Out There Festival

A massive free festival of international performance and participation took place in St. George’s Park, Great Yarmouth on the 18th and 19th September. Out There is now the largest street arts festival in the region.

Joe Mackintosh of SeaChange Arts says, “We love being Out There! Out on the east coast, we think we’re a little bit special – perched on the edge of the UK and tipping a wink to the continent! Our programme reflects that.”   This year one of the titans of international street arts, Générik Vapeur performed the English premier of their long- running street show, Bivouac, which was a huge success.  Hundreds of people followed the blue-painted performers as they made their way down from St. George’s Parade and along Marine Parade banging and rolling huge oil drums, preceded by a flame throwing iron dog and accompanied by a lorry upon which three musicians were performing.  Fire crackers were being let off to startle the swarming crowd and acrobats appeared on buildings.  The sense of expectancy was tangible amongst the milling spectators and the fireworks finale was magnificent.

From France Chamboule Touthéatre and two of the original founders of the parkour phenomenon performed in a show called Fusion.  Add to that performers from Sweden, Belgium, New Zealand and Australia all brought  a sense of the weird, the wonderful and the unusual.

Local artists were commissioned to lead community workshops to create mobiles, kinetic and metal sculptures and flags and banners to decorate the festival park, and to deliver participatory workshops on site at the festival.

Out There has been developed with the support of the ZEPA network, an innovative project partnering nine French and English festivals to create and share artists, tours and expertise. While born of international partnerships the festival is founded on the historic qualities that make Great Yarmouth unique with its rich heritage of circus and seaside entertainment.

The Out There festival is pure fun and not to be missed -watch out for the 2011 Festival!  For more information click here.