Coventry City of Culture announces plans for 2021 festival

After the year we’ve had, there’s nothing wrong with looking forward to next year’s events. After all, we all need something to look forward to!

Coventry City of Culture 2021 has today unveiled its initial programming plans ahead of next year’s series of events. Factoring in potential social distancing parameters into all plans, organisers have put together a programme full of flexible arrangements, should restrictions still be in place by May 2021 when the City of Culture festival is due to kick off. The event was originally due to start in January but was pushed back due to the pandemic.

Coventry Moves will be the first official event on 15 May. A major spectacle featuring city-wide participation and curated by Nigel Jamieson and Justine Theme, alongside Hannah Beck, Marius Mates, Sachin Sharma, Sibongile Mkoba, Sebbie Mudhai and Semilore Kaji-Hausa; all young creators from the city.

Major site-specific production Tides Within Us will open in June, created by digital artists Marshmallow Laser Feast. Also in June will be the previously announced production of The Walk, overseen by Good Chance Theatre and Handspring. Famed writing company Paines Plough will then work with the Belgrade to present plays from four new writers in a pop-up space entitled the Roundabout from July.

CastAway, a major new outdoor theatre show, will be performed by an all-female cast on a stage of floating plastic. The piece is inspired by the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a floating island of plastic that has now grown to more than six times the size of the UK. After an initial run in Coventry, it will be shown across rivers and waterways in central England.

Working with the City of Culture, The RSC will put together a new project called Faith, exploring the way in which faith is articulated and relied upon during hard times. It will feature a 24-hour invitation to discuss and debate the nature of faith within the city. The company’s artistic director Erica Whyman teased that it will be an “epic theatrical event to tie it all together.” This production will play in September.

Naoki Sugawara’s company, Oibokkeshi, will work with Entelechy Arts in Theatre of Wandering, exploring the nature of dementia in this new community led piece with contributions from care workers, shop keepers and care home residents. Seven emerging talents from the area – Sophie Ellerby, Sophia Grisson, Sam Kurd, David Payne, Annabel Brightling, Daniel Anderson and Rory Rawson – will work together to create a new digital television series called Seaview, working alongside the Belgrade Theatre in November. The Belgrade will also work with the UK Asian Film Festival to shine the spotlight on acclaimed filmmaker, Satyajit Ray.

BBC Arts and BBC Audio will create one of the “biggest poetry and performance festivals ever seen in the region”, whilst the Turner Prize will also come to the Midlands for the first time ever.

Creative director of Coventry City of Culture, Chenine Bhathena, said “We are announcing these events today and hope, in these dark times, to give something for people to look forward to, - things that can do and enjoy, whatever the future may hold. When Coventry is faced by a challenge, we tackle it heard on. The resilience and innovation that the city is known for around the world can be seen in the events we announce today.”

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