Thousands take part in city-wide Portsmouth100 cultural programme
Portsmouth-based creative producers Crying Out Loud are celebrating the impact of The Point Is Portsmouth, a city-wide cultural programme developed and delivered in collaboration with local partners, artists and communities, which saw thousands of people across the city come together to watch, perform, participate and create as part of its ambitious programme for Portsmouth100.
Working locally, nationally and internationally, Crying Out Loud champions contemporary performance and the artists who create it. For Portsmouth’s centenary year, the organisation set out to do something different on its own doorstep: to make the city itself part of the experience, connecting people and places through an ambitious programme of performance, participation and creative activity.
Alongside the public programme, The Point Is Portsmouth created space for artists to meet, experiment and share practice. Local artists and communities had opportunities to work alongside international practitioners, while visiting artists could connect with Portsmouth’s creative scene and respond to the city. This exchange became an important thread running through the programme, from collaborative performances and workshops to dedicated opportunities for professional development.
From the opening event in Fratton through to its final major weekend in September, participation was woven throughout The Point Is Portsmouth programme. People were invited to perform, explore, experiment, learn new skills and encounter familiar parts of Portsmouth in unexpected ways.
The result was a celebration of Portsmouth that was as much about its people and places as the performances themselves.
That ambition was perhaps at its most visible at Circus in Motion, the first event of its kind to be staged across Portsmouth Historic Dockyard. For two evenings in July, over 3,500 people explored the historic site as contemporary circus, aerial performance, tightwire, vertical dance and physical theatre unfolded around them, transforming a place synonymous with Portsmouth’s history through contemporary live performance. Workshops were also run to complement the event and explore themes of stories and bonds with members of the local community.
June saw local communities and international performers come together at 432 Fratton, a free community arts event held at St Mary’s Churchyard. At its centre was Insane, a major outdoor dance performance choreographed by Alban Richard, which saw Lithuanian Šeiko Dance Company perform alongside local people who had spent a week rehearsing with the professional dancers. Across Insane and the wider 432 Fratton programme, more than 50 local people took part, contributing to a day of activity enjoyed by an audience of over 675.
The finale to The Point Is Portsmouth took place in September, when one of Portsmouth’s oldest public parks was transformed by Luminarium.
More than 3,500 people, including 277 through dedicated community and group sessions experienced the giant, walk-through art installation by Architects of Air in Victoria Park. Portsmouth residents were able to experience the immersive world of natural light, colour and sound free of charge across the three days.
Over the same weekend in Guildhall Square, Rawkus City, delivered by Portsmouth-based hip-hop dance company Funk Format & Soul Rawkus CIC, welcomed around 1,600 visitors for a day of battles, cyphers, workshops, music and live performance.
Among the professional performances at Rawkus City was °Up: Violin vs Football by Le Phare, National Choreographic Centre of Le Havre Normandy, directed by Fouad Boussouf. Across two performances and a Q&A, over 500 people had the chance to experience the unexpected duet between the freestyle footballer Paul Molina and violinist Gabriel Majou.
Community workshops inspired by °Up: Violin vs Football also took place across Portsmouth with over 60 people taking part in the sessions, comprising local artists, young people and participants from Pompey in the Community.
The collaboration between °Up: Violin vs Football and Rawkus City was made possible through Crying Out Loud, as another example of how The Point Is Portsmouth created opportunities for local talent and international artists to meet, share ideas and inspire each other.
Participation also went beyond the major public events. Motus Lab brought together 13 artists and practitioners for a day of creative exploration, experimentation and exchange within the inspiring surroundings of Luminarium. The Lab created a space for artists to test ideas, share practices and learn from one another, bringing together different perspectives and approaches to contemporary performance. Alongside this, over 40 industry professionals attended a mini-conference at Portsmouth Historic Dockyard, creating further opportunities for the sector to share ideas and explore new approaches to creating and presenting contemporary work in the UK and internationally.
Rachel Clare, Artistic Director of Crying Out Loud, said:
“We’ve spent many years taking artists and work to places across the UK and internationally, so there was something very special about creating a programme of this scale in Portsmouth, working alongside the artists, organisations and communities we’ve built relationships with here.
“We wanted The Point Is Portsmouth to be a celebration that people could genuinely be part of. We wanted to bring extraordinary work into the city, but just as importantly we wanted to create opportunities for people to perform, participate, try something new, meet one another and experience familiar places differently.
“Looking back, it’s those moments that stay with me - people dancing together in Fratton, seeing Portsmouth Historic Dockyard become a stage for contemporary circus, families stepping inside Luminarium in Victoria Park, and local and international artists sharing ideas and practice. It was about seeing what can happen when you bring people, artists and places together in unexpected ways.”
The vision for The Point Is Portsmouth was developed and produced by Crying Out Loud, but bringing a programme of this scale to life was only possible through significant funding and collaboration across the city and beyond. With key support from Arts Council England and Portsmouth City Council, Crying Out Loud worked with partners including Portsmouth Creates, 432 Nomads, Fratton Together, St Mary’s Church, Portsmouth Historic Quarter, Victoria Park, Funk Format/Soul Rawkus and Pompey in the Community.
Those partnerships shaped the programme at every stage, from bringing residents and professional dancers together in Fratton and transforming Portsmouth Historic Dockyard through Circus in Motion, to opening up Luminarium to communities across the city and creating opportunities around °Up: Violin vs Football that connected football, movement and performance.
The programme was also supported by Bentley Young Persons' Trust, University of Southampton, Lithuanian Culture Institute, Normandie Regional Council – Millennium 2027 European Year of The Normans, Institut Ramon Llull and the French Institute in the UK.
The Point Is Portsmouth formed part of Portsmouth100, marking 100 years since Portsmouth was granted city status. For Crying Out Loud, the centenary provided an opportunity not simply to look back, but to celebrate the Portsmouth of today, its people, communities and public spaces, and create new connections and experiences within them.
Rachel added:
“The Point Is Portsmouth began with an idea about what could happen if we made Portsmouth itself part of the experience, but delivering something on this scale takes an enormous collective effort.
“We’re incredibly grateful to our funders and to every partner, artist, organisation, community group, volunteer and member of the team who got behind that idea. People opened up their spaces, shared their knowledge, brought their communities with them and helped us make things happen that we simply couldn’t have done alone.”