A feast of arts

As the artistic director of the Yorkshire Festival 2016, Matt Burman promises in the brochure that the festival will give audiences ‘the unexpected, the unusual, the bold and the brassy’.

When we talk he’s heading to the east of the county to one of the myriad events happening between now and July 3 under the banner of Yorkshire Festival.

“I’m right now heading to Goole for The Sonic Journey, then back tonight for Chip Shop the Musical,” says Burman.

The connection on his phone is fine, and despite what you may think having just read that, he isn’t saying random words. These are the kinds of unusual arts you can expect from the Yorkshire Festival.

The Sonic Journey is a collaboration between two of Yorkshire’s most high profile and celebrated artists, writer Blake Morrison and composer Gavin Bryars. Passengers travelling between Goole and Hull on the train simply need to download the track made available via the festival and experience the poetry of Morrison with the music of Bryars and allow themselves to be taken on a journey.

Chip Shop The Musical is a little more easy to explain: it’s a musical set in a chip shop.

These two events, experienced by the festival’s artistic director in a single day, is perhaps the best demonstration of the sheer variety available to audiences at this year’s Yorkshire Festival.

“It is quite a task to plot such a range of work over such a large county,” admits Burman and, of the fact that he appears to be determined to get to every single piece of work that has been programmed, says: “We want all the artists to feel that real sense of Yorkshire hospitality, so I’m trying to make sure I get to everything and see all the artists.”

That is an admirable and laudable aim. But the Festival runs for 18 days, features 900 artists from 22 countries. Is it realistic? Maybe not, but when Burman is able to fulfil the ambitions of giving a big Yorkshire welcome to the artists, it really pays off.

Last weekend he was at the Bradford Alhambra for a performance of The Nile Project. A collaboration of musicians from 11 countries across the Nile River Basin, the sell-out show in Bradford last weekend featured the musicians performing in various languages, from various traditions, using instruments that hail from Arabic culture and African culture. By all accounts it was an extraordinary performance – and the good news is that the performers thought so too. “They’ve literally been touring the world and they said that this was the favourite gig they’ve done,” says Burman.

Although he’s slap-bang in the middle of the festival right now when we speak, when it finishes and he is able, Burman should take a step back and look at what has been achieved. In the space of September to December last year, he had 300 meetings with artists hoping to bring their work to the Yorkshire Festival.

“Every single meeting I started by asking the question of the artists ‘what can we do together that you can’t do separately?’. I wanted that sense of collaboration and that real sense of work that was genuinely born, produced, made in Yorkshire.”

He’s definitely got that. Chip Shop The Musical – that wouldn’t work in Birmingham or London now, would it? Similarly the story you can listen to while travelling from Goole to Hull, that’s absolutely Yorkshire and as though to absolutely underline the point and make certain there’s no confusion, the festival also features a work called God’s Own County. That one features enormous projections being shown on the front of Weston Park Museum in Sheffield, created by two arts collectives working in the city called The Collaborators and The Professors.

The festival, a legacy from the 100 days of arts performed when the Tour de France came to Yorkshire two years ago, is funded by the Arts Council and Welcome to Yorkshire. It began on June 16 when statues in the city of Leeds began to come to life – people were able to use devices to listen to audio recordings of statues like The Black Prince, speaking through voices of people like Brian Blessed and Vic Reeves.

This weekend audiences will be able to experience The Opera for the Unknown Woman, a sci-fi opera made by theatre artist Melanie Wilson, which will receive its world premiere at Lawrence Batley Theatre in Huddersfield.

“She’s a brilliant artist, working with some really significant people and to be able to support artists to make some really ambitious work is a great thing to be able to do,” says Burman.

Other events in coming weeks include a disco across the whole of Yorkshire, with the world’s biggest disco ball being unveiled and Place Des Anges, a city-wide art installation in Hull on July 2.

“In the space of 55 minutes, 10,000 tickets went for that event,” says Burman. “It’s almost impossible to describe, but as a visual spectacle on the streets of Hull it is going to be extraordinary.

“That’s what a festival can do. We always hear the economic arguments of the benefits of events like this, how for every £1 spent on the arts three or four pounds goes to the chancellor and that’s fine, but it’s about more than that.

“If you look at the Tour de France or the Tour de Yorkshire, it’s about what events like this bring to the people of the city, how it changes them. There are so many forces that seek to divide us – at these moments we can come together and share something that is out of the ordinary, together.”

June 29: Salt: Theatre maker Selina Thompson crossed the Atlantic on a cargo ship, tracing a tour slaves were forced to make from the UK to Ghana and Jamaica. This is the result of her trip. Stage at Leeds, 7.45pm.

June 25, 26: The Tetley Weekender: Live performances, artist talks and workshops.

June 26: Handmade Parade: Hebden Bridge welcomes back the regular-visiting street festival.

July 1: Big Disco: A world-record attempt to have people across Yorkshire dancing to the same track at the same time.

Full details of all events: www.festival.yorkshire.com