Gulbenkian moves online with a sensory musical performance for families
Gulbenkian are working with experimental theatre company BitterSuite this autumn to deliver their first ever online performance for families on Saturday 24th & Sunday 25th October at 11am & 2pm
Since 2014 BitterSuite have been re-imagining music experiences, working with academic experts to offer audiences sensory experiences through touch, taste, smell and movement whilst listening to specially composed music.
Their new performance HELD was due to premier at bOing! International Family Festival this summer, but when the festival was cancelled earlier in the year, BitterSuite took the decision to take the production to audiences online but retaining a physical performance.
HELD is a multisensory experience of new music specifically designed to take audiences on a journey within their own home, physically and imaginatively.
In advance of the performance, audiences will receive a Journey Box containing items to add to their sensory experience and an email with a login to the Journey Portal where they can begin the adventure. Families will log on to the portal at the performance time, meet the BitterSuite team and go on the journey into their imaginations together.
“We are so excited to bring a little joy to the imaginations of families across the UK. Music and sensory experiences are a platform for the incredible home entertainment system that we all carry inside our bodies - the imagination. We created HELD with our team of experts alongside our youth testers during lockdown which has been an inspiring process for us. And we cannot wait to share it with families, young people and to hear what journeys you go on.” Steph Singer, Artistic Director and Composer for HELD
“We are so excited to be working with BitterSuite on this project, being able to offer a new, innovative and meaningful performance for families in their own home. HELD offers us the chance to reach out and connect with our audience at a time when coming together in a theatre is so challenging.” Rebecca Lees, Programme Manager, Gulbenkian.
Tickets will go on sale from Friday 28 August and full details can be found online at www.thegulbenkian.co.uk/events/held
HELD is commissioned by Gulbenkian, Midland Arts Centre, Rich Mix, Concordia University and Future Arts Centres and is delivered with the generous support from ACE. Delivered with additional venue partners: Wiltshire Creative and Sheffield Children’s Hospital.