A MIDSUMMER festival celebrating arts and culture in the region is set to be streamed online.
On Saturday (June 20) the West Midlands Culture Response Unit will showcase live, pre-recorded and archived art and culture.
The free event is the first organised by the unit, which has been created to ensure the recovery of the cultural sector in the West Midlands.
It has been inspired by annual Midsummer celebrations across the region and will feature work influenced by Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. It will include a live performance of short excerpts at Compton Verney, which was the setting for the 1968 film adaptation starring Dames Judi Dench and Helen Mirren.
The online showcase will also feature performances which have never been seen before from companies including the Royal Shakespeare Company, ACE Dance and Music and Birmingham Contemporary Music Group.
It will include a dance-circus production from Motionhouse and a workshop by Royal Shakespeare Company designers on how to create a fairy bower at home.
Director of culture central Erica Love said: “Covid 19 has decimated the cultural sector. It is more important than ever for the West Midlands to come together and support each other. The Culture Response Unit believe that as a region we should respond to this unprecedented threat in a typically generous, loud and collaborative manner, which is exactly the spirit of Midsummer Festival.
“The festival is the first collaboration of its kind for the region, building on the many digital opportunities we’ve seen from our arts and culture organisations to bring their work online during lockdown, as well as the outpouring of creativity from households and online communities. It’s set to be a great event and we look forward to welcoming audiences through our virtual doors.”
Visit www.makeitwm.com to stream the festival or find out more.
