about this one-off event on the AND website.
Lakes Alive 2011
Whitehaven man wins Lakes Alive photo competition
This year the Cumbria News Group invited amateur photographers from across the county to capture the spirit of Lakes Alive events for a photo competition. There was a wonderful response and entries included photos of Barrow’s Zircus Plus, Harmonic Fields at Birkrigg Common, and the Barrow-based Vagabonders’ tour of South Cumbria. Bob Sewell from Whitehaven won the top prize with an image of Lakes Alive’s London 2012 ‘One Year to Go’ event in Whitehaven harbour. This aerial spectacular featured an orchestra of bell-ringers and acrobats who were lifted skywards to perform a concert, creating a magical, musical, human chandelier.
Mr Sewell said his picture of an acrobatic performer came from sheer luck. He added: ‘It was dark at the time and the colours were really strong – that’s what stood out for me.’
Find out more about Bob’s winning picture on the North West Evening Mail website.
Mintfest International Summer School for Street Arts in 2012
Dates for next year's Mintfest International Summer School for Street Arts have been announced. The course will take place from 25 August to 3 September 2012. Once again the course will be a fully immersive, residential experience. Participants will be focused on creating a piece of work which they will perform to large festival audiences, professional artists and industry professionals at Mintfest, Kendal's international festival of street arts.
Detailed course information will be available in the New Year; to join the mailing list and receive the course booklet as soon as it is ready, please email: jenny@kendalartsinternational.com with your email contact.
Blaze 2011
Free running inside 10 Downing Street
Two Blaze Young Producers from the Urban Culture Jam project were part of a select group of young people invited to perform in 10 Downing Street on 1 October. Free runners Callum Harris and Jack Curtis joined boxers and spoken word artists for this incredible opportunity, organised by somewhereto_ a nationwide initiative helping young people find the space to do what they love. You can find out more and watch somewhereto_'s incredible film of the event here.
We hear the Prime Minister liked the film so much that he chose to show it as an introduction to his speech at the Conservative Party Conference in Manchester a few days later.
It does not stop there. Callum and Jack were interviewed on the BBC’s North West Tonight about their amazing experience. You can see ‘behind the scenes’ footage of their interview here.
The London 2012 Cultural Olympiad is the largest cultural celebration in the history of the modern Olympic and Paralympic Games, designed to give everyone a chance to be part of London 2012. The four-year Cultural Olympiad started in September 2008 at the end of the Beijing 2008 Paralympic Games and will culminate in a UK wide festival in 2012, bringing together leading artists from all over the world. Principal funders of the London 2012 Festival and Cultural Olympiad are Arts Council England, Legacy Trust UK and the National Lottery through the Olympic Lottery Distributor.
