Locals To Star In 10th Journeys Festival International This Month

People from across Leicestershire are getting prepared to perform in and feature in the UK's first Festival of Sanctuary from 12-14 August in Leicester city centre. Working alongside outdoor arts specialists, Southpaw Dance Company, people from local communities will perform alongside professional actors and dancers on a large-scale performance that will blow audiences away. Rush will take over the Lee Circle area of the city for a performance that has appeared in Blackpool, Hull and South Tyneside. There's no need to book for this epic production either. The show starts at 9.00pm on Saturday 13 August and is completely free to attend, just turn up and enjoy the show.

Leicester's Central Library will host an exhibition called Sanctuary Stories as part of the free festival weekend. People who have recently migrated to Leicester have been working alongside local artists Mandeep Dhadialla and Ruth Singer to create storybooks made from printmaking, collage and textiles which will be on display at the library throughout the weekend.

People from the city have been invited to contribute to a special newspaper for the festival; their work will feature alongside artists in the newspaper that will be free for people to read across the city from next week.

This year's Journeys Festival International also features a series of performances featuring artists from all over the world. Lorna Fulton, Creative Director of Art Reach, the team behind the festival, explained that "This year is like a double celebration for us, the festival celebrates its tenth anniversary in Leicester and we're also able to bring lots of performances from across Europe due to our Liberty EU programme. This Creative Europe funded programme has been creating and touring special performances across the continent for the last three years and from 12-14 August we're hosting many of these special shows in the city for people to enjoy. The festival is also funded by Arts Council England so thanks to National Lottery players we are able to keep the whole weekend free".

From Friday evening until Sunday evening the city will be filled with free performances to enjoy, exhibitions and events to experience and some of the finest street theatre Europe and the UK has to offer. To see the line-up of International Artists during this very special tenth birthday weekend, visit www.artreach.org.uk/journeysfestival for more details.

12 - 14 August 2022

Leicester City Centre

www.artreach.org.uk/journeysfestival

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