Salisbury International Arts Festival 2016

Offering sixteen days of performance, visual arts, literature and music which envelops the city of Salisbury in a colourful and vibrant celebration of the arts.

The Ageas Salisbury International Arts Festival takes place from Friday 27th May until Saturday 11th June 2016.

Line-up

The year the festival looks to New Zealand for an inspired cultural mix of international and home grown talent, with Tipping Point by Ockham’s Razor and Kapa Haka Tale with tribal Maori art, music and song by New Zealand choreographer Corey Baker with music, theatre, dance, and circus to form part of the 2016 Ageas Salisbury International Arts Festival.

Music from Courtney Pine, Jonathan Lemalu, Lau, Manu Delago, Zoe Rahman, John Grant, Vox Luminis, Modern Maori Quartet, The Philharmonia’s performance of Elgar’s Enigma Variations and Vaughan Williams’ Tallis Fantasia, with New Zealander Benjamin Baker, a candlelit celebration of Wolf Hall with composer Debbie Wiseman, and actor Simon Callow takes the audience on a magical musical journey tracing Francis Drake’s circumnavigation of the globe.

In conversations with Vince Cable, Richard E Grant, Witi Ihimaera, Stephen Moss, Ben Miller,Dame Joan Bakewell, Juliet Stevenson, Will Carling, Jon Culshaw, Mary Portas, and Sir Richard Eyre among others.

Acclaimed Maori author Witi Ihimaera talks exclusively about his novel The Whale Rider Join a massed Haka with celebrated NZ choreographer Corey Baker.

Comedy from Romesh Ranganathan, Jarred Christmas, Hal Cruttenden, Trygve Wakenshaw, and Theatre from Trick of the Light, Circumstance and Bullet Heart Club Michael Morpurgo in an adaptation of one of his children’s classics.

Over two packed days the Festival’s ever-popular City Encounters programme offers free street theatre, dance, circus, music and activities: an Urban Astronaut, NoFitState + Motionhouse, Corey Baker Dance. Salisbury Live provides its usual mix of great music from local bands in venues throughout the city, offering free entry and a fantastic vibe across the three weekends of the festival.

A specially commissioned Opening Ceremony will celebrate the start of this year’s Festival drawing on the long and rich tradition of the Maori welcome, powhiri, and the arts of kapa haka. Under Festival Chorus director Howard Moody, hundreds of singers will welcome Ngati Ranana, the UK’s foremost Maori arts club, performing traditional Maori arts before joining forces with the Chorus in a newly commissioned ‘waiata’ or song to launch the Festival.

A diverse array of in-conversations and special guests fill the programme including the Right Ancient Tongan imagery meets pop culture in a striking new collection by New Zealand artist Benjamin Work, and Sophie Ryder, speaks about her work with Jon Bennington as part of the ongoing Relationships exhibition featuring her work across the whole city.

Dance companies Protein, Corey Baker Dance, Arlene Philips, Candoco Dance Company, , Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre’s new production of The Two Gentlemen of Verona, and Ockham’s Razor presents ‘Tipping Point’. Celebrating the centenary of Roald Dahl’s birth, the Wardrobe Museum Gardens play host to an open-air adaptation of Danny The Champion of the World, whilst Chotto Desh offers a magical mix of dance, from dance company Akram Khan. Innovative New Zealand theatre company, Trick of the Light, presents Beards! Beards! Beards!  and, set amongst the leather-bound volumes that line the walls of Longleat library, The Bookbinder explores how it feels to fall into the stories of a good book.

Tickets

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Ticket prices vary depending upon event.

More info

Alongside music there will be international theatre, dance, film, visual arts, children's events, free outdoor events and a full literature programme.

Venues

Many events are held at Salisbury Playhouse, Salisbury Cathedral, Salisbury City Hall, Salisbury Arts Centre, Wardrobe Museum Gardens, Trafalgar Park and other venues across the city.

For more details, please see the Salisbury International Arts Festival website.

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