A cornucopia of family-friendly theatre, music, circus, dance and installations at IF: Milton Keynes International Festival 2021 from 10 to 30 July
Including the Family Focus Weekend in Campbell Park on 17 and 18 July with all events FREE
For 21 days from 10 to 30 July, IF: Milton Keynes International Festival 2021 returns to the City’s parks and green spaces, public squares and retail destinations with a joyous mix of open-air live theatre, music, circus, dance and pop-up performances and installations for all the family, much of it free.
FAMILY FOCUS WEEKEND – ALL FREE
Saturday 17 – Sunday 18 July Campbell Park
A weekend of free daytime pop-up performances and drop-in workshops for all the family.
Rachel Wright and Cathy Ebbels: Flag Making Workshops
Saturday 17 and Sunday 18 July, Campbell Park: By the Milton Keynes Rose
These sessions for children and adults are inspired by the Festival’s MK Mandalas flag project (see Installations below). Participants will make a flag and take it home. The workshops will be run by MK Mandalas project manager, artist and tutor Rachel Wright and artist and tutor Cathy Ebbels.
Saturday 17 and Sunday 18 July
Workshops every 30 minutes, between 11am – 4pm
Campbell Park: By The Milton Keynes Rose, Milton Keynes
Free: Please book a workshop place
Booking: 01908 280800 / www.ifmiltonkeynes.org
Theatre of Widdershins: Treasure Chest Tales
Saturday 17 and Sunday 18 July, Campbell Park: Labyrinth
A hugely-popular stalwart of Festivals past, Theatre of Widdershins returns with a new compendium of enchanting fairy tales, all told in the inimitable Widdershins style with fantastical props, music and charming puppetry.
Saturday 17 July: 11.15am The Princess & The Pea; 1.15pm The Hare & The Hedgehog; 3.15pm The Many Legged Musicians of Bremen
Sunday 18 July: 11.15am Granny Dumpling; 1.15pm Nanooshka Queen of the Goats; 4pm Ug, Bug and Dug
Saturday 17 and Sunday 18 July, from 11.15am
Each Tale lasts approximately 40 minutes
Campbell Park: Labyrinth, Milton Keynes
Tickets: Free
Booking: 01908 280800 / www.ifmiltonkeynes.org
www.widdershins.co.uk
Mimbre: Lifted
Saturday 17 and Sunday 18 July, Campbell Park: The Embankment Stage
Created with guest choreographers Yi-Chun Liu, HURyCAN and Gary Clarke, this captivating performance brings new approaches to Mimbre’s trademark all-female acrobatics. Lifted is a series of funny, poetic and surprising moments which explore what it means when one body is carried by another.
Saturday 17 and Sunday 18 July, 11.15am and 2.30pm
Campbell Park: Embankment Stage, Milton Keynes
Tickets: Free
Booking: 01908 280800 / www.ifmiltonkeynes.org
www.mimbre.co.uk
Gobbledegook Theatre: Cloudscapes
Saturday 17 and Sunday 18 July, Campbell Park: City Gardens
In this intimate installation audiences are invited to lie down on cushions in an outdoor cloud-gazing auditorium. Perched high on a stepladder, performer and creator Lorna Rees oversees the event, gently encouraging her listeners to look up and contemplate how, like humans, the clouds are constantly changing.
Saturday 17 and Sunday 18 July
11.30am, 12.30pm, 1.30pm, 2.30pm, 3.30pm and 4.30pm
Running time 40 mins
Campbell Park: City Gardens, Milton Keynes
Tickets: Free
Booking: 01908 280800 / www.ifmiltonkeynes.org
www.gobbledegooktheatre.com/
Dizzy O’Dare: The Giant Red Balloon Show
Saturday 17 and Sunday 18 July, Campbell Park: Labyrinth
Award-winning company Dizzy O’Dare channels the iconic Milton Keynes red balloon from the 1970s adverts for the garden city, adds in a 1980s soundtrack and has the audience in stitches. Non-stop balloon sculptures, high-energy comic performance, audience participation and the giant red balloon itself create a highly-entertaining show for the whole family.
Saturday 17 and Sunday 18 July
Campbell Park: Labyrinth, Milton Keynes
Saturday 17 July, 12.15pm and 2.15pm
Sunday 18 July, 12.15pm and 3pm
Tickets: Free
Booking: 01908 280800 / www.ifmiltonkeynes.org
www.dizzyodare.com
Kapow: Grow
Saturday 17 and Sunday 18 July, Campbell Park: The Embankment Stage
A comment on humanity and a comedy gardening show combined, Grow is a playful and touching celebration of the power of nature to take over spaces and grow through the cracks. Smart, skillful and engaging, Kapow’s two dancers transform variously into weeds, seeds and beautiful sunflowers leaving the audience feeling uplifted and inspired to get outside and garden. Grow is presented in association with MÓTUS Dance.
Saturday 17 and Sunday 18 July, 12.20pm and 3.35pm
Campbell Park: The Embankment Stage, Milton Keynes
Each performance lasts approximately 25 minutes
Tickets: Free
Booking: 01908 280800 / www.ifmiltonkeynes.org
www.kapowdance.co.uk
OTHER FREE FAMILY FRIENDLY FESTIVAL EVENTS
Drake Music: Planted Symphony
Wednesday 14 – Sunday 18 July Campbell Park: Canalside
Planted Symphony is an immersive music experience in the green spaces of Canalside in Campbell Park. For this accessible and interactive outdoor audio trail audiences download the Planted Symphony app and enter a narrative which leads them through the space, transformed with installations, with the six-part composition, songs and stories triggered via GPS location technology. It was created by disabled and non-disabled artists working together, with initial compositions by Lucy Hale, and story and song lyrics by Dave Young.
Wednesday 14 – Sunday 18 July
11am – 5pm: Lasts between 20 – 30 minutes
Campbell Park: Canalside, Milton Keynes
Tickets: Free
Book access Subpacks in advance. More details from access@stables.org
Booking: 01908 280800 / www.ifmiltonkeynes.org
www.drakemusic.org/
Anna Berry: Breathing Room
Saturday 10 to Friday 30 July, Queen’s Court, centre:mk
Commissioned by The Stables, Breathing Room is a kinetic installation created by UK artist Anna Berry, a Milton Keynes resident, who is known for creating socially and politically conscious work in non-gallery environments. Berry has created an illuminated tunnel, lined with thousands of delicate paper-like cones that move and breathe. Audiences walk through its pulsing interior in a multi-sensory and immersive experience. Its mesmeric movement is generated by the ingenious mechanics of a sculptural exterior created from found objects, cogs, chains and bicycle parts.
Saturday 10 to Friday 30 July
Queen’s Court, centre:mk, MK9 3ES
10.30am – 5.30pm
Free
www.ifmiltonkeynes.org
www.annaberry.co.uk
Marco Barotti: The Woodpeckers
Saturday 10 to Friday 30 July, locations throughout Milton Keynes City Centre
Berlin-based Italian sonic and media artist Marco Barotti specialises in interventions in both urban and natural surroundings. The Woodpeckers pop up in different Milton Keynes City Centre locations, attached by magnets to street signs, lamps, and other metal components of the urban landscape. The robotic birds transform the invisible signals from mobile and wireless technology into a constantly changing composition of rhythmic beats tapped out on the City’s architecture.
Saturday 10 to Friday 30 July
Locations throughout Milton Keynes City Centre
Free
www.ifmiltonkeynes.org
www.marcobarotti.com/
Kinetika Flag Project: MK Mandalas
Friday 16 to Sunday 18 July & Friday 23 to Sunday 25 July, The Milton Keynes Rose, Campbell Park
For MK Mandalas, international creative company Kinetika is working with two Milton Keynes artists and ten community groups to design and create 30 batik silk flags. Inspired by the visual forms and mandala symbols that were used in designs for The Milton Keynes Rose – a spectacular public space in Campbell Park used for celebration, commemoration and contemplation – the flags incorporate resonant themes including coming together, appreciating nature and looking forward. The flags will be on display at The Milton Keynes Rose from 16 to 18 July and 23 to 25 July, with additional events on 16 July to mark Milton Keynes Disability Awareness Day.
Friday 16 to Sunday 18 July & Friday 23 to Sunday 25 July
The Milton Keynes Rose, Campbell Park
Free
www.ifmiltonkeynes.org
www.kinetika.co.uk/
Luke Jerram: Gaia
Saturday 10 to Friday 30 July, Middleton Hall, centre:mk
and
Luke Jerram: Museum of the Moon
Thursday 22 to Sunday 25 July, Tree Cathedral, Newlands
Installation artist Luke Jerram brings his monumental inflated 3D models of the Earth and the Moon to Milton Keynes, the first time the two works have been exhibited in the same city in the UK, at the same time. Installed in two contrasting locations, Gaia is in Middleton Hall in centre:mk, while Museum of the Moon is in the lush greenery of the Tree Cathedral. The two awe-inspiring internally-lit sculptures are seven metres in diameter and feature detailed NASA imagery on their surfaces. Atmospheric surround sound compositions are by BAFTA and Ivor Novello award-winner Dan Jones. With Gaia, Jerram wants audiences to share an astronaut’s experience of seeing Earth from space for the first time – a feeling of wonder about the planet and a renewed sense of responsibility for taking care of it. The Moon has always inspired humanity, acting as a ‘cultural mirror’ to society, reflecting the ideas and beliefs of all people around the world. Museum of the Moon lets us observe and contemplate our cultural similarities and differences, and learn about the latest Moon science.
Gaia
Saturday 10 to Friday 30 July
10.30am – 5.30pm
Middleton Hall, centre:mk, MK9 3EP
Free
www.lukejerram.com
www.ifmiltonkeynes.org
Museum of the Moon
Thursday 22 to Sunday 25 July
Thursday 22 July: 10am – 9pm, Friday 23 July: 10am – 11pm
Saturday 24 July: Afternoon only 4.30pm – 11pm, Sunday 25 July: 10am – 9pm
The Tree Cathedral, Newlands, MK15 0DT
Free. Tickets must be booked in advance, release date tbc. Please check website for updates.
www.lukejerram.com
www.ifmiltonkeynes.org
PAID-FOR FAMILY FRIENDLY FESTIVAL EVENTS
Slapstick Picnic: The Importance of Being Earnest
Saturday 17 July, Campbell Park: Amphitheatre
First up in the Amphitheatre within Campbell Park is Slapstick Picnic (from the creators of the Handlebards) with a marvellously silly new production of Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest. Two rather dashing entertainers take on Wilde’s classic play of manners, affairs and handbags – with added culinary capers.
Saturday 17 July, 1.30pm and 5pm
Campbell Park: Amphitheatre, Milton Keynes
Tickets: £10
Booking: 01908 280800 / www.ifmiltonkeynes.org
www.slapstickpicnic.com
Gandini Juggling: Smashed2
Sunday 18 July, Campbell Park: Amphitheatre
Featuring 80 oranges, seven watermelons and nine performers, Smashed2 is juggling reinvented with plenty of explosive fruit and slow-motion comedy, performed with meticulous unison and split-second timing. Inspired by the work of the great choreographer Pina Bausch, Gandini Juggling combines elements of her gestural choreography with intricate patterns and cascades of solo and ensemble juggling.
Sunday 18 July, 2.15pm and 4pm
Campbell Park: Amphitheatre, Milton Keynes
Tickets: Adults £5, Under 16s £3, Family Ticket (4 people, max 2 adults) £12
Booking: 01908 280800 / www.ifmiltonkeynes.org
www.gandinijuggling.com
Orchestra for the Earth: For the Trees
Saturday 24 July, Campbell Park: Amphitheatre
Orchestra for the Earth brings together some of the finest young professional musicians, all committed to connecting audiences around the world with music and nature, highlighting climate change and the natural world. Here they collaborate with environmental charity Trees of Music to highlight how deforestation in Brazil is decimating the population of Pernambuco trees, the source of the wood used to make bows for stringed instruments. The programme will include Frank Bridge’s Moonlight (from the Sea Suite for Orchestra) and Beethoven’s 2nd Symphony in D Major Op 36 as a homage to the Festival’s Installations Gaia and Museum of The Moon with Elgar’s elegiac Cello Concerto in E Minor Op 85 played by rising star cellist, Rebecca McNaught.
Saturday 24 July, 8pm, Gates open at 6.30pm
Campbell Park: Amphitheatre, Milton Keynes
Tickets: £22.50, Under 24 years £11 (includes booking fee)
Booking: 01908 280800 / www.ifmiltonkeynes.org
www.orchestrafortheearth.co.uk / www.treesofmusic.org
Booking information
www.ifmiltonkeynes.org
Each ticketed event, free or otherwise, has a maximum of 6 tickets per booking (ie a standard ‘bubble’). The number of tickets/bubble bookings per household may be restricted for some events.
