Artistic Director's Welcome to Merge2012: Our City, Our Story

Hello, and welcome to the third Merge Arts Festival - Merge2012: Our City, Our Story. Thanks for coming along.

This year's Festival has been inspired by the archives held at Hull History Centre. There's a wealth of information from Hull's rich past in there and it's well worth a visit.

We hope Merge2012 brings together yet more people in a celebration of the city's talent and heritage. You'll see the archives reflected in our centrepiece event, Merge @ Hull City Hall, our evening concert featuring a selection of local (Hull, the East Riding and Lincolnshire) folk songs housed in the archives. There's also Winifred: A Dramatic Portrait, which dramatises the life of local author Winifred Holtby. Other events in our program also go some way to celebrating local talent and local heritage.

This is our biggest festival yet, and once again I am grateful to a wide range of people for their support. Many of them are named in this brochure, but a few deserve a special mention. The University of Hull's Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences has again been generous in their support, and we recognise generous support from the City Council in various guises. We'd also like to thank our venues, the City Hall, Hartley's Tap and NAPA, for their support and generous hosting. Other people worthy of special mention are listed along with Merge's staff.

We hope this year's program inspires and educates. If Hull is to be an aspiring city, a city worthy of pride, its youth has to be stimulated, involved and engaged in the arts, in culture, in sport and in education. With the way things are going, they’re going to need all the inspiration they can get.

I hope you find something of interest, something to make you think, or something you didn't know (or all of the above!). You can leave us feedback on our Facebook or Twitter, or email us on info@mergearts.org.uk.

Please, get yourself a drink, and enjoy the Festival!

Thanks,
Richard T. Watson
Artistic Director | Merge Arts Festival


Merge is:
Artistic Director: Richard T. Watson

Production Manager: Stefan Ward-Caddle

Publicity Director: Portia Ellis-Woods

Publicity Assistant: Becka Willougby

Education Director: Zoe Hughes

Design by: Becka Willoughby, Will Langdale & Richard T. Watson

With special thanks to:

Professor Alison Yarrington and the University of Hull’s Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences
Marianne Lewsley-Stier and iHull
Martin Taylor and staff at the Hull History Centre
Louise Yates and the City Arts Unit
Claire Balfour and staff at Hull City Hall
Barbara Dawson and staff at Northern Academy of Performing Arts
Staff at Hartley’s Tap
Paul Hunter and the New Adelphi Club
Steve Gardham
John Connolly and Bill Meek
Andrew Penny
Dr Jane Thomas & Professor Marion Shaw
Piaf Knight
Lisa Hey
Dale Christmas
Keira Walker
Professor John Stringer
John Morrison
Ian Watson
Felix Hodcroft
Jamie McGarry and Valley Press
Ashley Fisher
Will Langdale
Jonno Witts
Elizabeth Coombs Photography
Sarah Clinch and Hull CVS
The Tricycle Theatre, Kilburn

Artistic Director's Note to Merge 2011

They say that a band's second album is always the hardest, the 'difficult second album', so I like to think of Merge 2011 as the 'difficult second Festival'. Once we've got through that, we should be ready to take over the world and be as all-conquering as [insert your favourite band's name here].

Last year's Festival involved just over one hundred students as participants, and this year we've been even more ambitious. The Festival is split across several host venues and now happens over four days. It's all been designed to allow any audience member to see just about everything on offer. You could also look at our lovely little website, www.mergearts.org.uk.

There's a lot of stuff, so have a look around. We've got theatre, jazz, classical music, poetry, dance, performance art, workshops, burlesque, visual art...and it's all about showing off Hull's artistic scene.

Like any good band leader, I should thank the band. The Festival needs several people working hard on it through the year, and those people are listed below. I'm grateful to all of them. Once again, the University's Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences has funded the Festival, and we're again grateful for their generosity in doing so.

The Merge band has also relied on our host venues for somewhere to put our second album; this year they are the Albemarle Music Centre, Fruit and the Ringside. We'd like to thank staff at each for their hard work and patience over the last year.

For Merge 2011 we experimented with some run-up events called EarlyMerge, which were hosted by the Haworth Arms, Pave, Hull's History Centre and the Ringside, while workshops have been hosted by Hull College – so we extend our thanks to them too.

Finally, can I thank you for coming along? I hope you find at least one performance or artwork that really makes you think and shows that Hull has artistic talent to be proud of. That would be a good legacy for this year's Festival.

Once again, thank you for coming – have a look around, see some shows, and I hope to see you for next year's Festival.

Richard T. Watson, Artistic Director

PS. Enjoy the album!

The Merge Arts Festival is:

Artistic Director: Richard T. Watson

Finance Director/Co-Producer: Alison Best

Technical Directors: Jon Cole & Adam Foley

Publicity Director: Rachael Abbey

Education Director: Zoe Hughes

Designer: Will Langdale

With special thanks to:

Professor Valerie Sanders and the University of Hull's Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences

Sarah-Jane Dickenson and staff at the University's Department of Music and Drama

Chris Maynard and staff at the Albemarle Music Centre

Dean Shakespeare and staff at Fruit

Darren Bunting, Anna Fox and staff at the Ringside

Arike Oke and staff at the Hull History Centre

Staff at the Haworth Arms and Pave bar

Jamie McGarry

Lucy Thurlow, Hayley Nikolay and staff at Hull College

Simon Bedford and Hoipolloi Theatre

Keira Walker

Janet Pearce and Marianne Lewsley-Stier

Jonno Witts

Elizabeth Coombs

The Tricycle Theatre, Kilburn

An Open Letter to Hull City Council about Arts Funding and their Proposed Budget

Dear Hull City Council,

Please consider this an open letter in response to the Revenue Proposed Budget 2011-12 you are currently considering.

There are huge savings to be made, in many areas, and I would encourage the Council to extend and enhance links with the local Voluntary and Community Sector. Helping newer organisations to 'be better placed to bid for new services' could be especially helpful in the coming years, particularly if Hull is to be a city that retains and attracts young professionals (the key demographic group for a 'thriving city centre economy' – as mentioned in your proposed Priority C). It is these groups and these people that are the partners most able to bring the 'best and most cost effective ways to improve the lives of the people of Hull' (Hull City Council's vision over the next three years).

On the subject of Priority C ('Making Hull a place where people are proud to live and work'), mainly on the point about making Hull a place to visit, I do feel that the proposed budget neglects provision for the arts and culture of Hull. As someone who has lived in Hull and Cambridge, I'd like to draw your attention to the attitude taken by Cambridge City Council toward their arts provision. I admit there are significant differences between the two cities, but some statements in the proposed Cambridge budget carry weight for Hull too. For example: 'The arts provide experiences that bring people together and inspire them. Without them Cambridge would be a less desirable place to live, work and visit.' [my emphasis] – the proposal goes on to state that 'The arts provide a platform to celebrate and showcase our local cultural diversity and create a sense of excitement and pride in our city'. If Hull City Council wants to instil a sense of pride in Hull – making people 'proud to live and work' here – then they cannot overlook the contribution made by the arts in Hull.

But, as Cambridge City Council has recognised, the arts offer more than civic pride; they provide experiences too, experiences that bind communities together (the Freedom and Vista Festivals comes to mind) and that inspire people and help them to reach their potential. This is especially true with children and young people – those saddled with the debts passed on in this spending review, and I would urge the Council to hold young people's interests very much at heart when implementing cuts to their inheritance. The Council rightly identifies 'Giving children and young people the best start, and everyone the opportunity to achieve their potential' as Priority B of their proposed budget.

The Council is no doubt already aware of various pieces of research demonstrating the benefit of children having an active engagement in culture and their surroundings. They must also be aware of the DCMS Taking Part survey which found that 'in inner city areas those who participated in culture were 10% more likely to be satisfied with where they live' – linking culture with civic pride again.

The Council has been already been involved with projects that have helped children's cultural engagement from an early age, and it is achievements like that – and other signs of Hull's regeneration – that are likely to suffer from cuts. Equally, they are precisely the achievements that should be safeguarded and built upon. A city's children are its future, and without the young people the city has no future. If Hull is to be an aspiring city, a city worthy of pride, its youth has to be stimulated, involved and engaged in the arts and in culture and in sport and in education. These are the things worth building on, for the sake of our youth and for their future (which is, after all, our future).

I don't see this letter as a call for greater investment in Hull's culture, nor as a cry for ring-fencing of cultural spending; maybe it's a point in a larger debate about arts funding and public service cuts in general. What I'm really asking is that the Council strengthens its bonds with charities, the Voluntary and Communities Sector, cultural organisations, the education sector and local artists. Ask us what we can do and how we want to help (I admit to a vested interest here...). Encourage and support the newer organisations, work with the established ones, help them to help each other. Deliver on the budget's commitment to 'support areas of the community who wish to develop services and activities'. In these difficult economic times, it is only by working together that we can hope to secure a decent future for this city and for the young people in it.

Thank you for reading,

Richard T. Watson,

Artistic Director, Merge Arts Festival

twitter.com/merge_arts_fest

artisticdirector@mergearts.org.uk

The arts inspire us and lead us to a deeper engagement with each other and the world we live in. They are not the icing on the cake of a community; they are one of the critical ingredients that binds it together.
Rod Cantrill, Executive Councillor for Arts & Recreation, Cambridge City Council

Another Look at Larkin - from December 2009's Hullfire

This December marks twenty-four years since the death of internationally-renowned poet and Hull Uni librarian Philip Larkin. Which means that 2010 is the important twenty-fifth anniversary, and the University is teaming up with the Philip Larkin Society, Visit Hull and East Yorkshire and Hull City Council to celebrate.

Professor James Booth, Head of the English Department and Literary Advisor to the Philip Larkin Society, told me that Larkin “is the purest of lyric poets, he always writes about Life, Death, Love [...] That gives him his universal quality.” Larkin's string of awards from 1972-84 confirmed his international reputation, and he has recently been declared both the nation's favourite poet and the greatest post-war British writer. “He manages, and there's a certain magic to this, to choose the words of each of his poems in such a way that he copyrights ordinary words [...] when anybody now says 'they fuck you up, your mum and dad', everyone recognises it as a quote from Larkin!”

The celebrations – under the title Larkin 25: Another Look at Larkin – will run for twenty-five weeks, starting in June 2010 and ending at that twenty-fifth anniversary in December with the unveiling of a Larkin statue at the Paragon station. It's also worth looking out for the Plague of Toads that will strike Hull during Larkin 25 – dozens of huge, decorated fibreglass toads, popping up across the city – inspired by Larkin's Toads. Just imagine. Other events of interest include a series of University lectures from distinguished guests, including former Poet Laureate Andrew Motion. Elsewhere, there are plans for drama workshops at Hull Truck, jazz events (Larkin was a jazz critic for the Telegraph) and maybe a bus named after Larkin. More long-lasting will be the Larkin Trail, a tour of East Yorkshire's Larkin-related cultural spots, supported by a new History Centre which is going to house the University's archives on Larkin and Hull's history.

But what about the reputation Larkin seems to have gained as a racist, or a middle-class snob who looked down on Hull's locals? A quick trawl through the comments left on a Hull Daily Mail article about the proposed statue reveals a variety of opinion and some of it's quite hostile. But, like it or not, Larkin is an important cultural figure – for Britain, not just Hull – and he chose to spend thirty years of his life here. Midlander though he was, his is a name strongly linked with Hull and the University, and his later work is embedded firmly in the East Riding.

Quoting Larkin's poetic description of Hullians, Booth comments that “ I don't think it's accurate to say that it has any kind of middle-class condescension about it; there's a common humanity about it”. As for being racist, the Professor tells me “ If you look at his life, his actions, you realise actually he was a lifelong liberal humanist – not the right-wing bigot that he occasionally parodied himself as being”, and compares Larkin to the Roman orator Cicero, who also “ got into terrible trouble because he couldn't avoid a good joke [...] Larkin does this; when he sees the pithiest, most extreme version of putting something, he'll do it”. He was politically incorrect, but not a racist.

What's exciting about Larkin 25 (apart from those toads) is that the Steering Group, chaired by Hull Emeritus Professor Graham Chesters (g.chesters@hull.ac.uk), is keen to have new ideas suggested. Already there are various student projects (in drama, photography, art and music) across the city. As Chesters says, the list of commemorative events is 'far from closed!'.


http://twitter.com/philiplarkin25


http://www.larkin25.com/