Exciting festival of outdoor performers takes over town

The festival hub in the square outside the Cast theatre will see activities leading down through The Village at Waterdale Shopping Centre and inside Cast too.

Events include street theatre, circus, music, dance, painting, photography and crafts.

Rachel Ryan, from community-based arts organisation Right Up Our Street, who are behind the festival said: “We’ll be putting up the bunting and flags and creating the colourful festival square.

“We just need people to bring along family and friends to enjoy this creative weekend and make the most of our pop-up festival food and drinks stalls or bring a picnic and spread out in our picnic area and take in the range of activities and performance.”

The Festival Square will be animated with performance, art and culture open to everyone to enjoy.

Through its partnership with the Without Walls Associate Touring Network, Right Up Our Street has access to high-profile street performance companies on the circuit right now, creating a festival to rival some of the best in the UK. They include Wet Picnic, who brought their roving street show The Lift to the Delicious Doncaster festival in May.

It’s a tinytheatre space on wheels that audience members step into and choose which floor to visit and find out what happens next.

The Lift will be back and they will be bringing another show, The Aperitif, which uses silent disco technology to create an immersive theatre experience.

Other visiting shows will be Project_Vee by Circus Geeks and PanGottic, involving juggling and a rotating seesaw and Lance Moi En L’air (it means ‘throw me in the air’ in English), an acrobatic dance performance by Joli Vyan.

DNweekeND has also commissioned local artists to perform or create projects. Les Monaghan will be creating a photographic project called Picture Doncaster, artist Peter Olding will be creating artwork in shop windows and there will be performances from the Bentley Community Choir, Sharon Richards Choir, Doncaster Concert Band and Doncaster Council Choir.

Through a partnership with Doncopolitan and the new art events group #TeamDonco, Slow Down Sunday will feature on the Sunday of the festival, following on from their first Slow Down event in May,

#TeamDonco will be showcasing and giving a platform to local creatives.

Sally Lockey, creative producer for Right Up Our Street said, “We’ve held a number of taster events to give people a sneak peek at some performances and they have been really well received.

“It’s not every day that we can host events like this in the town and we’d really urge people to put these dates in their diaries and come along to Sir Nigel Gresley Square and see what is taking place.

“There will be a really diverse range of events and this family festival will be great fun. Come along and join us for the ride.”

To pre-register for a free ticket and receive updates about the festival, visit Cast in Doncsater DBWeekeND

DNWeekeND Festival

Sir Nigel Gresley Square, Doncaster

September 9 and 10