Lakeside Arts announces a vibrant new season of events

Lakeside Arts is delighted to announce a full season of in-person events and exhibitions this autumn. For the first time since March 2020, Lakeside will welcome visitors back to all of its buildings and facilities, enabling audiences to reconnect and create new memories with friends and loved ones.

Lakeside’s autumn season begins with the much-anticipated opening of the Art Council Collection’s touring exhibition Breaking the Mould: Sculpture by Women Since 1945 (Saturday 18 September – Sunday 9 January) in Lakeside’s Djanogly Gallery. The impressive collection includes artworks by more than fifty sculptors, spanning more than seventy years, to address an imbalance in British sculpture that has marginalised women or airbrushed their work out of the art historical canon altogether. The chosen work highlights a commitment to women working in sculpture across a wide range of practices. This spectacular exhibition challenges ingrained notions of sculpture as a ‘male occupation’.

Opening just a few days later, the fascinating Beyond the Mayflower exhibition (Thursday 23 September – Sunday 16 January) explores how we can better understand the Nottinghamshire ‘Pilgrims’ that, in 1620, sailed across the Atlantic aboard a ship called the Mayflower. Visitors to the exhibition will be able build a better understanding of the region’s former inhabitants by tracing the history of religious dissent, power and faith in Nottinghamshire from the seventeenth century. Originally programmed for 2020, this exhibition marks the 400th (now 401st) anniversary of the sailing of the Mayflower.

For thrill seekers, Lakeside is pleased to announce the return to Nottingham of the world-renowned DARKFIELD following their sell-out performances of FLIGHT in February 2020. DARKFIELD create exhilarating, immersive and innovative ‘theatre’ shows that are experienced in total darkness. Their latest production, EULOGY, takes place inside a 40-foot shipping container and uses binaural sound to create a 30-minute experience like no other. Audience members are immersed in a dream-like, labyrinthine hotel that is imagined in the darkness. EULOGY is a thrilling and intense ride that employs speech recognition technology to give the audience a voice, increase their feeling of agency, and allow them to feel a greater moral responsibility for what happens in the story. EULOGY’s Preview run at Lakeside coincides with the return of students to the University of Nottingham from Wednesday 22 September – Sunday 3 October. The container will return for a second run after its London world premiere, between Tuesday 19 – Sunday 31 October.

In addition to these three early season highlights, Lakeside has a brilliant range of theatre, dance, comedy and music events for audiences of all ages. Notable highlights include: a dramatic adaptation of Carmen (Tuesday 12 October) by Agudo Dance, that draws upon Flamenco and contemporary dance to tell this classic tale about individuality, freedom, love and pleasure; live comedy with some of the best names in the industry – Loyiso Gola on Thursday 21 October (Live at the Apollo, Mock theWeek, QI), The Noise Next Door (Sunday 14 November), Harry Hill (Thursday 16 November), and Shaparak Khorsandi (Tuesday 30 October); a host of fantastic family events, including Josephine on Saturday 23 October – Sunday 24 October (suitable for ages 7+), The Gramophones’ Tarzanna, a playful aerial theatre show swinging through a jungle of dreams (Sunday 31 October, suitable for ages 3-8) – both taking place during October half-term; and the return of live music to Lakeside Arts with the multi-award winning Notos Quartet (Thursday 14 October), the extraordinary and ethereal sounds of Artic Ice Music (Wednesday 17 October), and spiritual and rhapsodic music of GRAMMY nominee Omar Sosa alongside multi-award winner Seckou Keita (Wednesday 24 November) – to name but a few.

Closing the autumn season will be Lakeside’s Christmas show The Gingerbread Man (Thursday 9 – Thursday 30 December). Stuff And Nonsense Theatre Company apply their usual brilliance with a mix of puppetry, live action, great music, humour, and stunning staging in this exciting and pacey retelling of the much-loved classic tale. This hour-long show is suitable for ages 3+ and is the perfect Christmas treat for families of all ages!

Visitors can make the most of their time at Lakeside by enjoying the beautiful Highfields Park and a visit to Lakeside’s Pavilion Café, which reopened on Tuesday 7 September. Lakeside continues to prioritise the safety of its visitors and staff, with regular cleaning and hand sanitising stations throughout. Although it is no longer mandatory, Lakeside continues to ask staff and visitors to a wear a face covering if they can when inside its buildings.

This is just a glimpse into Lakeside’s exciting new season. Audiences can view the full autumn programme and book online at: lakesidearts.org.uk

Posted on 07 September 2021

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Sophie Milne

A member of the Marketing and Communications team at Marketing NG, Sophie manages press and PR. This includes writing and distributing press releases, arranging FAM trips, liaising with the media to gain press coverage for Nottingham/shire and Marketing NG, monitoring the news and ensuring colleagues are kept up to date with news stories and doing media interviews.