The Resonate Festival of Arts & Culture - Day Out!

Despite the recent bad weather, the sun was shining bright on Sunday 2nd June 2024 for the Resonate Festival of Arts and Culture – Day Out! We welcomed over 600 visitors to the Faculty of Arts Building and Oculus Field for a day of fun and creativity as we explored World Culture together.

We started of the day family dance show ‘Balance’, Keneish Dance’s latest mesmerising Dance production. Taking inspiration from immune cells; a metaphor for uniting the pat and present into equilibrium. We took a deep dive into regenerative inner workings of bodies, the rounding of the immune cell sphere, its spontaneous shuffling and fanning motion – all expressed through high spirited dance! Later in the day, Keneish dancers led us through a family dance workshop, where we moved our bodies just like immune cells too!

Balance is on tour, check out the tour dates here.

We couldn’t celebrate World Culture without celebrating languages, and we had a hall full of language activities! We tried our hand at Chinese calligraphy, made foreign language slogan t-shirts, wrote German greetings cards and participated in loads of games! In the Market Hall, we also had a child-friendly introduction to Dante, considered the biases in Artificial Intelligence by asking ChatGBT to write superhero stories, and explored our belief systems at ‘Leaves of Belief’.

We were also delighted to have a selection of works from local artist Veronica Grant’s ‘A Movement Through Masks’, first exhibited for Black History Month 2023 at Foleshill Community Centre. These masks are traditionally used to tell stories and to share what is happening in different villages or tribes. By reimagining these masks in a variety of mediums, Grant explores the historical and cultural connection between Africa, the Caribbean, and life in England.

Warwick postgraduate students shared their knowledge and newfound public engagement skills through a wide variety of activities. Downstairs, we had a Traditional Chinese Culture Festival, where we learnt about soy sauce, tofu and traditional Chinese medicine. Upstairs, we had science workshops, explored gender and Arab History, amongst other things.

Outside, Circus Mash had us laughing and dancing with their new participatory musical, ‘Hullabaloo’. They held performances throughout the day and some of us learnt some new circus skills! At 3pm we had a very exciting performance by Earth-bound. Through physical theatre, puppetry, ariel arts and live music, ‘For The Love of Stuff’ introduced us to a fantastical future world where the stuff we own became more important than how we feel. We were moved, thrilled and inspired to take action against the economic systems that are destroying us and our natural world.

Plus, Shakespeare’s Henry the Fourth was mashed up with Thor, we sang Spanish songs, introduced little ones to Shakespeare and Dante, had a go at Samba drumming, tried traditional Yavalou dancing, took a wander with the Museum of Climate Stories, explored the world of VR and much, much more!