Blaze Festival

See bassist Dave Holland on Sunday 5 July

Currently running at the Barbican and various East London venues, Blaze Festival is on throughout the month of July.

Contemporary classical acts share headline slots with world music stars and dance troupes in a willfully eclectic lineup. There are some big international names in town – bassist Dave Holland, tabla-maestro Zakir Hussain and trumpeter Wynton Marsalis to name but a few – but sequestered amongst these are Londoners such as Polar Bear and the Blue Boy Entertainment dance group.

According to Bryn Ormrod, Head of Contemporary Music at the Barbican, such diversity will appeal to a wide range of people and will hopefully attract the estimated 30,000 people that attended last year’s event. There is indeed no equivocation in the event’s strapline Music Dance East London. But although such artistic diversity will appeal to the wide range of audiences Ormrod hopes it will, it might at first seem difficult to divine the direct thrust behind the festival or the unifying concept linking the protagonists.

The official answer is that the festival as an expression of the Barbican’s intention to serve the half of London full of talent and audiences, but in some ways less well-served with arts centres and music venues.

The Barbican has indeed been successful in allying itself with the artistic kudos and grassroots, bottom-up organisation of East London initiatives such as the Hackney Empire and Stratford’s Theatre Royal. Venues that, as Ormrod stated himself, have strong connections with their local communities. 

Another reason why the Barbican has looked to the east is perhaps the  link with CREATE “Cultural Olympiad” initiative, which seeks to unite the five boroughs hosting the Olympics (Greenwich, Hackney, Newham, Tower Hamlets and Waltham Forest),  holding an annual festival to celebrate the approaching Games.

Whatever the motive, there is much decent music to look forward to. See the following: Dave Holland and Pepe Habichuela on Monday 5 July, Bela Fleck with Zakir Hussain and Edgar Meyer on Friday 16  July, or see Polar Bear play from their new album Peepers at the Dance Nations event in Dalston on Sunday 4 July.

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Benin City, Dance Nations Dalston