Devizes Carnival & International Street Festival

21 August to 3 September 2011

Do have a look at what's going on during Devizes Carnival and International Street Festival this year. You can find details at www.devizescarnival.co.uk Here are some highlights:

Sunday 21st August – Picnic in the Park (Hillworth Park, Devizes SN10 4HR, 12.00 to 4.30pm). Free music from Kyla Brox, Zoe Schwartz Blue Commotion and Jackie Leven. Children’s entertainment includes storytelling by Lulu Stevens, circus workshop with Mark Russell. Bar by Devizes CAMRA. Bring your own picnic.

Thursday 25th August - Comedy Night (Bell by the Green, 8.30 for 9.00pm). Headline Mitch Benn (Radio 4’s Now Show), Wes Packer and Martin Brown. Tickets £10 from Devizes Books.

Wednesday 31 August - Confetti Battle and Fireworks (Market Place, 8.00 – 9.00pm). Devizes’ traditional event!

Bank Holiday Monday 29th August (Town centre, 10.30 – 6.30pm). Grandest one-day festival of music and street arts in the SW and a free event! A host of excellent bands and some of the best street arts from UK and Europe including music from Peatbog Faeries, Phantom Limb, Baraka, Smokin Joe Kubeck and Gugge2000 and street shows by Ramshaklicious, Motionhouse (Underground), Nakupelle, Jason Maverick, Gracie Spoon, Bootworks Theatre, Sputknicker Sisters, Bambolina & Dodo, Jonny & Sybil, Benny Formaggio, Rimski’s Piano, etc.

Saturday 3rd September - Devizes Carnival (from The Green, 6.00pm). Big procession with mix of traditional and contemporary style entries (lots from community workshops). Bands include Portsmouth Batala, Grupo Ilu Axe, Swindon Samba, Oi Sambistas and Rainbow Steel Orchestra.

Practice

TheatreWorks presented it's 6th Practice event on Saturday evening, for the first time at the ICIA, all previous events having been held at Salisbury Arts Centre. Practice is an opportunity for emerging artists to share a work in progress and then have time to seek feedback from an audience.

On Saturday night we were treated to 5 pieces of very different performance, take a look at http://theatreworks.org.uk/showcase/practice-at-icia-26th-feb-2011 for more information on the performances.

I think my favourite was the one pictured here, I've seen Sylvia perform at a previous Practice event and this felt like a very different piece of work really showing a great, unforced humour. I am challanged by these events as my background is in marketing and programming so I can't help but ask 'what would an audience make if this' or 'could I sell this' a lot of the work that Practice brings to us is not mainstream work and has really helped me to understand the process and motivation of artists creating this sort of performance.

A few of our fellow WAP members were there, Deryck Newland, Dom Somers and it was lovely to see Dave Buxton of Devizes Carnival, there for the first time. I do try to get out to as many events as I can (I do this outside of my WAP hours), not only is it rather nice I think it's really important to keep in touch with what's going on and it means I can keep the WAP message out there.

The next Practice is at Salisbury Arts Centre later this month, I'll find out when and let you know.