Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea Present EXHIBITION ROAD SHOW, Now thru Aug 5

A unique and exciting new festival is coming to London this Summer: a festival for all ages and tastes; for music fans and art lovers, science aficionados and fashionistas, foodies and bookworms. The festival is set for today, 28 July - 5 August, 2012.

Exhibition Road Show was commissioned by The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea as a celebration of the cultural heartland of London, a landscape of wonder unfolding throughout the first nine days of the Olympic Games

Adding to the fun and games, there is an ambitious programme of public art commissions, offering a platform for emerging and uncompromising creative talent, a diverse music line up of some of the best British and International Artists, a newly formed dance and acrobatic troupe, The Exhibitionists, who will perform on the Road throughout the festival, and a specially commissioned book of short stories, featuring contributions from some of our most creative authors.

The V&A, Science Museum and Natural History Museum will be open to the public as usual throughout the Olympics and during Exhibition Road Show will remain open until 10pm.

ROAD SHOW ART COMMISSIONS

Exhibition Road Show is excited to present a trio of art commissions, including Campo del Cielo - new work by Katie Paterson, one of the UK’s leading, emerging young artists working across art and science and where the two converge. A meteorite that is several billion years old has been re-cast, and the public will be encouraged to explore the work and think about where it came from.

Artist, theatre maker and composer Graeme Miller’s work, On Air, will create a continuous commentary on the everyday life of Exhibition Road during the first nine days of the Olympics, featuring guest commentators. High above Exhibition road on the balcony of the V&A, broadcasters, with a particular emphasis on sports commentators, will respond to the passing action, creating audio tracks that passers-by can listen to through special in-ear radios.

The Slovakian artist Tomàš Libertiny who creates sculptures inhabited by living bees, has made The Agreement, a new work helped by the apiarist from the Chelsea Physic Garden, exploring the relationship between natural and manmade production systems.

Because Exhibition Road has one of the greatest concentrations of scientific scholarship anywhere in the world, science and discovery inspires, informs and drives this uniquely challenging and captivating contemporary art programme.

ROAD SHOW MUSIC

From the sublime lyricism of Patrick Wolf, to the exotic hybridity of Bishi, the music programme of the Road Show offers a dazzling showcase of contemporary sounds from around the world. Eliza Carthy takes to the stage with her charismatic brand of folk music, while Leafcutter John and Leo Abrahams explore and experiment in electronic music. Exhibition Road Show is also excited to welcome Open Souls, a new collaboration with Seb Rochford of Polar Bear on drums, beatboxer and artist Jason Singh, and Indian vocals by Ranjana Ghatak. The renowned pianist and avid cyclist The Olympianist, who is cycling the length of Britain this summer with his ‘BeethoVan’ in tow, will conclude his journey at the Road Show. The artist and music maker Simon Fisher Turner will present his recently commissioned score for The Great White Silence, which premiered at the BFI London Film Festival to critical acclaim.

Exhibition Road Show’s house band, The Royal College of Music brass quintet ,will perform throughout the festival.

The full programme can be found at www.exhibitionroadshow.co.uk/programme/musicians

ROAD SHOW: THE EXHIBITIONISTS

Exhibition Road Show is bringing together an international ensemble of performers for the festival. Dancers, acrobats and circus performers have been auditioned and selected to form The Exhibitionists, who are working under the direction of internationally acclaimed circus and theatre director Sue Broadway, and a world class team of aerialists including Simon Fee and Lindsay Butcher. Emerging UK choreographer Ella Guilfoyle and Place Prize nominee Tony Adigun are creating new choreographies for the group. Throughout the nine days The Exhibitionists will deliver a series of choreographed dance works, and extraordinary acrobatic and circus feats.

Exhibition Road Show has chosen Central St Martins fashion graduate Libby Todd to design the costumes for The Exhibitionists.

ROAD STORIES

A series of short stories has been commissioned to celebrate the festival and the creative legacy of Exhibition Road, in partnership with Faber. Some of our leading authors have created short stories inspired by the area. Road Stories includes work by Abdulrazak Gurnah, Ali Smith, Clare Wigfall, Deborah Levy, Eleanor Thom, Hanan al-Shaykh, Iain Sinclair, Kamila Shamsie and Russell Hoban.

ROAD SCIENCE

A series of panel discussions, workshops and discussions will explore some of the ideas within the ROAD SHOW programme including the ethics around transforming scientific objects into art objects, meteorites, the Antarctic, bees, all in partnership with super/collider, New Scientists and Wired.

There will be an opportunity to see a handmade particle accelerator in operation and talk to its maker, Patrick Stevenson-Keating, to participate in scientific experiments and to see science busking in action!

ROAD SHOW: GAMES FOR THE GAMES

Exhibition Road Show is working with BethnAl Green’s Museum of Childhood to present six vintage board games from their extraordinary archive collection. The selection includes the original Patchesi by Great British Games company Jaques of London, who won gold medal at the Great Exhibition of 1851. Games for the Games is free to play and tables will be allocated on a first come, first served basis.

Games for the Games has been designed by Andrew Stafford’s Office, and is supported by the V&A and Museum of Childhood.

ROAD SHOW: UTTERLY ELEGANT

On Friday 3 August, Exhibition Road Show and the V&A invite you to a celebration of quintessential British elegance, from the classic to the quirky. This dedicated late night fashion opening gives revellers the chance to primp and preen before taking a twirl on Exhibition Road Show’s one-off outdoor ballroom floor, and to trip the light fantastic at our Royal Gala Ball.

ROAD SHOW: BALLROOM

The Utterly Elegant event and Royal Gala Ball is part of a series of Ballroom events, which will pop up on Exhibition Road over the festival. Each night will feature a different style of dance music from around the world, from Dance Hall to Ceilidh, Samba to Swing, Bigband to Viennese waltzing, as well as a special Silent Disco edition.

ROAD SHOW: FOOD AND DRINK

Exhibition Road Show is excited to announce its collaboration with Eat St, the foremost proponent of street food trading in the UK, and the ideal partners for this festival. They will present a bespoke selection of vendors offering a delicious and eclectic selection of top quality street food.

Complementing the food offering, Exhibition Road Show is working with SoulShakers, who will curate a special group of bars. Soulshakers are creating a one off Exhibition Road cocktail, and a molecular mixology bar, based outside the Science Museum, will combine the wonders of science with the skill and artisanship of cocktail making.

For more information about Exhibition Road Show, visit www.exhibitionroadshow.co.uk or find the show on Facebook.

Exhibition ROAD SHOW is produced for the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea by Di Robson (DREAM), one of London’s leading arts and cultural events producers, with an international reputation and extensive experience in high profile theatre, visual arts, music, literature and festival production.

Di Robson is a former artistic director of Glasgow’s Mayfest, she has also directed the UK’s Special Olympics’ opening ceremony and the Design and Art Director’s Festival of Excellence. Robson is well-versed in running prestigious, large scale inner city cultural events, including London’s celebration of Jewish culture: Simcha in the Square and Covent Garden Festival. She recently completed producing The Re-enchantment, a national programme of four artist’s commissions exploring ideas around “place” and funded by the Paul Hamlyn Foundation.

Di was International Festival Director of Jaipur International Festival, Rajasthan (2003 – 06), has run projects with Visiting Arts and the British Council and was Consultant Producer for SPILL 2007, London’s first international festival of experimental theatre. She has also imported work from Russia, New Zealand, Australia, China and India.

In addition, the Royal Borough is an official London 2012 competition venue with the indoor volleyball competition at Earls Court, and hosts part of the road cycle races route. (http://www.rbkc.gov.uk/london2012)