NEXT weekend will see Manchester’s ninth Eurocultured Street Festival. The event aims to unite and celebrate the collective European cultural heritage, throughdance, song, art, food, drink and performance.
Conceptually, the festival was founded as a result of the enlargement of the European Union in 2004. Following this, Manchester City Council and numerous cultural funding bodies worked to provide a street festival, in which the diversity and creativity of European culture could be embodied and enjoyed.
Held across three streets, three stages and a host of bars and clubs underneath Oxford Road train station, the mix of artists and attractions brings in the crowds year on year.
Held across three streets, three stages and a host of bars and clubs underneath and around Oxford Road train station and New Wakefield Street, the festival brings in a vast mix of artists and acts.
One of the best things about Eurocultured is that it showcases some of the more obscure creative arts, including street theatre, puppetry, spokenword and live digital art.
Eurocultured 2011
This year is no exception.
There'll be acts such as Caravan Palace, the product of three French electronic music composers with a passion for jazz manouche (gypsy jazz), a combination which has resulted in the innovatively eclectic brand of electro-swing gypsy jazz which is rapidly bringing this Gallic outfit notoriety.
Dub step, electro and sixties will feature too, with English The Correspondants (two time winners of The Telegraph’s Top Ten Glastonbury Highlights) performing their blend of musical genres; in addition to the oxymoronically named Irish indie dance band The Japanese Popstars, and the Orlyk Dance Ensemble, with their lively Ukranian folk dancing.
The Correspondants
The bars of Oxford Road (Font, Revolution, Sound Control, The Blackdog Ballroom) will see DJs, along with salsa, street dance and tango workshops, for those hoping to get actively involved in the spirit of the festival.
Cultivating a blissfully mellow ambiance will be Swedish cider company Rekorderlig, whose rather special sounding flavours, such as wild berries and strawberry and lime, will lend the typical beverage in the sunshine format a different twist.
It should be a good weekend.
Sunday tickets £15, Monday tickets £12 and two-day tickets £20. For more information visit: www.eurocultured.com
You can check out a full listing here. Follow Claudia on Twitter @ClaudiaCanavan
