With all the build-up and enthusiasm for dance performances during IDFB I feel well and truly ready for BE Festival 2014. Having not personally attended BE Festival before I was a little unsure of what to expect, and so took the opportunity to visit the 2014 launch at Birmingham Rep on the 16^th April. I was quickly immersed into a world of acting, exciting workshops and performers.

BE Festival has been hosted in Birmingham since 2010 after responding to an Arts Council-hosted conference entitled, ‘The Challenge of Change: How can we make a better future for theatre, here in the West Midlands?’ in 2009.

5 years on, the realised dream of BE Festival still continues. Having invited performers from 11 different countries to take part in this years’ amazing selection of 22 performances, the festival has already attracted a large following.

This year The Rep will open their doors to BE Festival, with the main stage itself set to feature a pop-up restaurant. There they will be serving delicious interval dinners to artists and audiences so that they can have an opportunity to eat together each evening. The menus include vegetarian options and advance bookings for this are now available through box-office.

You’ll now be able to see all of the wonderful events planned which include visual arts and talks, workshops, performances and even musical post-show events, finishing with an Awards Party on the 12th of July.

Even better, if you’d like a chance to be involved with BE Festival, meeting the performers and organisers behind the action then you might be interested in their volunteering opportunities. Open until the 12^th of May, volunteering opportunities with BE Festival also include 6 positions for aspiring stage managers/technicians to form part of the Production Team.

If you would like to volunteer please send an email detailing your interest, any relevant skills, experience and CV to emmahalsteadbe@gmail.com. Volunteers will be needed in May and then throughout June and July.

For the full 2014 programme please see HERE.

On the 19th and 20th July there will be free outdoor theatre performances of ‘After The Event‘ in Northfield’s Price’s Square.

“Seven people, Seven stories. One ending. Shame, Fear, Innocence, Justice, Hope, Denial and Loss. Seven peas in a pod. Not their real names, but for the purpose of this story, are so.”

Follow this group of friends as they experience unemployment, debt, bereavement, career paths, passion and so much more in this theatre piece on Price’s Square, Northfield High St.

Entertainment starts at 7pm and Saturday matinee at 12 noon. Performances 8pm and 1pm (Sat). Admission Free.

More information on the After The Event wordpress page.

Some of you may have seen this video of a failed wedding proposal at ArtsFest doing the rounds. As an extension of this cringeworthy performance, an interactive storytelling project has been commissioned by Birmingham Book Festival. Named ‘Reliable Witness‘, you are invited to join in the story by following the relationships and interactions of the subjects involved in the proposal over Twitter and Facebook. Friend them up, Follow them and ask to see how they are doing in this turbulent period in their relationship, with your interactions having a direct result on the story.

There will also be a pop-up installation at the Pavilions shopping centre on the 4th October where you can take part in the story in person, bringing the virtual to life. Again you will be asked to be involved in the story; and personally I hope someone manages to get these two together again.

Little info:

Reliable Witness is a new transmedia commission from Birmingham Book Festival. West Midlands-based writer Mez Packer, author of The Game Is Altered and the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize 2010 shortlisted novel Among Thieves, and Rochi Rampal, a theatre professional living in Birmingham, have written the story which has partly been performed via actors and played out through social media.

For more head here.

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As part of the Cultural Olympiad, there’s another free multimedia performing arts event happening in the city centre, Mandala at Chamberlain Square on Friday evening. At 6.30pm there is ‘seriously funky dhol’n’brass’ by RED BARAAT, with the main Mandala performance taking place at 8.30pm, and a repeat performance happening at 9.30pm.

“The buildings will be brought to life and transformed from their classical facades into breathtaking new forms using projections that jump out towards you and stunning visual effects triggered by live dance and music.”

More information on the Mandala 2012 website.

Birmingham Hippodrome’s season of street theatre and performance continues tomorrow with 6 acts popping up in a variety of locations around the city centre. The Reds (Natural Theatre Company) will be roaming around, The Princess & The Maharaja (Nutkhut) will perform on New Street, while Turbo Jonez (Reckless Invention, @turbojonez) will be on High Street.

You can find The Whale (Talking Birds) at Brindleyplace, Hinterland (Mercurial Dance) outside the Hippodrome, and Sink Dancing (Lucid Incident) in the Mailbox underpass.

You can find out more about Six Summer Saturdays at their hub on the ground floor of the Mailbox, where you can also find an exhibition of photography from The Voyage. And if you have an iPhone or iPad there’s an augmented reality app called Zoe’s Magic Camera.

Over the next month, Grand Union have a programme of Live Acts and Sound lined up, which kicks off this Friday, 4 Feb, with performance artist Tom Marshman.

He’ll be performing ‘The Passion of the Pole’, a controversial piece which confronts taboos of mental disorders and religion.

Clinging to a dancing pole, a sentimental character exposes itself to you, with layers of issues, a crude honesty, and a wincing humour. The pole becomes a crucifix: a site for Tom to expose and execute his anxieties.

Doors open at 7.30pm, starting at 8pm and its free admission.

Throughout the week of 22 – 27 March 2011, Birmingham will be treated to an eclectic programme of film and performance from Flatpack Festival and Fierce Festival, who’ve announced that they’ll be sharing dates next year.

Flatpack’s fifth festival will celebrate and take film to unexpected places; where new film fraternises with silent cinema and archives are re-imagined. Expect live soundtracks, workshops, installations, offbeat family screenings and a vintage mobile cinema which will roam across the city.

Fierce Festival returns after two years and the appointment of new Artistic Directors Laura McDermott and Harun Morrison.  True to tradition, spectacular projects and public interventions will collide with the kind of agenda setting performances and wild parties on which the festival’s ten-year reputation rests.

The full line up for each of the festivals is expected in February 2011, so keep an eye on their websites over the next few months, www.flatpackfestival.org / www.wearefierce.org

Friday, 05/06/09, 19:00

Ten high-backed chairs, some seating elderly people and some seating younger people, spanned the back of the stage area at The Door, the studio theatre at Birmingham Rep. Above this seating arrangement was a large screen, showing slow panoramics of the Birmingham skyline. In front of them, a gently-lit bed with a man lying down, a wheeled trolley next to him and a fan pointed at him.

A short film entitled “Hats” began. The first shot panned out to show a woman, with coarse patchy hair and a massive grin cackling as she tried on the most extravagant yellow hat with massive straw brim. She looked into the camera and said, “Yes. This is me.”

At this point, I have to admit to no longer being able to see very well due to the large amounts of tears gushing down my face – so if my descriptions fall short somehow, I apologise.

Rosetta Life is a charity dedicated to working with people who have life-threatening illnesses.  “The Magical Glow of the Co Op” was a rehearsed reading as part of the Rosetta Live celebrations that featured the work of two hospices; Birmingham St Mary’s Hospice in Selly Park and St Giles Hospice Whittington, near Lichfield. Working together, more than 30 hospice users generated a performance script that looked at the choices people face when dying and the difficulties they face when making these choices.  In the 10 chairs sat 3 professional actors (the fourth was lying on the bed), 6 hospice users and one care professional.  Throughout the reading hospice users took to the stage to perform alongside the professional actors which really added weight and poignancy (as well as some unexpected laughs) to the evening.

The performance finished with an aftershow discussion called ‘The Big Conversation – Let’s Talk About Living’.  The audience were invited to ask questions of the panel of hospice users who had taken part in the perfomance, health care practitioners and the actors who were still in character.  Until then, I had kept my eyes focused on the stage, hoping to hide anonymously at the edge of a row.  However once the lights went up, I really looked at the audience – at those people who had chosen to spend a night in the company of such a taboo subject.   The audience consisted of every economic/social/cultural background you can imagine, all sat in one small venue watching their loved ones perform, or the words of their lost loved one performed by their peers.  And there were no dry eyes.  Not one.

I feel excited that Birmingham East and North PCT were brave enough not only to fund this project, but also to enable Birmingham to become the first UK city that is making steps to talk openly about how it’s citizens positively approach life as it draws to a close, as well as how they want to be remembered. Created in Birmingham has always highlighted exciting and relevant creative ventures linked to the city, and I can’t think of a more perfect project to write about in my first post proper.  Actors, hospice users, venue and funders are all citizens of Birmingham, breaking new and important (if at times uncomfortable) ground.  This was a performance that anyone touched by illness should see, not just the friends and families of those performing.

“The Magical Glow of the Co-op” was just one small part of the Rosetta Live celebration running throughout June. It culminates in a film premiere at The Electric Cinema on 29th June commencing at 6.00pm.  To book, please contact bookings@rosettalive.org – I know I’m going to be there.