Meet a polar bear - in Newcastle

Published: 18 February 2018
Reporter: Peter Lathan

The Privileged
The Privileged
The Privileged

Alphabetti Theatre is offering Newcastle audiences the chance to get up close and personal with a polar bear, to join a well-trained member of staff and enter the polar bear’s natural habitat and experience this wild animal like never before, to be one of the privileged few to say they have petted, played with and fed a polar bear.

All you need to do is to go to Alphabetti, remove your shoes, coats and bags and encounter the Arctic’s whitest predator—with black skin.

Performance artist Jamal Harewood is bringing his participatory performance, The Privileged, (which The Guardian’s Lyn Gardner described as “an extraordinary charged and disturbing meditation on cultural stereotypes and perceptions and fears”) to Alphabetti from 27 February to 2 March.

Harewood, a live artist who creates temporary communities through playful participatory events, focuses on ideas of identity and race within the community and works to abolish the traditional performer-audience hierarchy.

Based in Brighton, Harewood is an Associate Artist of Camden Peoples Theatre.

Each performance is followed by a post-show discussion which the audience is invited to stay for.

Recommended for age 16+. Tickets are £8 (£6 concessions).

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