Without Walls leads the way for cultural recovery with Outdoor Arts
Photo credit: Stefano Padoan
A new Outdoor Arts programme from Without Walls has announced. Compiled of 21 new projects, it will bring together up-and-coming companies, established street artists and those making their first foray into creating work for the public space.
Without Walls is a collective of over 30 festivals and arts organisations that bring outdoor arts to towns and cities across the UK and in these Covid times, Outdoor Arts are providing important opportunities to provide cultural interactions whilst supporting the creative industry.
The commissions from Without Walls will offer audiences the opportunity to explore social justice, family relationships, environmentalism, identity and share moments in a safe environment. The works will appear at festivals including Brighton Festival, Norfolk & Norwich Festival, Timber Festival. Just So Festival, Greenwich + Docklands International Festival, Ensemble Festival, City Encounters by Wiltshire Creative, Hat Fair and more.
Dance performances and physical theatre will have a large presence in the programme with Black Victorians, a performance which will tell the stories of those previously removed from history. This will be bought to us by Jeanefer Jean-Charles. Then, alternative dance performers Requardt & Rosenberg present Future Cargo, which has themes revolving around climate change and sci-fi.
The pieces range from being family orientated to aimed specifically at adults with topics including Black history, mortality, and feminism. Themes are also taken from things learnt and that played a part in the pandemic. Arrivals + Departures from Yara El-Sherbini and Davina Drummond take the recognisable arrival and departure board and request audience participation in sharing names of people who have arrived and those who have departed in life to celebrate, remember and acknowledge them and the effect this has on people.
Food is also a theme that has bought people together during Covid and it is represented in the Without Walls programme in three shows. TOAST by Pif-paf is performed around an ever moving mobile kitchen cart and celebrates food and the communal environment it can bring through song, story, dance and fire. LAStheatre present The Rascally Dinner, which is aimed at children aged 5+ so expect a silly, song-filled performance that gently suggests the topics of food sustainability and healthy eating. Rounding off the food themed pieces is Do What yah Mama told yah!, which is a food kitchen merged with a circus show. It is an immersive comedy that features food-juggling, touring circus chef Fatina and their plate spinning and international contemporary circus artist, Blaze.
A full list of all 21 performances can be found here, where it will also tell you which festival each show will be performed at. Without Walls is more committed than ever to help bring UK audiences the best artists and companies to bring the outdoor arts to audiences in a safe manner.
