Festival Brings the Wolverhampton’s Young Creatives Together in West Park

Last Saturday we finished our second year programme of Wolverhampton City of Youth Culture in West Park under bright sunshine.

The culminate of six months development work, we welcomed over 1000 young people and families to a day of cultural activities by and for young people. Over the last four years the festival, produced by the amazing Ros Glover, has put young people’s creativity centre stage.

On the main stage (how great is it that young people get to go on the main stage?) we had a programme of music featuring soul, rap and indie – all performed by young people. Trevanea, Amelie, Meher, Erenai and Ethan Danbury were just some of the young people performing.

Throughout the day there were workshops from Real Art Workshops, The Grand Theatre, Gazebo TIE, Kathleen Fabre, My Baobab, Sohan Kailey, Flexus Dance, Azad Arts, Fabric Tattoo, The Way and Bedazzle.

Over the road at Wolverhampton Arts Centre we worked with Big Top Music Productions for the second year in the New Horizons tent, providing a rich programme of creative activities in a peaceful setting for those with additional needs.

Young people were involved far beyond the stages: volunteering to help the event run smoothly on the day, choosing the commissions for activities, and performances.

Bringing arts work for young people to the city has always been a key part of the Festival and as soon as we saw Colourscape we knew it would be a fantastic piece to have as part of the festival. Virtually impossible to describe, it’s a blow-up walk-in labyrinth of spaces where you are overwhelmed by different colours and textures. Young musicians were also able to perform inside the structure for audiences during the day. Take a look at the photos – if you missed out then I am sure they will be back in the city before long.

The City of Youth Culture partnership: Wolverhampton Arts Centre, Wolverhampton Music Service the Cultural Education Partnership, Gazebo TIE, learn/Play and Wolverhampton University have worked together on this as they have on many other opportunities over the past year, with partners Arts Council England and City of Wolverhampton Council.