High Performance Rodeo

As High Performance Rodeo launched its 25th edition, we're proud to be part of this year's line up with Limelight: Saturday night. Commissioned by Calgary's Public Art Program, Limelight will be part of the High Performance Rodeo events in January and, for the first time, it will be on ice!

Miami

On Saturday limelight was installed in Miami Brach for the Sleepless Night .
The night started quickly with a lot of foot traffic, soon the first performances happened with cruiser bikes, kids running to it, couples dancing, and even with a couple of light showers the show continued. One of the highlights was a tall clarinetist dressed in white with a pink hat who came and did a short number in the spot light, magical.
Pictures soon!

Limelight in the limelight

On the first night of Limelight in Salford Quays, the BBC One Show came around to do a nice wee piece on the installation.
You can have a look at it on iplayer if you're in the UK (or you might know ways around from abroad) here until the 25th October.
It starts about 17mn in

Salford Quays

Tonight is the last night of Limelight in Salford Quays.
Salford University in association with CUBE invited us to bring Limelight in front of the BBC buildings in the new Media City for three nights.
Come and see us there tonight, hopefully the weather will be a bit nicer!

Toronto Nuit Blanche

We just came back from Toronto where Limelight was presented at the fifth edition of the Nuit Blanche. After an installation in the pouring rain on Friday, the weather held for the event on Saturday and the crowd was amazing, the spotlight was constantly surrounded and the passers-by queued to go in, a real pleasure to watch, smilling all night.
Here are a couple of pictures and descriptions of the night gathered from the net before we upload our own pictures:


From Blogto.com

It was really nothing more than two spotlights shining down into the middle of the street at Yonge and Grosvenor, but its beauty was its simplicity. Essentially, the street corner was turned into a stage, and random people become the performers as they stepped into the light and did...well, whatever the hell they wanted. A large crowd was consistently on hand as they were treated to impromptu acts of performance art, acrobatics, and a 300+ pound man running through the light with his shirt off, screaming at the top of his lungs. B.S. Photo by Tom Ryaboi

Some of Limelight's action in this youtube clip by backformore06 starting from 2.18 untill 5.00:


from Chromewaves

Toronto Nuit Blanche

Limelight:Saturday night will be in Toronto this week-end for the Nuit Blanche. "For one sleepless night experience the city transformed by hundreds of artists for Toronto's sixth annual sunset-to-sunrise celebration of contemporary art."

Limelight will be in place for Saturday on Grosvenor street, west of Yonge street.

Limelight in Frankfurt

We just came back from Frankfurt where Limelight was on last week-end as part of Playing the City 3 organised by the Schirn Kunsthalle.
The light was placed in a great setting, at the heart of the city, and the shows were non stop.
Have a look at some of the pictures Cem Yücteas took for Playing the City, and the nice short film of Saturday night produced by Ursula Schmidt:

Limelight in Frankfurt

Saturday after next (20th August) Limelight will be in Germany in Frankfurt am Main for Playing the city 3.



"This final edition will again be focused on public space as a venue for artistic activities involving the city and its inhabitants in a variety of ways. New actions, performances, and other participatory projects will be presented in Frankfurt day by day. The program will continue the controversial discussion on collective, free and malleable spaces, their boundaries, and the inhabitants’ involvement." Matthias Ulrich, curator of Playing the City for SCHIRN

Limelight will be in place for one night in Frankfurt Hauptwache, if you are around we would be delighted to see you.


The website www.playingthecity.de will accompany the entire exhibition venture with the latest news, pictures, videos, and a blog

Updates

Finally some updates on the the next venues.
Continuing on from the great start of 2011 with Gaborone we have some really nice upcoming cities!

The next one is Frankfurt in August for Playing the city 3.
Then Limelight will be heading to Istanbul for the Biennial and Contemporary Istanbul,
Toronto for the Nuit Blanche,
Berlin for the Festival of Lights,
Prague for Tina B
and Miami for Sleepless Night.

review

A nice wee article of Limelight in Frame magazine Online.

Websites

Two new recent sightings of Limelight on the web:

In Public Space We Trust,
The tumblr site of Public Design Festival: "We toured the world's public spaces looking for ideas and projects to present - interventions, installations, and services that will transform the way we experience and live the city.
This is Public Design Festival's challenge: when professionals' aware and sustainable design meets the active participation of citizens, students, travellers and tourists - that's when cities can change."


And in Lightcommunity
a forum on light in its different guises.

Gaborone

After an initially shy start the people of Gaborone shone in the limelight, the project will be in place again tonight at River walk next to Linga Longa.
A few first snaps from last night:

Limelight in Botswana

We arrived in Gaborone, Botswana, Thursday morning at the invitation of the Maitisong festival and the British Council. Limelight will be installed tomorrow at Riverwalk from 7pm. We are very much looking forward to exploring the city and meeting some of its residents over the next six days.
Photo taken during an interview at Duma FM this afternoon.

Limelight, in Africa

Botswana's Capital City, Gaborone will be hosting Limelight for two nights on the 8th and 9th of April 2011.
We are delighted and endebted to the Maitisong Festival and the British Council for bringing the project to Africa for the first time.

Limelight: Saturday night, projection

Last week was the first projection of the film of the first three cities in a cinema.
A great night organised by Northern Architecture, Newcastle City Council and Side Cinema.
Side Cinema is a great little independent cinema in the heart of Newcastle with old fashion velvety seat, a perfect venue for the first showing of the film outside of Artisphere.
The projection was followed by a discussion with the public about the role and nature of public art and our relationship with shared space in cities. Some really interesting questions came up and it was a shame we had to rush of to catch the last train to Glasgow.

There is a short description of the night on the Northern Architecture website with a link to a forum discussion at the bottom.

You can see a trailer here

Trailer

We finally uploaded some video. You can now see the trailer of the first series of cities on vimeo

The video is edited by Touzie Tyke.