Posts Tagged ‘festival’
Speed Up! is a new programme for 2012 of exciting international bands. With Norwich Arts Centre as the hub venue and events popping up elsewhere plus an installation in Fusion at the Forum, Speed Up! will be fast, loud, energetic and fun – a great addition to this year’s Norfolk & Norwich Festival.
Stuart Hobday, Director of Norwich Arts Centre says:
“We’re really excited to be bringing this new programme to Norwich as part of the Festival in May. These events will be experiences not forgotten by those attending, they promise to be immersive visually and sonically. It’s been great working with the Festival to develop this new initiative and we really think it will bring an extra dimension to the festivities in May. Whilst aimed at a younger audience i’d urge everyone to come along to at least one of these events and sample the energy and excitement of new music that is out there.”
The Fusion Gallery in the Forum will feature a specially made Speed Up! installation showcasing the brilliant DIY videos and visuals created by the bands appearing in the Speed Up! programme. The installation will include band members describing the creative process for their films and videos.
The programme kicks off with I.R.O.K on Friday 11 May at Norwich Arts Centre. I.R.O.K (the Intergalactic Republic Of Kongo) create psychotropic afro-punk. Contagious and violent, this is the sound of chaos, of ecstasy, of joy and of panic.
Mantra-happy Portland dance duo YACHT (Sunday 13 May at Norwich Arts Centre) will be flaunting their irresistible grooves, beguiling beats, sparkling synths and hooks so sharp they will pierce even the hardest of hearts.
Contemporary music group ESMERINE will be live on Monday 14 May at Norwich Arts Centre supported by Eric Chenaux. Co-founded ten years ago by percussionist Bruce Cawdron (Godpseed You! Black Emperor) and cellist Rebecca Foon (Thee Silver Mt. Zion, Mile-End Ladies’ String Auxiliary), they have one foot in the new music/experimental terrain and the other in the more visceral and lyrical landscape populated by the likes of Dirty Three (and GY!BE themselves).
Ready to unleash their debut album, HOLY STATE (presented by Norwich Sound & Vision on Friday 18 May at Norwich Arts Centre) have created a sonically inspired vision, an example of their passion to create honest, driving songs.
Both hailing from Norfolk, NATHAN FAKE & LUKE ABBOTT have been making significant waves in the electronica world via the Border Community Label. Nathan’s latest works have evolved into a much harder take on the electronica brief with a shift away from straight techno towards a more melodic sound. Luke’s live show is an eminently danceable creature. His hypnotic entrancements connect with something deeper seated within, and have already been rolled out to universal effect across Europe and the Far East. This joint headline show takes place on Saturday 19 May at Norwich Arts Centre.
DEATH GRIPS (live on Tuesday 22 May at Norwich Arts Centre) aggressive, dark, experimental hip-hop has been garnering much praise for it’s raw power and punk attitude. Expect their debut album to redefine hip-hop in 2012.
BALACLAVA KID & DAD will debut a brand new show for NNF12 at St Lawrence Church on Thursday 24 May supported by Transept. The two-piece, consisting of baritone guitar, drums, various live looping and bass effects, have been working on a new show to create an offbeat thunderous live experience within the intimate site of a disused church in the centre of Norwich. Inspired by feelings of nostalgia for their Welsh roots, the show seeks to explore the contrasts between beauty and bleakness, industry and dereliction and will apply the use of surround sound, 3D visuals and animations to evoke a wild frontier atmosphere.
The second joint headlining show in this programme features ZUN ZUN EGUI and TV BUDDHAS on Friday 25 May at Norwich Arts Centre. Zun Zun Egui are a band with a penchant for rocking the outer reaches. Live, they tune in and then explode, taking the audience with them urging every foot to dance.
Israeli punk pop trio TV BUDDHAS bring their own blend of alienation-drenched garage-punk. Their music is reminiscent of The Wipers and Dead Moon, with a heavier, Stoner guitar sound, and minimalistic drumming played on a stripped down kit.
As a music and graphic duet, GANGPOL UND MIT work in a peculiar world of digital pop, inhabited by colourful and geometrical characters. On Saturday 26 May at Norwich Arts Centre they will be performing ‘The 1000 People Band’ show, where the cartoon characters play live. The music jumps from synth assaults, woody flute, to mondo beats and cinematic harpsichord keys.
An exciting new exhibition of immersive digital prints and glitching video work by DAN TOMBS will run alongside the programme of music from Friday 11 May to Saturday 9 June. Dan’s work explores the cracks in video technology, building-in defects and looking for ways to pry apart the technical stability of an image. He physically corrupts circuits, creates short circuits, and exploits the code of systems, with wild and unpredictable results. This FREE exhibition will be open to the public between 10am and 6pm from Monday to Saturday.
The Fusion Gallery in the Forum will feature a specially made Speed Up! installation showcasing the brilliant DIY videos and visuals created by the bands appearing in the Speed Up! programme. The installation will include band members describing the creative process for their films and videos.
For ticket prices and more information on Speed Up! or to book tickets for these events please visit www.norwichartscentre.co.uk/speedup
SPECIAL OFFER! See the Norfolk & Norwich Festival shows I.R.O.K, Zun Zun Egi and Gangpol Und Mit for just £5!
Just quote ‘ENJOY NORWICH OFFER’ when booking tickets at the NAC box office 01603 660352.
Following the success of the UK’s first City of Ale event in 2011, Norwich City of Ale returns jubilantly in 2012 with more pubs, more beers, and more events than before. It’s a ten-day celebration of real ale, craft brewing and friendly, welcoming pubs taking place all over the fine city.
More than 40 city pubs will be serving hundreds of beers from 35 local breweries. From the Official Launch Party on 31 May to the Closing Party on 10 June a huge range of events will be taking place giving the City a fantastic festival atmosphere.
These include the popular Brewers’ Market, which returns on Saturday 2 June to Millennium Plain outside the iconic Forum in central Norwich, showcasing a brewers’ dozen or so stalls with a wide variety of ales to try and buy.
This year, along with all the usual (and highly enjoyable) suspects – live bands, pub quizzes, barbecues, Morris dancing and traditional pub games – there are some additional showcase events. A political debate on Friday 1 features three MPs influential in the brewing and licensed trade plus the CEO of the Campaign for Real Ale responding to pressing issues focused around the beer and pub industries. There’s a fund-raising auction on Saturday 9 with oddments and collectable items of breweriana. Throughout the festival there’ll be pub and brewery-oriented heritage walks conducted by Blue Badge Guides; a multimedia extravaganza of Norwich’s pub and brewing heritage airs daily on the big screen at Fusion and the iconic City of Ale Bus (a 1954 Bristol Lodekka) will be plying a number of routes around the more outlying pubs (though, wonderfully, all the pubs are within easy walking distance; Norwich is a city on a human scale with the most complete medieval street plan in Europe).
In these austere times when alcohol is increasingly seen as a social evil, with convivial drinkers being demonised by the press, and the beer escalator duty hitting them where it hurts most (in the wallet), this is an occasion to celebrate all that is truly good, wholesome and enjoyable about our national tipple; salubrious, honest, natural, unpretentious real ale. Surely we can all drink to that!
Norwich City of Ale 31st May – 10th June 2012. View the schedule of events and the pubs and breweries that are taking part.
The first ever Victorian Nights Festival to take place in North Norfolk in May 2012
From 18 – 20 May 2012, the North Norfolk towns of Cromer, Sheringham and Wells-next-the-Sea will be transported back to the Victorian Britain thanks to a successful bid to the Heritage Lottery Fund. The first ever Victorian Nights festival will celebrate the lavish Victorian Age, a significant period in North Norfolk’s history, as it heralded the coming of the railways and marked North Norfolk as the popular holiday destination for tourists it remains today.
Participating venues in the three towns will be opening their doors after-hours for a packed programme of FREE events to entertain and amaze. The programme features Victorian fire eaters, escapologists, an old fashioned photo parlour, fairground attractions, circus acts, a steam train ride, cottage craft workshops, film, guided walks and the chance to meet lots of costumed characters. All the events are aimed at families, the local community and visitors to the area. Most events are drop-in, but some must be pre-booked. See the Victorian Nights leaflet for more details or see the full Victorian Nights Events List.
The festival is part of the national Museums at Night campaign, the annual after-hours celebration of arts, history and heritage. The campaign is co-ordinated by Culture 24, a not-for-profit online publisher, working across the arts, heritage, education and tourism sectors.
The initiative is the work of eight cultural organisations across the three towns: Cromer Museum, RNLI Henry Blogg Museum, Cromer Preservation Society, North Norfolk Railway, The Mo Museum, Sheringham Little Theatre, Sheringham Preservation Society and Wells Maltings. The project is being co-ordinated by Laura Crossley, a freelance museums and heritage consultant.
As well as going along to the exciting events, there are lots of opportunities for local people to get involved with Victorian Nights. The festival’s volunteer programme features a range of interesting roles, from marketing, to photography, to driving a minibus! A special volunteer scheme, in co-operation with the Norfolk Library Service, will see 20 local people attend a certificated literacy and blogging training course, before promoting the festival via fortnightly blogs. A dedicated schools programme will also give local children the opportunity to get involved via a competition and education pack which can be used in schools. The organisers would also like to invite local businesses to take part in the fun by opening late during the festival.
To find out more about this exciting new project, or to get involved, please visit: www.victoriannightsnorthnorfolk.com. Victorian Nights can also be found on Facebook (Victorian Nights North Norfolk) and Twitter (@victoriannights).
- 18/05/2012 - Victorian Shell Artistry May 18, 2012
- 18/05/2012 - Shipwrecked! Back to 1897 May 18, 2012
- 18/05/2012 - A Walk Through Time: The Victorians May 18, 2012
- 18/05/2012 - Norwich 20 Group – Looking into 20 – paintings and sculpture at The Forum May 18, 2012
- 18/05/2012 - Tony Foster Paintings/Angela Harding Prints May 18, 2012