Major new festival to celebrate arts and industry links

Ludus Festival Leeds will host an array of local and international performing arts talent, whilst supporting and promoting the cultural life of the City.

Festival events will take place across the city from 25 June to 1 July 2012. Leeds residents and visitors can look forward to performances, installations, workshops and street theatre across the City centre and online.  Ludus is designed to surprise, amaze, please and provoke!

The festival was conceived by the School of Performance and Cultural Industries (PCI) at the University of Leeds, to celebrate Leeds as an international centre of excellence in Theatre and Performance.  

During the festival, PCI will also host a major conference named 'Performance: Culture: Industry' - bringing an international community of 500 delegates to the City.  The conference will explore the relationships between cultural and economic value in the field of performance.  

The Ludus programme

At the core of the Ludus programme will be a City Walk designed to engage and connect the communities of Leeds with artists and conference delegates. This will be a keynote event that sets the tone of the Festival, providing a focus for the City after the Olympic torch leaves the City on 25 June.

Performances will include: 

• Indian dance company Adishakti performing Ganapati which explores the cycle of creation, celebration, destruction and return in the story of birth  
• A philosophical dance double bill from Tabea Martin (Switzerland) and Clement Layes (France) 
• Artist-led company Salamanda Tandem, providing a playful and interactive environment for disabled young people in The Living Room, including live sound and video mix 
• A wooden animatronic dragon known as 'Lo Monstre' roaming the streets of Leeds!

Partners

A range of partners are involved: West Yorkshire Playhouse, Opera North, Yorkshire Dance, stage@leeds, Leeds City Council and Leeds University Student Union are bringing their expertise, stages and spaces to the festival. Plans to make Ludus a biennial event are already under way.

Opportunities for sponsors

Ludus Festival Leeds provides a great promotional opportunity for Leeds-based businesses at both a community and an international level - the vision is of the City at play.  Sponsors are able to support specific events, the City Walk, community engagement activities or the wider festival.

For more information on sponsorship packages, please contact Mick Wallis

The full festival programme will be announced in early March.