Fragile at The Forum

It was a short walk from The Undercroft at Norwich Marketplace to Millennium Plain outside The Forum on Sunday 19th May 2013 to see Tilted Productions perform Fragile at the Norfolk and Norwich Festival. This performance featured Tightwire artists, dancers, a trampoline duo and a dancing clown searching for the beautiful in the fragile and the fragile in the seemingly beautiful.

Maresa von Stockert's latest work combined contemporary circus, dance and physical theatre. Fragile's architectural set created the illusion of the performance being on a rooftop. Imagine a flat concrete roof where someone has put up a garden with a few plants in pots and some grass.

One layer of the piece exposed the microcosm of human activity taking place in this garden. It looked at the lives of those who visited the roof terrace and explored what the garden meant to them. For the creator of the garden it may be an oasis or even an obsession. Others made it their hide-away; a place where they escaped reality.

Some saw it as a playground, others as a forbidden space. For one person it may have resembled paradise, for another a foreign world of green discomfort, bewilderment and fear. While intricate relationships tenderly and brutally entwine, a strange transformation happened to the garden itself enhancing the sense of a warped reality and other worldliness outside The Forum.

This Sixty minute performance at the Norfolk and Norwich Festival was incredible and created an amazing spectacle in Millennium Plain. The trampolining and tightwire walking thrilled the large crowd outside The Forum who were spellbound by the movement and the unique story of Fragile. I very much enjoyed this outside event at the Norfolk and Norwich Festival which proved to be a big hit in Norwich City Centre.

Hot dancing at The Forum

On Saturday 11th May 2013 I attended the Bad Taste Company's performance of Faust on Millennium Plain outside The Forum, Norwich. This Norfolk and Norwich Festival event was a unique fusion of breaking combined with Lindy Hop, Charleston and big-band music of the roaring Twenties.

Faust is based in the Twenties prohibition era and re-imagines Goethe's classic tale, where our hero is in danger of losing his soul to the devil. This fantastic show featured flaming cocktails and burning boxing rings.

The Bad Taste Company gave us a set full of amazing dancing which thrilled the large crowd outside The Forum. This was a fast paced show with lots of imagination. The temperature was raised on Millennium Plain with the hot moves and flames of Faust.

Reve d'Herbert at Cathedral Close

On Friday 10th May 2013 I attended the Norfolk and Norwich Festival launch where Compagnie des Quidams performed Reve d'Herbert which transformed Cathedral Close, Norwich into a luminous dreamscape. This was a spectacular outdoor celebration of the senses.

Mysterious figures, glowing from within, beckoned us into a world of ethereal beauty. The performers themselves became giant lanterns lighting the way to a climax of music, movement and majesty. Cathedral Close with the Cathedral in the background was a wonderful setting for this amazing and beautiful performance.

French performance group Compagnie des Quidams have performed Reve d'Herbert all over the world and this was a fantastic opportunity for the people of Norfolk to witness this truly spectacular show. Several thousand people were in attendance to see the Festival launch where we were taken on a incredible journey by the magical dreams of Compagnie des Quidams and their characters and beautiful music.

Prehistoric Invasion at Norfolk and Norwich Festival

Once the Briten Sinfonia concert finished at St. Andrew's Hall on Friday 11th May 2012 I made my way to Gentleman's Walk for the Close-Act UK premiere of Invasion as the Norfolk and Norwich Festival brought a mythical world full of huge beasts stalking majestically through the streets of Norwich with prehistoric birds flying overhead.

The performance moved around Norwich Marketplace past City Hall before culminating in a performance at The Forum. I walked around with the puppeteers until they reached The Forum where a large crowd had gathered. In this brilliant piece of street theatre the audience become part of the performance as we were entertained by a mixture of birds, dinosaurs, drummers, one eyed robots and a witch on stilts.

It was like chaos in Norwich City Centre until a magical song attracts the prehistoric animals and restores calm, leaving the crowds to go with the flow of this unique and amazing event which brought the Norfolk and Norwich Festival to several thousand people. I really enjoyed this event from dutch street theatre company Close-Act and I loved the way how along with everyone else on this memorable night became part of the mystical world they created.