Leicester’s innovative performance festival, Story City returns to Leicester this summer for its second year. The week long festival will take place across the city from 15-23 July, which showcases new work from some of the foremost local and national artists.
The festival includes theatre, dance, spoken word, comedy, music and storytelling, and everything is pay what you decide. At each event, the audience are given an envelope, and at the end put in however much they think the experience was worth, with the artists receiving 100% of this.
Building on the success of the festival in 2015 and with funding from Arts Council England, this year, Story City promises 35 events across traditional and non-traditional arts spaces in the city, including Attenborough Arts Centre, Peter’s Pizzeria, The Cookie, Upstairs at the Western, The Font Pub, The Exchange and New Walk Museum and Art Gallery.
The programme promises to be exciting and diverse, with highlights including real life stories of migration, musings on the struggles and triumphs of masculinity, along with tales of running away to the circus, dreams of becoming a synchronised swimmer, and also includes a sketch show about Leicester from some of the city’s finest female comedians.
Nottingham-based Next Door Dance brings their playful ode to every football fanatic out there as you see the world of dance and football collide in The Beautiful Game – a show that couldn’t be more relevant for the city!
Jennifer Manderson of Next Door Dance says: “Next Door Dance are delighted to be performing The Beautiful Game in Leicester in July as part of Story City Festival. Our show delves directly to the heart of football, celebrating everything that is brilliant about football and its fans
“We are delighted to be performing in the champion’s city and although the victory is still fresh, we are ready to reminisce with our audiences and recreate the triumph. We are busy in the studio creating a section of the show that is an ode to the Foxes using match day commentary and Leicester City chants. What better way to honour the Foxes achievement than through contemporary dance!”
Other artists include Leicester’s Akshay Sharma, Impulse Collective and G Sian Gurdeep, along with London’s HighRise Theatre and Nottingham’s Ava Hunt.
Stuart Reid of the Story City team speaks of his excitement for the festival: “We are so happy to have been invested in by Arts Council England so that we can make this a truly fantastic week in Leicester. The past few months in this city have been incredibly electric, and we want to keep that buzz going! This year’s festival has a top quality and genuinely diverse programme of performances and events – we think there’s something for everyone and we can’t wait to get started!”
For more information about the festival please visit: www.storycity.co.uk
