Norfolk to Play a Leading Role in London 2012 Festival

Norfolk is set to play a leading role in the London 2012 Festival as Norfolk & Norwich Festival
unveils two landmark projects for the 12-week national celebration next summer.

The London 2012 Festival is the finale of the Cultural Olympiad. So far the Cultural Olympiad
has reached over a million people in the East of England through more than 40 projects,
equivalent in value to over £2 million worth of cultural activity. This has provided in excess of
500 workshops, involving over 20,000 people in activity and skills development programmes.
These have included dance workshops, film and animation training, international exchanges
and opportunities for young people to become curators. Open Weekend has also provided over
400 events which have given people new opportunities to experience culture across the East
of England.

The first of Norfolk & Norwich Festival's events for the London 2012 Festival is Walking, a
participatory art installation of international significance created by visionary director Robert
Wilson. For 13 days in early autumn, it will redefine a stunning three-mile swathe of the
North Norfolk coastline with a series of visual and sound installations that provide a thoughtprovoking contrast with the landscape.

The second is How Like an Angel, a new site-specific promenade work combining world-class
contemporary circus company Circa with the vocal beauty of Gramophone Award winning
ensemble I Fagiolini. Created especially for cathedrals, it will premiere in Norwich Cathedral
on 26, 27 and 28 June 2012 before touring some of the country's most inspiring edifices.
The two new commissions are expected to attract national and international attention as they
showcase some of the East of England's most prized cultural and natural treasures.
"To be produced by a visionary director such as Robert Wilson on a canvas such as Norfolk's
vast and famed skies makes Walking a landmark event of the Cultural Olympiad," said Norfolk
& Norwich Festival Artistic Director, William Galinsky.

"Norfolk & Norwich Festival's two projects for London 2012 will together reflect and respond to some of the region's most stunning natural and built environments, redefining the way in
which we experience this unique part of the world."

"We are enormously proud to be part of the London 2012 celebrations," said Norfolk &
Norwich Festival Executive Director, Alison McFarlane. "These events are of international
importance, showing once again that Norfolk is fast becoming one of the world's cultural
innovators."

Dates and venues for the events will be revealed in the coming months. Tickets will be on
sale from late February 2012.

About the projects
Walking is a unique experience created by the visionary director Robert Wilson in
collaboration with Dutch visual artist Theun Mosk and theatremaker Boukje Schweigman. It
combines sculpture, installations and the sweeping scenery of the North Norfolk coast to
produce an epic artistic experience that explores and redefines our relationship with the
landscape.

Walking is an intensely individual experience in which audience members walk at a
deliberately slow pace, allowing them to encounter and react to the variety of sculptural
forms and spaces that intersperse the route on their own terms.

The route has been carefully and sensitively chosen to include a variety of land forms and
environments. The installations are fixed points that punctuate the walk, encouraging
participants to question and reflect upon their relationship with the landscape and the
environment.

Robert Wilson first developed his ideas for Walking in 2008 at the Oerol Festival in the
Netherlands. Walking is supported by funding from Legacy Trust UK.
How Like an Angel is conceived and directed by Circa's Artistic Director Yaron Lifschitz and is
a collaboration with Robert Hollingworth and his acclaimed vocal ensemble I Fagiolini.
Lifschitz's vision for How Like an Angel is of an audience journey which begins in the dark
spaces and shadows of the cathedral building and climaxes in the blazing illumination of fully
revealed inspiring architecture. The audience is introduced into the building gradually,
making their way slowly towards seating in the nave, encountering images and spectral
figures as they proceed. Only once seated does the scale of the performance space become
apparent, as Circa's aerial performers are propelled into the cathedral's high open spaces,
with the singers of I Fagiolini spread throughout the building below. For the audience the
result will be a totally involving theatrical experience, an interplay of music and physical
movement, which is both intimate and beautiful.

How Like an Angel is commissioned by London 2012 Festival and produced by Norfolk &
Norwich Festival in association with Perth International Arts Festival. 

For more information about Norfolk & Norwich please visit www.nnfestival.org.uk
All confirmed programming for the London 2012 Festival is now available for the public to
view on the London 2012 Festival website, www.london2012.com/festival, where people can
sign up to receive information on new events and performances that will be announced up to
the start of the festival.

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