This year’s outdoor and community programme echoes Guest Director musician, DJ and broadcaster Nabihah Iqbal’s invitation to ‘Gather Round’: from Groundswell, a large-scale public installation highlighting the power of working together; to pop-up outdoor performances of A Weekend Without Walls. Brighton Festival 2023 is all about joining in and trying something new - read on for more highlights or click here for this year's outdoor programme…
Feel the earth literally move beneath your feet with Groundswell, a free, interactive outdoor spectacle taking place throughout the Festival in St Peter’s Square, in the heart of Brighton! Fun for families and individuals alike, everyone can have a go at walking on this huge tilting platform, setting in motion thousands of illuminated balls with every movement, creating waves of sound and light. Award-winning Australian artist Matthias Schack-Arnott's thoughtful piece emphasises how we connect and interact with each other. It appears at Brighton Festival in collaboration with Brighton Fringe and The Pebble Trust, whose annual support of Brighton Festival’s major productions and installations allows the city to be seen and experienced by audiences in new ways.
A Weekend Without Walls is another free family-friendly event taking place at locations across Brighton and also Crawley too. This outdoor pop-up series was a hit at last year’s Festival, showcasing circus, music and dance shows in a riot of joy and colour. Highlights include a playful dance duet titled New Work, which is a Brighton Festival commission by choreographer Jamaal Burkmar and Candoco Dance Company, and Ancient Futures, a spectacular dance party that blends circus and storytelling with Sound System culture and West African folklore. Why not unwind with a brew served from a multicoloured, hand painted Tuk Tuk with TEABREAK? Onlookers can also enjoy performers in sumptuous costumes creating vibrant and colourful mini worlds of dance, music and puppetry with Mughal Miniatures, inspired by Indian miniature paintings of the 9th and 10th century. Finally, young children will be delighted by Choogh Choogh, which uses contemporary movement, theatre, play and songs to tell stories about travelling through India on a train.
After their sell-out Romeo and Juliet at Brighton Festival 2022, ThirdSpace (formerly Windmill Young Actors) return to the Festival for 2023 with Bakkhai! A Brighton Festival commission, the production reimagines the ancient Greek tragedy as a youthful revolt featuring a cast of over 50 people aged 8-60 years old. Dramatic and spectacular, the play is set to a soundtrack of thumping bass and choral voices, against the backdrop of the beautiful South Downs. Third Space have also collaborated with local companies Ceyda Tanc Dance (also bringing dance show KIZLAR to Brighton Festival this year) and Brighton People's Theatre. Bakkhai is suitable for ages 12 and up.
The largest parade of its kind in Europe, Brighton Festival’s annual Children’s Parade has been a fixture in the city for over 30 years! This year, the free, family-friendly event will celebrate ‘One World, learning and growing from each other’ with a procession of over 5,000 children from local schools through Brighton, sporting show-stopping self-made costumes. The Children’s Parade is supported by Same Sky, the South East’s largest community arts charity, who work with teachers, students and volunteers from schools across Brighton & Hove to make magnificent sculptures, choreograph dance routines and compose parade chants, encouraging children to learn through making.
Click to explore this year's outdoor programme and to buy tickets.