Artists lighting way to Year of Culture 2021
COVENTRY’S wealth of creative talents are buzzing with energy and inspiration in the build-up to the high-profile City of Culture year.
Many groups and people have been boosted with funding from the National Lottery, which is marking its 25th birthday this year.
The Lotto recently announced an astounding £5.2 million funding deal for Coventry UK City of Culture 2021.
It comes after £150 million was invested in the city over the past quarter of a century, going to arts, heritage, community and sports.
Here are some of Coventry’s amazing artists lighting the way to 2021, with the help of National Lottery funding. There Be Monsters! - with The Fabularium: Having travelled the land, The Fabularium is ready to hit the streets closer to home for Coventry City of Culture 2021.
The theatre company, established in 2010 at Coventry University, weaves yarns with a medieval theme, using three vintage carts and a processional pageant wagon.
The latest show called There Be Monsters! received £13,850 from the National Lottery, and is a ‘walkabout’ production typical of its accessible, playful approach.
Paul O’Donnell - pays homage
to Bon Jovi: Paul O’Donnell hasn’t let the limitations of being an independent theatre maker stop him paying homage to Bon Jovi in spectacular style.
Boosted by National Lottery, funding, the one-man-band brings the rock spirit alive in rousing style – with the power of imagination.
The showman, an associate artist at Birmingham Repertory Theatre, is aided by 180 lighting cues and 12 cover versions of Livin’ on a Prayer. A splash of colour at first ever Coventry Street Art Festival: Some of the world’s finest exponents of the spraycan created a splash at the first Urban Culture Coventry Street Art Festival.
Launched in June 2018 the National Lottery-funded event featured live music, a temporary indoor skatepark and workshops.
Artists included Andy Clare, who said: “Urban Culture saw some of the world’s finest graffiti and street artists create, alongside local artists, a range of murals, some temporary and some permanent.”
Celebrating Coventry’s Dr Who
creator with Noctium Theatre: The late Doctor Who musician Delia Derbyshire is being celebrated in a new age by an enterprising Coventry theatre company.
Noctium’s Hymns For Robots, which mixes drama, comedy and expressionism, garnered rave reviews on tour last year.
Derbyshire, creator of the Doctor Who theme tune, would have appreciated the show’s weird electronic soundscape. EGO Performance Company
celebrates difference: Celebrating difference is the aim of a theatre company that has generated more than 70 original works since it was launched in 2006.
EGO landed £60,564 of National Lottery funding in May 2018 to continue its mission of ‘unleashing the creative energies of a young community,’ providing a meeting place for people with and without disabilities. One associate artist said: “It’s hard to find words to express how I feel about EGO and all who make it such a wonderful place.” Lakshmi Srinivasan celebrates faiths and cultures being united: Lakshmi Srinivasan revived an ancient Indian dance style to celebrate the £5.2 million National Lottery investment in Coventry’s UK City of Culture year.
The classical dancer gave a demonstration of bharatanatyam at the launch event, held in early March
2019 at the Herbert Museum and Art Gallery. Godiva Academy of Performing
Arts reflects sense of pride: A youthful troupe of dancers is reflecting a newfound sense of pride among young people in Coventry. Children aged three and above receive high-quality training in ballet, tap, modern gymnastics, street and other performing arts.
The Holbrooks-based academy raised the roof with an electrifying short performance at the National Lottery funding launch event.
The search is on to find the UK’s favourite ever National Lotteryfunded projects to celebrate its 25th Birthday. Visit https://www.lotterygoodcauses.org.uk/awards