Tomorrow at The Drawing Room, Taunton:

FULLY BOOKED!

 

 

The day will consider:

-          The history, forms and future of parades and processions

-          The potential of outdoor arts to connect us with our past, place and the seasons

-          The use of green and human-powered technologies

-          Themes, stories and images that can be used in future parades and processions

 The Endless Parade will include presentations from:

Mike Pattison and his cycle machines from the closing ceremony of the Paralympics. John Fox, founder of Welfare State International. Ali Pretty, director of Kinetika. Groups involved in Taunton’s

Olympic Torch celebrations and the Battle for the Winds projects.  Bridgwater and other Somerset Carnivals. Noeline Kavanagh director of the Galway based theatre company Macnas

The Endless Parade is a day for producers, performers and makers and anyone involved in or interested in outdoor celebratory arts and the tradition of parades. It will be held in the heart of Somerset, where parades and carnival arts have a unique and remarkable tradition.

 

 

We're back!

 

 

The Somerfest Parade. 12.00pm and 4pm June 15th

Somerfest is a celebration of Taunton, Somerset and green technology that includes an afternoon parade with splendid array of cycle powered vehicles , beasts and machines, banners, street bands and street performers.

The parade will include a machine based on the winning design of a design competition together with vehicles seen in last year’s Para-Olympic games and Taunton’s Olympic Torch celebrations. There also be performers from Fuse Performance Company, the Space and Street Linx, The Big Noise Street Band and the Trinity Primary School samba band.

Somerfest and the events supporting it have been made possible by support from Taunton Deane Borough Council, Arts Council England and Somerset County Councils Creative Industries Fund.

The event has been organised by Tim Hill, Tim helped put together the Olympic Torch celebrations and runs street band events, shows and celebrations around the country

Preceding the parade on June 13^th will be a conference on parades and processions, featuring presentations from leading makers of parades from England and Ireland including Bridgwater Carnival.

 

Taunton Olympic Torch Day!

The Somerset Journey started off in style and sunshine yesterday as part of Taunton's Olympic Torch celebrations. The day kicked off with a parade through the town centre at 11.00am in front of hundreds of enthusiastic local school children and spectators. The procession included The Big Nosie Band and additional wind gathering contraptions and vehicles made by Somerset College students.

The celebrations continued throughout the day in and around Somerset Square with Fuse and Street Linx performing and inside The Brewhouse Theatre Lightwaves videos were screened throughout the day. However the biggest event was saved til last when from 06.00pm onwards an audience of around 2 to 3000 people watched the wind gatherers and vehicle enter The County Cricket Ground to launch the beginning of the official torch ceremony! There was a whole host of local talent that took part including Escape Parkour and beatboxing from Dom Beatbox.

Thank you to all who took part and watched us perform, we hope you enjoyed it as much as we did and we look forward to seeing you at our other gatherings! We'll be in Ashbrittle this Sunday from 02.00pm - 04.30pm so please come and visit us!

The Wind Gatherers arrive in The County Cricket Ground, followed in procession by The Big Noise Band and school children from Schools in Somerset.

Hanging around with the wind gatherers!


Share with us your photos from the day, or let us know your thoughts by leaving us a comment on our blog, or contact us at:
somersetjourney@yahoo.co.uk
For more photos look on our flickr page:
http://wwwflickr.com/photos/somersetjourney

And our professional photographer, Richard Tomlinson's photos on:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/richardtomlinson/