Up The Wall to take over Roman Gardens and The Groves in Chester this weekend

Oct 21 2010 Chester Chronicle

THIS weekend Chester’s City Walls and Roman Garden will be transformed into a virtual stage as more than 25 international artists come together to perform Up the Wall, a free festival of performances, sounds and lights.

On Friday and Saturday from 7–9pm, city arts organisation Chester Performs’ annual event will take over Chester’s most celebrated architectural spaces.

Tamsin Drury, Up the Wall curator, said: “We are delighted with this year’s Up the Wall programme, which will continue to place itself as one of the cutting edge festival’s Chester offers. This year will entertain and provoke our audiences, as we present a real mix of artists work.”

Now in its fourth year, Up the Wall 2010 is the biggest to date, and will present a range of art forms; storytelling, guided tours, performances, film, projections onto the City Walls, interactive sound and art installations, re-enactments and much more.

In art collective Noise Club’s piece, audiences will control the booming sounds of trumpets and a 49 strong orchestra - using their feet.

With Wild Strawberry, event attendees will use the latest in digital software to ‘graffiti’ onto the City Walls.

Audiences will be invited to relax in Berliner Jo Ashbridge’s living room, which she will create in the Roman Garden complete with TV set, lamp and settee. Her piece uses film to explore the differences between East and West Berlin.

Made for Talking will see the creation of clay bricks with messages about the people of Chester’s hopes, experiences and fears.

Rachel Henson’s Flickers users hand held flick books to explore the wall, seeing perhaps what you otherwise wouldn’t have.

In 1645, during the Civil War, Chester’s City Walls were attacked with canons. In this piece 10 performers will re-enact the scene, imagining those who were there.

Artist Megan Broadmeadow will re-enact the famous nursery rhyme Humpty Dumpty, attempting to ‘put herself together again’ to no avail.

Performing duo Worldshed will show a lonely girl, attached to the wall, interact with projections beamed onto the City Walls.

Israeli artists Roy Mayaan and Anat Katz will explore a relationship between a dancer and a ceramicist, as he builds a wall of clay around her.

Artist Tom Marshman will take the audience on his personal journey along the wall.

Along the City Wall will be a tiny highway of hand held cars, audiences will lean in to listen to exchanges by families, friends, taxi drivers and commuters with car scenes from popular film.

Tel Aviv based artist Hagar Cygler will project images of divided families reunited onto the City Walls, her piece explores the West Bank in Israel and its effect on the family unit.

In Rung Out audiences will watch a video projection of a man climbing a ladder, leaning against the City Wall. No matter how longs he climbs, he somehow never reaches the top.

In To Forget the audience is invited to listen to the sounds of prison inmates tapping on the City Walls .

In Belfast based artist Isobel Anderson’s piece, the audience will investigate a derelict building from 1962, exploring a home on a border.

Inspired by Shakespeare’s insanity characters, this installation uses light beams, eerie sounds and projections of words to create an atmosphere of madness.

To find out more visit www.chesterperforms.com or call 01244 409113