NZ-themed Salisbury Festival now open 29 May 2016
Related articles
The Ageas Salisbury International Arts Festival, recently awarded silver for Best Tourism Event in South West Tourism Awards, is now open. Returning a 44th year from 27 May-11 June 2016 and taking its inspiration from New Zealand, the Festival will once again fill every corner of the medieval City and surrounding countryside with a thrilling mix of music, comedy, film, theatre, circus, dance, walks, poetry, exhibitions, children’s workshops and street theatre, featuring an outstanding range of high-profile and emerging talent from the UK, New Zealand and beyond.
Over 16 days Salisbury will resound with artistic encounters of all kinds, throwing open its doors and public spaces to more than 150 events. Looking southwards as part of the Festival’s four-year journey around the cardinal points of the compass, artists from New Zealand will present work spanning every art form, many making their UK premiere, from Maori a cappella to award-winning circus and mime, to an epic Middle Earth day-long film marathon. You can share the playlist of one couple’s love story on the dance floor of The Chapel nightclub in Bullet Heart Club’s Daffodils, take part in a free massed Haka in the glorious grounds of Salisbury Cathedral, and watch Still House perform the contemporary dance of Of Riders and Running Horses on the roof of a Salisbury car park at dusk.
Over two packed days the Festival’s ever-popular City Encounters programme offers free street theatre, dance, circus, music and activities: an Urban Astronaut will fly through the air above the city centre; NoFitState + Motionhouse will take on an oversized Jenga tower; whilst Corey Baker Dance stretches the limits of what a vintage red telephone box really can do. Salisbury Live provides its usual mix of great music from local bands in venues throughout the city, offering free entry and a fantastic vibe across the three weekends of the festival.
A specially commissioned Opening Ceremony celebrated the start of this year’s Festival, drawing on the long and rich tradition of the Maori welcome, powhiri, and the arts of kapa haka. Under Festival Chorus director Howard Moody, hundreds of singers welcomed Ngati Ranana, the UK’s foremost Maori arts club, performing traditional Maori arts before joining forces with the Chorus in a newly commissioned ‘waiata’ or song to launch the Festival.
A diverse array of in-conversations and special guests fill the programme including the Right Honorable Sir Vince Cable MP; actor Richard E Grant; one of the world’s most respected Maori authors, Witi Ihimaera; naturalist and broadcaster Stephen Moss; comedian and writer Ben Miller; journalist and author Dame Joan Bakewell; actress Juliet Stevenson; former England Rugby Union captain Will Carling; comedian Jon Culshaw; Queen of Shops Mary Portas; and former Artistic Director of the National Theatre Sir Richard Eyre among others.
Exhibitions include Call & Response, which captures birdsong recorded by New Zealand artist Caro Williams collected from military spaces in New Zealand and Wiltshire and set into huge bird boxes that will hang in the trees of the military Rifles Museum. Ancient Tongan imagery meets pop culture in a striking new collection by New Zealand artist Benjamin Work, and Sophie Ryder, one of Britain’s foremost sculptors, speaks about her work with Jon Bennington as part of the ongoing Relationships exhibition featuring her work across the whole city.
Award-winning dance company Protein returns with its most playful show to date, May Contain Food, an immersive feast that invites the audience to sit around tables to be served by the artists as they sing for their supper. Corey Baker Dance fuses contemporary dance and Maori arts to create Kapa Haka Tale, and Arlene Philips CBE works with Candoco Dance Company, a company of disabled and non-disabled dancers, to present a new duet on how we fall in and out of love over and over again.
Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre will return to the Old Wardour Castle with a new production of The Two Gentlemen of Verona, whilst aerial circus company Ockham’s Razor presents its new show, Tipping Point, with action veering from catastrophe to mastery as five performers take the audience on a thrilling journey into a teetering world where simple five-metre poles are hung from the roof, lashed, climbed and swung from to create a shifting landscape of forests, cross roads and pendulums.
Music comes from the legendary Courtney Pine performing with MOBO Award-winning pianist Zoe Rahman, Grammy Award-winning baritone Jonathan Lemalu and one of the UK’s most musically revered folk trios Lau perform their unique blend of acoustic folk. Celebrated American singer songwriter John Grant, renowned for his bold, emotive performance and brave lyrics, will perform at City Hall, and hypnotic melodies and driving rhythms from hang drum virtuoso Manu Delago, a regular performer with Bjork and Anoushka Shankar.
A programme of choral motets from the Bach Dynasty comes from acclaimed Belgian vocal ensemble Vox Luminis, making its Festival debut, the Modern Maori Quartet promises a trip down memory lane with its fresh close-harmony take on Kiwi golden oldies and recent international hits and, to close the Festival, Salisbury Cathedral will provide the perfect backdrop for The Philharmonia’s performance of Elgar’s Enigma Variations and Vaughan Williams’ Tallis Fantasia, with New Zealander Benjamin Baker joining the orchestra for one of the best-loved violin concerti, the Tchaikovsky.
An evening of music and words from Wolf Hall with Peter Kosminsky, director of the BBC’s adaptation, and composer Debbie Wiseman recreates the candlelit atmosphere of the TV series, whilst actor Simon Callow takes the audience on a magical musical journey tracing Francis Drake’s circumnavigation of the globe.
There’s comedy from rubber-limbed master of mime-comedy, Trygve Wakenshaw, presenting the final part of his delirious, sell-out underwater trilogy, and TV regulars Romesh Ranganathan, New Zealand-born comedian Jarred Christmas, and Hal Cruttenden.
Activities and performances for children include former Children’s Laureate Michael Morpurgo in an adaptation of his classic Where My Wellies Take Me. Celebrating the centenary of Roald Dahl’s birth, the Wardrobe Museum Gardens play host to a heart-warming, open-air adaptation of Danny The Champion of the World, whilst Chotto Desh offers a magical mix of dance, storytelling and dreamlike animation celebrating the resilience of the human spirit from renowned dance company Akram Khan. Innovative New Zealand theatre company, Trick of the Light, presents Beards! Beards! Beards! the story of a young girl called Beatrix who wants a beard, not a tiara… and, set amongst the leather-bound volumes that line the walls of Longleat library, The Bookbinder explores how it feels to fall into the stories of a good book.
Festival Director Toby Smith said: “This year we look southwards to New Zealand, a distant land defined by Maori culture and its fusion with European and contemporary Pacific island traditions.
“New Zealand artists spanning every art form will be coming to Salisbury, bringing work rarely seen outside of the country while, once again, the city of Salisbury and the glorious landscape that surrounds it continue to provide inspiration for the rest of the exciting programme of events that we have on offer in May and June. The Festival is all about bringing the world to Salisbury and showing off our city to the world. Let’s bring it on.”
The 2016 Ageas Salisbury International Arts Festival is supported by Creative New Zealand Toi Aotearoa
Tickets available from: www.salisburyfestival.co.uk
News
Hilary Timmins' Award-Winning UK Documentary Series To Inspire NZ Students
29 Jun 2020 Education
Dream Catchers, produced and directed by Hilary Timmins, celebrates the success stories of more than thirty inspirational New... more
New Zealand reaffirms support for Flight MH17 judicial process
7 Mar 2020 News
Ahead of the start of the criminal trial in the Netherlands on 9 March, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has reaffirmed the need to... more
Business
NZ Government's Economic package to fight COVID-19
17 Mar 2020 Business News
The Coalition Government has launched the most significant peace-time economic plan in modern New Zealand history to cushion the... more
NZ Government announces aviation relief package
19 Mar 2020 Business News
Transport Minister Phil Twyford today outlined the first tranche of the $600 million aviation sector relief package announced earlier... more
Living
Diversity was Key at New Zealand Trade Tasting in London
6 Jun 2022 Food & Wine
New Zealand Winegrowers Annual Trade Tasting was recently held in London, on Wednesday 4 May, in Lindley Hall.
It was the first... more
Kiwi author stuns Behind the Butterfly Gate
12 Jan 2022 Arts
Hidden behind the Butterfly Gate is where the secret has been kept for 76 years...
New Zealand writer Merryn Corcoran’s... more
Property
Fairer rules for tenants and landlords
17 Nov 2019 Property
17 NOVEMBER 2019
The Government has delivered on its promise to the over one million New Zealanders who now rent to make it fairer... more
New Zealand Government will not implement a Capital Gains Tax
17 Apr 2019 Property
The Coalition Government will not proceed with the Tax Working Group’s recommendation for a capital gains tax, Jacinda Ardern... more
Migration
Boosting border security with electronic travel authority – now over 500,000 issued
19 Nov 2019 Migration
19 NOVEMBER 2019
We’ve improved border security with the NZeTA, New Zealand Electronic Travel Authority, which helps us to... more
Christchurch reinstated as refugee settlement location
18 Aug 2018 Migration
18 AUGUST 2018
HON IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY
The announcement that Christchurch can once again be a settlement location for refugees... more
Travel
Gallipoli Anzac Day services cancelled
19 Mar 2020 Travel & Tourism
The New Zealand and Australian Governments have announced this year’s joint Anzac Day services at Gallipoli will be cancelled... more
New Zealanders advised not to travel overseas
19 Mar 2020 Travel & Tourism
New Zealanders advised not to travel overseas
more
Sport
The Skipper's Diary: Sir Richard Hadlee honouring his father and NZ's Forty-Niners
27 Oct 2019 Cricket
NZNewsUK London Editor Charlotte Everett spoke to Sir Richard Hadlee about why he’s chosen to publish his father’s... more
PREVIEW: All Blacks v England semi-final
26 Oct 2019 Rugby
The two most convincing quarterfinals winners are set to square off in a semifinal showdown for the ages when the All Blacks meet old... more
Columns
Gordon Campbell on the Gareth Morgan crusade
11 Nov 2016 Opinion
Gordon Campbell on the Gareth Morgan crusade
First published on Werewolf
The ghastly likes of Marine Le Pen in France and Geert ... more
Gordon Campbell on the US election outcome
10 Nov 2016 Opinion
Column - Gordon Campbell
Gordon Campbell on the US election outcome
Well um.. on the bright side, there (probably)... more
Kiwi Success
Congratulations to Loder Cup winner
26 Sep 2018 People
25 SEPTEMBER 2018
The Loder Cup, one of New Zealand’s oldest conservation awards, has been awarded to Robert McGowan for 2018... more
Appointments to New Zealand National Commission for UNESCO
16 Aug 2018 Appointments
16 AUGUST 2018Appointments to New Zealand National Commission for UNESCO
HON JENNY SALESA
Associate Education Minister Jenny Salesa is... more
Recruitment
Historic pay equity settlement for education support workers
14 Aug 2018 Recruitment
14 AUGUST 2018Historic pay equity settlement for education support workers
RT HON JACINDA ARDERN
HON CHRIS HIPKINS
Prime Minister
The... more
Historic pay equity settlement for education support workers
22 Aug 2018 Recruitment
14 AUGUST 2018Historic pay equity settlement for education support workers
RT HON JACINDA ARDERN
HON CHRIS HIPKINS
Prime Minister
The... more