Flow Salford is the festival-type idea from Charlotte Mountford, who's currently on placement at The Lowry thanks to a BBC Performing Arts Fund grant, paid for by, amongst other things, the public who call The Voice to vote on their favourite acts.
Charlotte could have happily stayed within the cocoon of The Lowry but she's got big Salford ambitions and has creatively given birth to a potential monster...
"I decided that I wanted to set up a festival for Salford and, although The Lowry's great, I think the Salford cultural scene goes way beyond that" she explains "So I've enlisted other venues with an open call to artists working or living in Salford. They submitted ideas and now there's 14 acts, all Salford based...There's a good mixture of people born here, expats who have lived here for years and graduates from Salford University who have stayed here."
Flow Salford has sprouted from The Lowry to include six venues hosting an array of talent over three days, to bring the latest live work to local audiences. It ranges from a free go at The Quiet Bath, a relaxing art installation at the Working Class Movement Library, to an insane solo adventure into the Peel Park Asylum. There's also a family show at Salford Arts Theatre, dance for the first time at The King's Arms, a bloke bearing all in a onesie at The Lowry, and Salford poetry at the Eagle Inn.
"We hope to get people who normally mioght go to one venue all the time travelling around to others and seeing some new artists – that's why it's called Flow" says Charlotte "We've done it with pretty much zero funding, but the dream would be to get it out a bit more to places like Cadishead where my family are from, and Ordsall and Langworthy.
"Salford is much bigger than just the Quays and I think there's a huge market for it here because we've got some great talent" she adds "The more we can prove there's a need for Flow the bigger it will be next time..."
This is Salford's go at a live art festival. It's a step off the wall and into happenings, ranging from the strange to the sensational.
Flow Salford runs from Friday 19th September to Sunday 21st September.
Tickets range from free to £10 and for events not at Salford Arts Theatre, Salford Star readers can get a 25% discount by putting in the code Salford14 for online ticket sales. See www.flowsalford.co.uk/ for further details and links to tickets.
The full listings are...
FRIDAY 19th September
Facade: The Quiet Bath
5pm-8pm Working Class Movement Library free
There's a bath, some curtains and possibly a rubber duck as you are immersed in sounds and images that "examines the lack of emphasis placed in a digital, clinical culture on being outdoors in naturally occurring environments - and the effect this has on the human psyche". Intriguing. Def worth a splash....
Evidently Salford: Salford Special
The Eagle Inn 7:30pm (18+)
Funny, thought provoking, hopefully shocking poetry hosted by Kieren King with local guest poets Lynn Walton and Joy France.
Gein's Family Giftshop Volume 1
8pm The Lowry Studio (18+) £10
Bizarre, lurid sketches from the ex Salford Uni troupe, nominated for `Best Newcomer' Foster's Comedy Award at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and who have set up their own night at The King's Arms.
SATURDAY 20th September
The Quiet Bath
10am-5pm Working Class Movement Library free
The bath re-opens for an all day soak in the psyche.
Moonstruck Me: Peel Park Asylum
Various times Peel Park £7 (18+)
You enter alone and discover the strange inhabitants and mysterious goings-on behind the walls of Peel Park Asylum. Not for the faint-hearted.
Sheep Knuckle: PACT (Brotherhood)
6pm Salford Arts Theatre £3 (18+)
`An intergenerational insight into brotherhood and explores how friendship can encourage us to challenge pre-determined rules and find our own way'.
Flow Salford Snippets
7pm The Lowry Studio free
Four local theatre companies battle it out to become Salford Snippet champs...There's border bemusements in Babel by Fresh Loaf Productions; the self explanatory The Mermaid In The Gherkin Jar by Northern Rose Physical Theatre Company; moral panics in Hangdog by 1956 and migrants' stories in Undocumented by Alex Summers and Len Grant.
Inkblot: Together
7pm Salford Arts Theatre £4 (18+)
A one-on-one guided headphone piece that `invites you to a place, free of noise, chaos and confusion'; that `slows down time' and `creates a world in which we co-exist'. Performance lasts 15mins.
Laura Fay Thomas: Games of War
7:30pm The Kings Arms £4/£6
High energy dance performance drawing on everything from video games like Call of Duty, to Brecht's Mother Courage, as war (huh, what is it good for?) comes under the microscope.
Nathan Birkinshaw: I Wish You Were Here
8:30pm The Lowry Studio £10
Loss, love and loneliness done via performance, comedy, video and movement, by a bloke in a bear onesie who, er, bares his soul and more...
SUNDAY 21st September
Moonstruck Me: Peel Park Asylum
Various times Peel Park £7 (18+)
More adventures into the insane...
Colour The Clouds: Billy The Monster and Me
2pm Salford Arts Theatre £6/£7 (3+)
Recommended interactive family show in which a monster appears in Billy's bedroom and the audience joins Team Billy to help save his folks from a very sticky end.
Manoli Moriaty and Shona Roberts: Symbiosis
7pm The Kings Arms £4/£6
The audience creates the mood by making sounds and moods for the two dancers to interact with.
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