Meet the Artistic Directorate

Artistic Directorate Partner

101 Outdoor Arts – National Centre for Arts in Public Space is a hub of creativity and the UK’s major centre for the development of outdoor work. As a physical resource for artists, the centre offers space to develop outdoor and site-specific work with specialised facilities ready to welcome and host creatives.

Based on a former missile base and supported by Greenham Trust, the 20,000 sq ft warehouse site of 101 in Newbury is rooted in local history, once being the location of a long-running women’s peace camp and international protest against nuclear weapons.

Find out more about 101

Artistic Directorate Partner

Brighton Festival, now the largest arts festival in England, is one of the major milestones in the international cultural calendar. Over a three-week period, Brighton Festival explores a wide-ranging programme of music, theatre, dance, film, and literature. It has a long tradition of attracting the most exciting performers from across the globe and promoting local artists, and bringing fresh, challenging new work to Brighton.

Find out more about Brighton Festival

Artistic Directorate Partner

Certain Blacks presents performance, live art, music and theatre and the creative voice of our diverse society. Our philosophy is to provide performance opportunities for new, emerging and established artists of the highest quality. The organisation aims to challenge the norms of performance and what is seen as diverse. Certain Blacks presents art from the margins into the mainstream.

Ensemble Festival 2023 includes pop-up performances on Wednesday, 19 & Thursday 20 July as a taster for the weekend’s events: A two-day programme on Saturday, 22 and Sunday, 23 July.

Find out more about Certain Blacks

Artistic Directorate Partner

FESTIVAL.ORG is one of the UK’s leading outdoor arts producing organisations. Collaborating with artists and arts organisations around the world to create extraordinary productions, they commission, re-imagine, produce and showcase a growing repertory of work that brings public spaces to life and is engaging and inspiring large, diverse audiences.

FESTIVAL.ORG’s flagship event is the Greenwich+Docklands International Festival (GDIF), London’s leading festival of free outdoor performing arts (theatre, dance, and street arts), an annual 10-day celebration of extraordinary outdoor events that transform people’s lives. The Festival commits to breaking new ground in outdoor performance and raising the ambition, quality, and diversity of outdoor work produced, focusing on the commissioning and developing outdoor work led by Deaf and disabled artists and artists from diverse backgrounds. FESTIVAL.ORG also plays a distinctive, strategic role within the wider outdoor arts sector by devising and producing large-scale work (including ceremony-scale spectacle).

Find out more about FESTIVAL.ORG

Artistic Directorate Partner

Hat Fair is Britain’s longest running festival of street theatre and outdoor arts – taking place in Winchester in July every year.

Hat Fair, named after the tradition of throwing donations into performance hats, first burst onto the Winchester scene in 1974 as a busker’s festival.

It has developed a strong reputation and following, providing a weekend filled with hundreds of colourful and exciting performances.

Find out more about Hat Fair

Artistic Directorate Partner

An annual weekend-long camping festival for children and their families. The festival provides a magical experience where art, music and literature entwined with a beautiful and wondrous landscape. We offer a broad range of musical, theatrical, and visual performances, workshops and installations within a safe, natural and magical setting.

Every clearing and glade holds a new way to unleash creativity. Families discover and delight in the spectacular within the woodland environment during this weekend camping event.

Find out more about Just So Festival

Artistic Directorate Partner

This year experience the city of Leeds like never before with an exciting programme of curated events designed to let culture loose. LEEDS 2023 is working with local, national and international artists and communities to create a celebration that’s for Leeds, with Leeds and inspired by Leeds.

Find out more about Leeds 2023

Artistic Directorate Partner

Norfolk & Norwich Festival is a flagship arts organisation for the East of England with a reputation for innovative, inspirational programming and commissioning.

As well as staging one of the most significant arts festivals in the UK each May, Norfolk & Norwich Festival collaborates throughout the year with local, national and international partners to produce work for a huge and diverse range of audiences, participants and communities.

Find out more about Norfolk & Norwich Festival

Artistic Directorate Partner

Stockton International Riverside Festival (SIRF) is an annual free outdoor arts and street theatre festival in Stockton-on-Tees.

Taking place over in early August, it attracts international artists performing to thousands of spectators each year. It showcases outstanding international street theatre, dance, circus and music acts with a packed programme of shows for all the family.

SIRF is supported by Arts Council England and Stockton-on-Tees Borough Council.

Artistic Directorate Partner

Timber Festival is an immersive and revitalising weekend festival in the heart of the National Forest celebrating our relationship with trees and forests through music, art and ideas.

For three days in July, new thinkers, activists, makers, artists, musicians and writers gather to play, provoke and inspire as we explore our complex and rewarding relationship with the natural world. A joyous, reflective festival, Timber gives you the chance to recharge and reconnect with your family, friends, nature and, most importantly, yourself.

Timber is produced by Wild Rumpus in partnership with the National Forest Company.The festival takes place at Feanedock, on the Leicestershire/Derbyshire border in the National Forest with artists from the local area and the Midlands and UK as well as international artists.

Find out more about Timber Festival