TALENTED EAST MIDLANDS ARTISTS PREPARE FOR CURVE’S INSIDE OUT FESTIVAL THIS AUTUMN
With less than 40 days to go, talented theatre, musical, spoken word and dance acts from across the East Midlands are gearing up to perform new work at Curve’s Inside Out Festival this October.
A celebration of the region’s most exciting artists, Curve’s fourth annual Inside Out Festival will take place from 18 to 28 October. The festival will showcase a whole host of exciting productions, art installations, music sessions and events, staged in unusual spaces in and around the theatre.
All the works in Inside Out Festival have been supported and developed through Curve’s Artist Development programmes and focus on new and innovative approaches to performance.
One of this year’s highlights is the premiere of The Leftovers, an original musical commissioned by Curve and created by its Breakthrough Company Sheep Soup Productions. Exploring how a group of young people deal with the sudden death of a loved one, this blackly comic, high-energy production looks at how music helps us interpret and come to terms with grief.
The festival will also host Curve Breakthrough Artist Jess Green’s Burning Books, a searing look at the state of the education sector told from within a staff room .The production is Jess’s debut as a playwright, adapted from her critically-acclaimed spoken word anthology of the same name.
Further stand-out performances in the 10-day programme include: Debris Stevenson’s Poet in da Corner, a fusion of movement, grime and poetry inspired by Dizzee Rascal’s album Boy in da Corner developed with the Royal Court Theatre and The Roundhouse; Ink, a dance world premiere by Wayward Thread about the clash between state and citizen and Curve Young Company’s staging of classic musical Oklahoma!, a tale of love and friendship set in 1906 cowboy country and performed by a 40 strong cast of talented local actors.
In addition, taking advantage of Curve’s foyer spaces, the outside will come in on Saturday 28th October. During the day, the theatre will host a range of free, family-friendly street theatre performances popping up all over the building, including circus performances by The Gramophones and Hubbub Theatre, puppetry by Enter Edem, and pop-up performances by Maison Foo and Turned On Its Head.
Throughout the entire Festival will be REVOLVE, a new large-scale visual art installation suspended above the Green Room café by award-winning artist and sculptor Esther Rolinson, whose work has recently been acquired by the Victoria And Albert Museum.
Curator of the festival and Curve Associate Director Suba Das said this year’s festival is shaping up to be the biggest yet:
“Inside Out Festival is always one of the highlights of our year here at Curve and we’re thrilled that this year’s line-up is our strongest yet.
“What matters to us most with the festival and our year-round artist development initiatives is that artists are enabled to tell the stories that are important to them, however they want to tell them, to audiences from all walks of life. Inside Out is all about making everyone feel at home here, whether they are enjoying a performance or taking in an art installation over a drink with friends.”
Inside Out Festival 2017 also includes performances from: 2Magpies Theatre; Black History Month Live; House of Verse; Laurielorry Theatre Company; Major Labia; Metro-Boulot-Dodo; Morph Dance Company; Rachael Young and Shruti Chauhan.
Tickets for this year’s Inside Out Festival are now on-sale and the full programme of performances is available at http://www.curveonline.co.uk/get-involved/inside-out-festival-2017/