Details of “the biggest celebration of creativity ever seen” in the West Midlands and “one of the largest ever cultural programmes to surround the Commonwealth Games” have been unveiled.
The Birmingham 2022 Festival, which is costing £12 million, has announced its six-month-long cultural programme which will comprise more than 200 events.
As the Commonwealth Games arrive in Birmingham, ten festival commissions will celebrate and explore sport. In Coventry and Leamington Spa, a new outdoor theatre show by Coventry’s Talking Birds will take a “loving and comedic look” at the sport of lawn bowls. Come Bowl with Me will be staged in the War Memorial Park, Coventry on 16 and 17 July and in the Pump Room Gardens, Leamington Spa from 23 until 25 July.
Elsewhere, Outside the Box by Untied Artists and The Play House will bring the story of squash to life on the courts at the University of Birmingham from 20 May, with a guest appearance by Commonwealth Games gold medallist James Willstrop.
A mass participation tap dance will take to the streets of Birmingham on 18 June for the city’s biggest outdoor tap lesson. Tappin’ In will take place across the region in Birmingham, Coventry, Stoke, Rugby, Cannock, Solihull, Tamworth and Telford.
More than 100 community projects will also take place across Birmingham. In Small Heath, Muslim teenagers will gather stories from their family histories to create a theatre show.
The festival opens on Thursday 17 March with Wondrous Stories, a large-scale open-air performance taking over Birmingham’s Centenary Square. This free show, created by Leamington Spa-based dance circus company Motionhouse, runs for seven performances from 17 until 20 March and features a cast of hundreds, combining dance, acrobatics and aerial displays.
Martin Green, chief creative officer at Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games, said, “the festival is an incredible opportunity to showcase the amazingly vivid cultural world that’s reflected in Birmingham and the West Midlands.”