FESTA 2013’s main event: Free Theatre’s Canterbury Tales

FESTA 2013’s main event: Free Theatre’s Canterbury Tales

Inner city Christchurch will come alive with a carnival of giant puppets, masked performers, sound, light and a night market over Labour Weekend.

The Festival of Transitional Architecture (FESTA) invites one and all to participate in this year’s main event, Free Theatre’s Canterbury Tales – a free carnival and procession through the city at night from 6.00pm-midnight on Saturday 26 October and Sunday 27 October.

Building on the success of last year’s LUXCITY, Canterbury Tales creates a city-within-a-city built around a night of light, colour and animation. Free Theatre’s large-scale puppets (based on characters from Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales) and masked performers lead the procession through interactive environments. As the procession moves through the city, sites come alive with the participation of a huge number of collaborators, who contribute their tales of city life through soundscapes, installations, music, performance and hospitality.

The procession begins at 8.30pm at the Bridge of Remembrance and follows a path along the river to culminate in the heart of the city with a karanga, fanfare and night market in Cathedral Square. Each site along the way serves as a new place in the city-within-a-city as Canterbury Tales transforms central Christchurch and explores its new identity.

Citizens and visitors can help shape the city for today, bring life to the former red zone and participate in this collective engagement with the city. Carnival goers can dress up, wear a mask or even be a volunteer marshal. This is a unique way to engage with both the festival and the city.

In addition to the carnival, there are other Canterbury Tales events on during FESTA: on-site talks with Canterbury Tales collaborators (27 October 12-2pm), where participants talk about their work and the formation of local identity in post-quake Christchurch; the Canterbury Tales symposium (27 October 3-5pm) where a panel discusses this performative exploration of the city, and finally there is a chance to meet the puppets and have a go at operating one (28 October 11am-12.30pm).

A collaborative exploration of the city
This collaborative project intertwines performance, architecture, art and business/hospitality. Directed by Peter Falkenberg, Free Theatre’s Canterbury Tales includes the following performance groups, artists and businesses: Pacific Underground, a grouping of local experimental artists coordinated by Bruce Russell and Zita Joyce, Ngai Tahu musicians and performers, The Christchurch Symphony Orchestra, A Different Light, The Darkroom, Smash Palace, Cassels and Sons, Twisted Hop, Black Betty and the Lost and Found Market. PlaceMakers Riccarton have provided the means to the make fantastic large scale puppets; McConnell Dowell have also collaborated creatively with the works taking place on Oxford Terrace and Philips have provided creative assistance in helping Canterbury Tales transform the Square through lighting.

It also involves the following schools in architecture, scenography, design and performance: School of Landscape Architecture (Lincoln University), Architecture Department (Unitec, Auckland), Department of Design and Visual Arts (Unitec, Auckland), School of Architectural Studies (CPIT, Christchurch), Interior and Spatial Design (University of Technology Sydney), Theatre and Film Studies Department, (University of Canterbury) and Te Puna Toi (University of Canterbury).

In the spirit of the transitional city, Canterbury Tales has only been made possible because of the enthusiasm and support of a wide range of local, national and international sponsors and funders. These include PlaceMakers Riccarton, Philips, Skope, McConnell Dowell, Duncan Cotterill, Fletcher Construction, HireAccess, CreativeNZ, Arup, Athfield Architects, Hirepool, Kiwibank and the Mainland Foundation. The core funders for FESTA 2013 are the Todd Foundation, the Christchurch City Council and The Canterbury Community Trust.

Please visit www.festa.org.nz for more information on Canterbury Tales and the myriad activities on offer for the whole of Labour Weekend.

ENDS

© Scoop Media