Kensington and Chelsea 2023 Festival returns to the borough for its third year
Castaway by Highly Sprung. Credit Andrew Moore
Spanning the summer from Saturday 1 July to Thursday 31 August 2023 the Kensington and Chelsea Festival will take place across the borough in a reimagining of its spaces.
From the best-known cultural venues to the less-discovered areas and outdoor spaces, the festival will make use of the best of the borough to host a multitude of live art performances.
With a cultural offering that spans theatre, circus, opera, dance, music, outdoor arts, family shows, participatory activities, talks, walks and public art pieces, the festival was born out of a desire to lift spirits by celebrating culture and creativity.
Luke Jerram
Mars: War & Peace’by LUKE JERAM
One of the most exciting projects to appear at the Festival will be Mars: War & Peace, the touring artwork by UK artist Luke Jerram.
Measuring seven metres in diameter, the artwork features 120 dpi detailed NASA imagery of the Martian surface. At an approximate scale of 1:1 million, each centimetre of the internally lit spherical sculpture represents 10 kilometres of the surface of Mars.
The artwork allows us to view Mars from the air, as though we are a satellite mapping and studying the surface in perfect detail. Every valley, crater, volcano, and mountain are laid bare for us to inspect.
We are transported to this desert wasteland, to imagine what it’s like to step foot on this incredible planet and in comparison, really value our life on Earth.
EARTH AND SKY by The Bullzini Family Circus
World-class high-wire walker Chris Bullzini leads an intrepid troupe of aerial artists and musicians to take an audience on a journey with the circus.
This is a new show created in light of a climate emergency, an invitation to an invocation.
With a nod to our ancestral roots and giving voice to Mother Earth, The Bullzini Family Circus use circus combined with ritual to lift audiences out of the ordinary and up into "active hope".
Upswing
The Swings by All of Nothing Aerial
Part performance and part installation, The Swings is both an aerial dance duet (the performers arrive to fly high throughout the day) and an open invitation for the public to swing high and free on two magnificent, larger-than-life, five-metre-high swing sets.
The Swings are open for the public to sit and swing on, triggering a sound installation as they swing.
For little ones, it’s unusual and fun – for grown-ups, it’s a time machine that allows them to travel back to childhood.
Image: Sarah Vanheuverzwijn
Grasshoppers by Circus Katoen (Flanders)
A reproduction of the resilience and vulnerability of nature and the role that we as humans play in it. Grass is a living material and recognisable to everyone.
On the one hand very vulnerable and on the other hand it can really take a few knocks. In Grasshoppers, Circus Katoen remove a piece of green from its natural habitat and bring it above ground level using trestles, planks, rope, and their bodies.
The audience follows the artists transforming the grass into an object that is literally mobilized, manipulated, and controlled.
A portion of nature ends up in unnatural situations, a specialty of mankind.
Image: Andrew Moore
Castaway by Highly Sprung
A stunning outdoor performance that explores the impact of today’s throwaway society on our waterways.
Featuring a unique gyroscopic flying machine, the all-female cast immerses audiences in an underwater world where performers dive, twist, and float over 26 feet in the air to delight, inspire and captivate audiences of all ages.
CastAway responds to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch – a floating island of everlasting plastic that has grown to 6½ times the size of the UK.
It presents an alternative, sustainable and more compassionate way of being and challenges us to consider our own actions in the face of climate change.
With the weight of plastic greater than the weight of humanity, what better time than now to take action?
Saturday 1 July to Thursday 31 August 2023 – the festival will take place across the borough. Visit www.kcfestival.co.uk for the full programme.
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