Illuminares 2011 Pre-Event Creative Workshops this weekend!
This year again, Public Dreams Society is organizing the Illuminares Lantern festival. If you haven’t heard about this unique event, imagine hundreds of participants, performers and puppeteers walking together with thousands of lanterns. You may remember I wrote about Illuminares last year too.
The 2011 Illuminares festival revolves around the heron. An iconic Vancouver bird, the heron represents the spirit of the city: its life also depends on a balance between urban landscape and the natural world that surrounds and punctuates our space.
During the weeks before the July 30th procession, PSD is holding puppeteering, performance and lantern-making workshops. The heart of Illuminares is community engagement–they need community members to help puppet the giant 30-foot heron that will lead the afternoon walk from Harbour Green Park to Canada Place and the evening procession to the Vancouver Convention Centre. The workshops are open to everyone on donation and you might get a chance to manipulate the giant heron on Saturday.
From the Illuminares web site:
To lead the lantern procession this year, Public Dreams dreamt big with the creation of a 30-foot illuminated heron puppet. Inspired by the work of French puppeteers Royal De Luxe and their Giant Little Girl puppet, the giant bird has been built with a cross-sector team of Vancouver’s best puppeteers, designers and engineers. Now Public Dreams is looking to the community to bring this magnificent creature to life!
You can also get involved in one of the flash mob performances or simply make a lantern to take with you on the evening of the festival. There will be people from the Stanley Park Ecological Society educating visitors and participants about the Stanley Park herons.
The Illuminares festival is situated at the crossroads of sustainability, creativy and community engagement and performance. Festivals where people participate instead of passively watch or visit are rare; don’t miss your chance to get involved in one of the most original events in Vancouver this summer. Hopefully we will be able to attend the event (either myself or someone from my Universe Domination Team – you’ll get to know them soon enough!)
Related posts:
[...] On July 30th, I visited Rogue Restaurant and Wet Bar between the first and second procession of Illuminares. [...]