RoguePlay, founded in 2009, can most likely be found hanging from a trapeze, or silk, balancing, lifting or throwing one another, all while speaking a monologue, singing a song or playing the accordion.

Every year they like to showcase their new routines and skills from trapeze, to hoop solo and silks. With aerial acts, music and drinks the Aerialist Showcase tickets are charged at £5.00 with all proceeds going back into the theatre company with the aim of buying curtains for their new space.

To find out more about RoguePlay Theatre visit their site where you can also book tickets.

The deadline for submissions was early January and the Wild at Heart team received over 275 potential owl designs. Artists are gradually being confirmed for the project and most recently Stourbridge graffiti artist, Lee Woods has been commissioned to design an owl. Lee exploded into the world of graffiti and took on the persona Mac1 in the early 1990’s.

Lee has created a powerful, gritty inspired circular design on a 165cm tall owl statue and at the centre is an all-encompassing and incredibly powerful eye, something he describes as ‘the corridor to knowledge’.

The Big Hoot is going to be a fantastic celebration of art and I’m thrilled to be a part of it. The coming together of artists across a breadth of different disciplines is really refreshing and will create a really exciting trail for the city. Lee

You can find out more about the project here and we will keep you up to date when more artists are confirmed.

Birmingham Literature Festival

This week Birmingham Literature Festival have released their full programme, running from 2-11 October 2014. For updates and news follow them here.

Fierce Festival

The Fierce Festival programme is also now live, running from 2-12 October 2014. They recommend joining their mailing list for updates.

Plastic Fantastic at Ikon Gallery

On Saturday 23rd August join Ikon Gallery for an hour-long 80s inspired jewellery workshop by Working Clasp. Book online or call Ikon Shop on 0121 248 0711.

The Gloaming Tales at mac birmingham

An Artist Rooms Project, The Gloaming Tales is going to be a spellbinding night of myth and legends told by storytellers around the campfire during the most magical time of day, twilight. Find out more here.

Glug Birmingham

We are on the final countdown to Glug, with less than a week to go! This week we have been sending out more flyers and beer mats, folding programmes and also released a promo video by Created in Birmingham’s Finlay Bell. It’s not too late to book tickets, visit the website to book.

Glug Birmingham: Midland Masters [PROMO] from Inkygoodness on Vimeo.

Local artists create edible flag to mark Indian Independence Day

Local artists Alexandria Robinson-Sutherland and Lexx Carby of Uneek Walls worked with ingredients at Birmingham wedding caterer and restaurant, Itihaas, to adorn the four-foot canvas. Using turmeric, basmati rice and coriander leaves the artists created the edible flag to mark Indian Independence Day.

The University of Wolverhampton opened its doors last weekend to friends, family and the general public to celebrate the work of their students. This has been a tradition in their building since 1969 with over 8,000 students taking part to date. The degree show is on until Saturday 14th June.

The Birmingham Institute of Art and Design Graduate shows are also on until Saturday 14th June with dates and activities varying across location and subject areas, please check the website to find out more. With the main subject areas spanning art, visual communication, fashion & textiles, 3D design, architecture and jewellery – there is a lot to go and see.

Staffordshire University’s annual Art and Design show opens Friday 13th June and will be open to everyone until Saturday 21st June. The show is a celebration of a range of work across their Art & Design courses. To find out more about ‘Show & Tell’ please visit their website.

We hope that the graduate shows for University of Worcester and Coventry University went well and wish all the Art & Design students the best of luck! We look forward to seeing your work.

We are all very excited to tell you about the return of the International Dance Festival Birmingham 2014! You will be able to experience a range of performances from ballet to large non-choreographed social dances. With so many brilliant performances to talk about, the following will just be a selection of my top picks for the festival.

For Starters, ‘Three Short Works’ 24th – 26th April

The International Dance Festival Birmingham 2014 kicks off with ‘Three Short Works’. From the Birmingham Royal Ballet, a selection of performances called Quatrain, Kin, Les Rendezvous and Façade. Les Rendezvous will be available to see from 24th–25th April, with Quatrain and Kin continuing to be shown alongside Façade on 26th April.

QUATRAIN

Inspired by the fantastically exciting and vibrant tango rhythms of Astor Piazzolla’s The Four Season’s of Buenos Aires, Company First Artist Kit Holder creates his third ballet for the Company. Following the success of his previous work, 9-5, which featured in IDFB 2012, these premiere performances of his latest work are keenly anticipated.

KIN.

An exciting new ballet from Royal Opera House Choreographic Affiliate, Sadler’s Wells New Wave Associate and former Birmingham Royal Ballet dancer, Alexander Whitley. The ballet, to music by young American composer Phil Kline, will receive its’ premiere at IDFB 2014. Not to be missed!

LES RENDEZVOUS

A huge hit when it was first performed in 1933, Les Rendezvous was the first ballet in which Ashton put aside the comedy for which he was known and concentrated on pure technique. Loosely based round a group of friends meeting up in a park, the ballet is a series of fiercely difficult divertissements which give the whole cast the chance to show off their virtuosity.

FACADE

Finally, based on Edith Sitwell’s deliciously nonsensical poetry, Façade embraces the fun of it all with whole-hearted and wilful abandon. Be entertained by a series of delightful characters dancing tangos, foxtrots and waltzes, all with their tongues firmly in their cheeks. Choreographed in 1931, Façade was Sir Frederick Ashton’s first big hit, and is full of the gentle comedy he is known and loved for – an enjoyable break from the sanity of everyday life!

World Premier, ‘Headphones’ 30th April – 4th May

Promising to provide us with a fresh organic series of performances, Corey Baker brings us ‘Headphones’. In keeping with Corey Bakers’ ethos of producing engaging and unique productions, ‘Headphones’ will allow the audience to direct part of the dancers’ choreography. Set to hide ‘undercover’, the performances will be surprising and unpredictable with elements of comedy.

You can watch this trailer to get an idea of the fun performance, as well as directly suggest moves by tweeting @IDFB #headphones.

‘Lord of the Flies’ 14th–17th May

Mathew Bourne has invited 24 young people to join his latest hit production ‘Lord of the Flies’ based on the classic novel written by William Goulding. There are 8 professional dancers within the cast, to work alongside the newly recruited dancers to give a unique opportunity to young dancers in each city that the production is set to perform in. Because of this the theatre performance has already gained great publicity. The combination of mentoring and unity has made the project a wonderful success already and should be a great motivational piece, especially for young people who with a passion for dance.

‘Lord of the Flies’ will be performed at The Birmingham Hippodrome over 4 days with tickets available now.

‘Spill: A Playground of Dance’ – 25th May

DanceXchange is housed within Birmingham Hippodrome, both of whom have worked together to produce the 2014 International Dance Festival Birmingham. Owning 3 dance studios and The Patrick Centre (a 206 seat studio), DanceXchange strives to support the dancing community and enable their dancers to showcase the best of their talents. ‘Spill’ was first shown in 2012, and is an outdoor production that will be performed in the beautiful Cannon Hill Park. Choreographed by Australian Artist Shaun Parker, of Shaun Parker & Company, it should be a playful piece using street gymnastics and location based props of swings and roundabouts.

With so many different events and performances there is bound to be something for everybody and you can view IDFB’s 2014 staff picks here to find some first hand recommendations!

“Born of a passion and a belief that opera can speak directly to all kinds of people, Artistic Director, Graham Vick, set out to create a company that the people of Birmingham – a city of many peoples – could be proud of…

…We’ve got more exploring to do to discover where opera can be performed. How to perform it. How to re-write the rules of engagement between audiences and performer. How to experiment with space and acoustics. Who can we make it speak to?”

Birmingham Opera Company would like to invite you to their production of Khovanskygate: A National Enquiry.  You may have already heard a sneak preview at Springhill Tesco Superstore, where professional soloists Joseph Guyton and Stephanie Corley were accompanied by Sergey Rybin on piano. The singers performed a selection of opera favourites from Tosca, Madame Butterfly and Othello, demonstrating their talents whilst preparing to play the roles of Prince Andrei and Emma in this latest production.

The opera will take place in a big top tent at Cannon Hill Park, with performances at 7pm on the 22nd, 24th, 28th and 30th April before a final performance on the 2nd May.

The story depicts Russia in the midst of a division between powerful conservative forces and growing Westernising influence. Musorgsky paints a devastating portrait of a nation on the brink of collapse; torn apart by state corruption, religious fanaticism, social inequality and ethnic cleansing.

The unique setting and involvement from local performers already sets the bar for an interesting series of evenings. Birmingham Opera Company released an open call for singers with varied to little experience in performance, asking them to join in with rehearsals several days a week. If you’d like to become involved with Birmingham Opera Company’s projects yourself, then please contact them at getinvolved@birminghamopera.org.uk .

We wish the cast and Birmingham Opera Company the best of luck for the shows. For telephone booking information please call 0121 246 6632 Monday – Friday 9:00am-11:00am or use the following link for further information and online booking.

You never need many excuses to see a film at The Electric Cinema. This is the oldest working cinema in the UK, it has the comfiest sofas you’ll ever sit in – and you can text the bar to bring you drinks and popcorn if you fancy paying for the privilege.

On Friday 25th April they will be screening We Are The Freaks, an ode to teen coming-of-age movies, the fall of Margaret Thatcher and mad nights out in 1990s Birmingham. The ensemble cast includes the stars of This is England, Kill List, Skins and Fresh Meat.

The film premiered at last year’s Edinburgh Fringe Festival and received some excellent reviews. Birmingham-born director Justin Edgar has filled it with energetic and irreverent humour. It does contain many piece-to-camera sequences and references to films of similar genres, but manages not to take itself too seriously.

The film will be followed by an open Q&A session with cast and crew. Click HERE for tickets and more information.

At The Bench 504, owner Rob’s pursuit of quality graffiti, and the experience of travelling to paint, has led him to create a thriving business providing an exhibition space for a varied range of illustrators. It’s also enabled him to be involved in a range of projects, as well as protecting local graffiti spaces and introducing youngsters to the skill.

Now based in a Custard Factory Unit, Rob saw a gap in the market and put his savings into opening his own shop selling paints. Progressing from a few years based at a shared shop in Quinton, The Bench 504 now sits overlooking the pond at the Custard Factory, and has a colourful floor to ceiling selection of thousands of paints, which sell Europe-wide from the Birmingham location.

Graffiti artists take time to plan, practicing and sketching, often taking a sketch to the wall. Colour counts as part of the preparation. Getting good takes a lot of practice.

There are a steady stream of customers, as well as those coming to look at the latest exhibition. A customer arrives asking Rob for an order simply by naming the colour  – “I have learnt all the fruits in German and Spanish” Rob laughs, going on to explain that the main brands come from around Europe, and the range he stocks now includes seven brands as the demand grows. The paints stocked at The Bench 504 are highly specialised, some are even artisan – including Spanish brand MTM (Montana) being run by artists who couldn’t get the quality they wanted, so started mixing their own.

The exhibition space in the shop features a different illustrator every four weeks. Until Wednesday 23rd April the exhibition is ‘Off the Rails’ by mixed media artist Lucy Danielle, a Birmingham-based freelance illustrator who studied at Birmingham City University.

Rob was also involved in the future of quality graffiti, ensuring it could continue in the local area. There was a park, Bournbrook Rec, in Selly Oak from the 1980s which councillors were happy to have as a legal space for artists, until mid 2000s when that changed. The local graffiti community gathered a focussed campaign and turned around the council’s opinion of the art, and of the artists, to overturn the decision and re-open the park.

The park is now back in full and frequent use with a high quality of work. The artists know what they can or can’t paint over, as the unwritten rules and etiquette of sharing the graffiti space are self regulated, ensuring they have somewhere to develop the skills and talent to create impressive work.

Rob’s enthusiasm for the art continues, and when the sun is shining the paints fly off the shelves.

To find out more about The Bench 504 visit their website. They are also active on social media: Twitter / Facebook.

Photographs by the author, Kate Wilkins.

Get down to Digbeth this weekend for the sale and exhibition of thousands of vintage sneaks and fresh apparel brands all under one roof.

The Sneaks and Peaks event runs from 12pm – 7pm at Boxxed – an amazing venue at the heart of Birmingham’s creative quarter.

There will be street food from the best of Brum’s providers, an exclusive street art exhibit, and a roster of local DJs to set the tone.

As a special treat, Boxxed are hosting the final of the Birmingham series of Secret Walls. Check it out to see the best of Birmingham’s street artists go head to head for the crown.

The iconic building in Bournville was originally a gift to George and Elizabeth Cadbury by employees from Cadbury factories around the world to celebrate their silver wedding anniversary.

BVT would like creative interpretations of the Rest House. It can be anything from a painting, a cake or a photograph. Watch their Craft Competition video for ideas on which craft to use!

The deadline for entries is 7th April 2014 and the winners will be announced at a centenary celebration on 12th April.

To submit your ideas visit the BVT Website to find out more.

In other Bournville related creative news:

Rowheath Drama Workshop have a free production of ‘Pressure Points’ at Rowheath Pavilion on Weds 16th & Thurs 17th April at 7.45pm, here’s the flyer: