Everyone is being invited to play an active part in this year’s Harwich Festival. “You are just a drop in the ocean, but the ocean is made up of thousands of drops.”
This is the theme of the Harwich Festival 2019, which is now open to all volunteers and participants.
Peter Davis, artistic director, says: "We are constructing a complete tableau which everyone can help contribute to and build. Our focus is getting the whole community involved, without which it would not work.
"The Festival is a celebration of what local people want, whether it's taking part in our string of community-based events or coming along to see musicians, artists and performers at the top of their game and who they may not have seen before.
"Our driving principle is to encourage all individuals to come together to build one great whole."
Everyone is again invited to submit works for the popular 20cm x 20cm Open Exhibition, the Sea Windows Competition and the Harwich Shorts Film Festival which is open to all independent film makers.
Turning Over A New Leaf, a celebration of the beauty of nature, will be a public art project in which local people can create colourful textile leaves to form a magical vine draped around Ha'penny Pier.
Dancers of all styles are invited to join in The Dance We Made at Cliff Park on Saturday morning June 22 - no experience is necessary, but all participants can be their own choreographer for the day and help create new moves to produce a brand new performance to be showcased by the TDWM team under the expert direction of Tim Casson of record-breaking dance theatre company Casson And Friends.
Tickets are now on sale for a wide-ranging programme of concerts embracing classical music, folk, jazz and musical theatre.
Among the highlights will be performances by world-renowned concert pianist Norika Ogawa, "stand-out new folk" duo Jacob And Drinkwater, the Ben Crosland Quintet jazz supergroup playing selections from Kinks frontman Ray Davies' Songbook (Volume 2), and A Touch Of The West End in which Broadway and London singing star Earl Carpenter will present songs from Les Miserables and Phantom Of The Opera.
The spoken and written word will be celebrated in a performance of King Lear by Dramatic Pause Productions at the Redoubt, the return of the ever-popular Poetry Cruise on the River Stour, and Poetry On A Postcard, in which local writers are urged to compose poems for decking in windows and open spaces throughout Harwich and Dovercourt.
Peter Davis adds: "Our aim is to keep pushing boundaries everyone can help achieve. Together with the new Harwich Arts And Heritage Centre, we want to build something that will develop local talent now and for the future."
The Harwich Festival 2019 runs from Thursday June 20 to Sunday June 30. For information and tickets go to www.harwichfeatival.co.uk.
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