250 years of The Norfolk Norwich Festival

Celebrating 250 years of arts in Norfolk

With over 100 events and 18 new commissions across 17 days, Norfolk & Norwich Festival is back with a bang to celebrate its 250th anniversary.

With its origins going as far back as 1772, Norfolk & Norwich Festival is considered to be the oldest single-city arts Festival in the UK.

Running from May13th-29th, The wide-ranging ‘Festival 250’ programme for 2022 revisits seminal works premiered at the Festival as well as introducing 18 new commissions. Installations, exhibitions, gigs, cabaret, circus and even giant dominoes will be presented on beaches, in churches, at popup venues, chapels, art centres, in car parks and through the streets across the county from King’s Lynn, Great Yarmouth to Diss and Sheringham and throughout Norwich. Festival Gardens will be a place to eat, drink and gather for the duration, with al fresco performances from local artists as well as international performances in the Adnams Spiegeltent.

The Festival launches its 2022 programme with an exhilarating and charming giant domino topple, creating a larger-than-life celebration across the city. During the course of the day thousands of breezeblock dominoes will create a meandering path before the topple that evening, starting at Anglia Square.

The Festival began as a cathedral service fundraiser for the new Norfolk and Norwich Hospital in 1772. It quickly blossomed and there are a plethora of events in the programme that touch on the traditions of old while imagining the new: 250 Fanfares sees nine new free, open-air commissions popping up over the opening weekend in keeping with the long tradition of fanfares at the Festival. In a special fundraiser for the Jenny Lind Children’s Hospital, the Festival presents a programme celebrating Lind, an artist and a humanitarian whose bond with the people of Norfolk resonates today, and a nod to the very first fundraiser Norfolk & Norwich Festival in 1772. Fairytales & Nightingales charts her life in Sweden, reimagines her career through the music of Felix and Fanny Mendelssohn, Robert and Clara Schumann and follows Lind on her path to stardom.

The Festival includes world premieres and Festival commissions such as a new work from Sō Percussion and Pulitzer Prize-winner Caroline Shaw who combine forces in a concert that also presents the UK premiere of new work from Angelica Negron while clarinettist and composer Arun Ghosh presents a spiritual jazz re-imagining of St. Francis of Assisi’s mystical prayer, The Canticle of the Sun performed by a contemporary eight-piece ensemble featuring Camilla George and Sarathy Korwar.

A diverse performance programme for 2022 includes site specific work in Norwich such as Peaceophobia in Rose Lane Car Park - part car-meet, part theatre show and powerful political performance, it is an unapologetic response to rising Islamophobia. The Halls houses two dance shows: acclaimed dance-theatre company Lost Dog present their latest show A Tale of Two Cities - a radical reimagining of Dickens’ classic and internationally-renowned Sydney hip-hop dance artist Nick

Between Tiny Cities

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Photo: Thoeun Veassna

Power’s Between Tiny Cities with Australian and Cambodian dancers Erak Mith and Aaron Lim.

Circus returns to the Adnams Spiegeltent with Cirque Alfonse’s Edinburgh Festival showstopper Barbu all the way from Canada with full on beards, barrel chests, brazen burlesque and a frenetic electro-folk band and Claire Parson’s tactile Marmalade for families mixing soft circus, fluffy skirts and Fellini music.

Music takes centre stage in Festival Gardens in the Adnams Spiegeltent and with the return of the bandstand, showcasing al fresco performers from up and coming music-makers. Programme includes: Peggy Seeger, the undisputed queen of folk and political song with her son; 11-piece jazz ensemble Levitation Orchestra featuring London’s most creative and individual young musicians and protest singer folk singersongwriter Grace Petrie.The Festival also teams up with Soul Stew to present its first ever club night as with DJ Jossy Mitsu at Space Studios.

As ever the Festival will present a large programme of free, outdoor work for audiences to enjoy. As well as Dominoes and Air Giants Unfurl, there is free music across the city and in Festival Gardens throughout the Festival and the Garden Party where families can see seven new commissions over the middle weekend. Celebrating 10 years since Norwich was crowned UNESCO City of Literature, the City of Literature Weekend returns through the streets, gardens and historic buildings of Norwich (May 27th-29th) featuring: A. K. Blakemore and Guinevere Glasfurd, Mieko Kawakami, Richard Mainwaring, debut authors and UEA alumni Melissa Fu and Ayanna Lloyd Banwo. Throughout the weekend, the National Centre for Writing will also host book clubs, writing and bookmaking workshops and a literary walking tour of Norwich.

The Festival’s visual arts programme is vast this year with both exhibitions of its own as well as events around the county taking part: internationally renowned conceptual artist Ryan Gander presents The Gift, an exhibition examining the currency of time at East Gallery from May 3rd. Gander’s More really shiny things that don’t mean anything will also be displayed in the landscape at Houghton Hall. Delving into the different communities and subcultures of Norfolk, the Festival has commissioned Posters, Pamphlets & other Paraphernalia. From 90s football programmes to DIY zines, goblincore to glossy mags, an array of creative voices from different communities will be displayed. The Festival also includes exhibitions at Houghton Hall, Sainsbury Centre, Norwich Castle Museum & Art Gallery, Crypt Gallery as well as trails and exhibitions around King’s Lynn and at Groundwork Gallery.

So Percussion and Caroline Shaw Shervin Lainez