Birmingham takes to streets for Summer in Southside

Published: 22 August 2015
Reporter: Steve Orme

Polyglot’s Tangle Credit: Wendy Kimpton
The Lift by Wet Picnic

Local, national and international acts will take over Birmingham’s Southside district when Summer in Southside returns to the second city for the Bank Holiday weekend.

It will be the third year that Birmingham Hippodrome has organised the free outdoor event. Director of creative programmes Graham Callister said, “this year’s Summer in Southside offers audiences a packed programme of fun as the streets around the Hippodrome will be taken over by a mix of live street theatre, comedy, dance, puppetry, visual arts and music.

“We’re looking forward to welcoming back the thousands of visitors who attended last year’s event in Birmingham’s most vibrant and diverse district.”

Australian company Polyglot is behind Tangle, a giant play space using coloured elastic to create a vibrant interactive artwork made by children and their families.

Opposite worlds of classical ballet and electronica will collide in Ature by choreographer Corey Baker, a new work in association with Birmingham Royal Ballet and Appetite Stoke which features soloist William Bracewell.

Wet Picnic will present The Lift, a “roving theatrical experience” in which the audience is invited to step inside an elevator and choose a moment by selecting one of ten different “floor” buttons which triggers a particular scene or event.

Summer in Southside takes place on Saturday 29 and Sunday 30 August from 10:30AM until 9PM. There will be a preview on Friday from 5:30PM. More details are available at the Birmingham Hippodrome web site.

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