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Voices - People talk about SEAS [posted 9th October 2009]

Donkey Cams - Adam Jeanes [posted 21st September 2009]

One Week to go until Black/North SEAS lands in Skegness! [posted 20th September 2009]

News from SEAS Mablethorpe - Adam Jeanes [posted 19th September 2009]

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Space Invader on the Lincolnshire Coast

TWO art pieces for the SEAS festival have been inspired by Skegness.

In March 2006 Dritero Kasapi, a Stockholm theatre and TV director, and Bulgarian artist Venelin Shurelov, spent a week in Skegness with a mission of finding inspiration for an art piece to be used in the festival.

They found their muse in the traditional seaside telescopes on the pier and the bright lights of the arcades, which led to their piece Fantomat.

Fantomat involves seven sculpted wooden figures in whose 'eyes' people can watch evocative videos. The videos change for each venue.

The art installation was front page news in Odessa, and has attracted large audiences wherever it has been shown.

A second work by Metro-Boulot-Dodo, of Leicester, called Night Scene uses footage of dancers from the Janice Sutton School of Dance, and the performing arts department at Lincoln University.

The piece requires a real nightclub and subtly involves the audience as they sit drinking, chatting and watching the activity unfold around them.

Source: Skegness Standard - October 2008

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SKEGNESS will become a major part of the international arts scene next year as the only UK venue for the groundbreaking SEAS festival.
SEAS is a spectacular arts initiative involving 10 countries from around the Black and North Seas. It launched in May this year in Odessa in the Ukraine, and will travel around Europe until it reaches Skegness for its finale in September 2009.

East Lindsey District Council has been working on the project since 2006 and will deliver it in partnership with Skegness Town Council, Lincolnshire County Council, the University of Lincoln, and Arts Council England.

A staggering £285,000 of funding has been contributed for the event by the partners.

Around 100 international artists will descend on Skegness to offer a varied and diverse programme, including dance, performance, video, and even art pieces which the audience become a part of.

ELDC arts project officer Nicki Gardner and Semantha Neal spoke to Skegness Town Council about the project at its meeting on Wednesday.

Mrs Gardner leading the project, explained the festival would not only put Skegness on the map in terms of the arts and make it the focus of national and international media, but would also be used as an educational tool to foster relations between the town and the university, and get local students involved.

She said the council needs suggestions for venues a little more obscure than a theatre, such as outdoors, in a shop, a hotel, a nightclub etc.

Source: Skegness Standard - October 2008

skegness standard SEAS

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Skegness is playing a major role in a European arts programme thanks to a grant from Arts Council England.

A National Lottery grant of £136,000 has been awarded to SEAS - an international arts programme which runs from 2008 to 2010. It will attract visitors to Skegness in 2009 and raise the profile of the Lincolnshire coastal region.

The project involves ten countries, which border the Black or North Seas. In England this includes Skegness and the Lincolnshire coast. Other countries include Romania, Bulgaria, Sweden, The Netherlands, France, Norway, Denmark, Turkey and Ukraine.

The international programme of creative events involves contemporary artists who specialise in site-inspired work. Skegness is one of four destinations chosen to host an 'Arts and Cultural Tourism, Rethinking Leisure Time' conference in September 2009. It will explore issues of cultural tourism, environmental concerns and migration integration.

Beer Tourist

BADco - League of Time

Supporting this will be 'Skegness International Fringe' - a platform for art-based events and exhibitions produced by professional artists from the East Midlands alongside voluntary sector arts organisations from East Lindsey, Lincolnshire's coastal district.

Leicester arts organisation, Metro-Boulot-Dodo, has been involved with the project since 2006. Their new work, 'Night scene' was inspired by trips to the ports of Rotterdam and Odessa and will premiere in Odessa as part of the international launch of Black / North SEAS on 31 May. The Arts Council grant will be paid over four years to East Lindsey District Council.

Nicki Gardner, Arts Projects Officer for the council comments:
'The SEAS initiative wraps up international and cutting-edge contemporary culture with regeneration aspirations that stretch from Romania to Norway. This places Skegness and the Lincolnshire Coast in a new geography, which means we are close to the action rather than on the edge of the East Midlands.

'SEAS creates opportunities for art to happen in unusual places. The UK event, which takes place over ten days in September 2009, will transform Skegness and the surrounding area with around 100 international artists and technicians together with East Midlands arts practitioners, creating a cultural festival, which uses every available space. This will be an unforgettable experience.'

John Cairns, Regional Partnerships Officer with Arts Council England, East Midlands, comments: 'The Arts Council is supporting this exciting venture as it offers a huge opportunity and a catalyst for the Lincolnshire coastal region's regeneration efforts, particularly in Skegness and Mablethorpe. SEAS follows a similar project in which the Baltic and Adriatic Seas were linked and this raised the profile and prosperity of the featured locations.

'Skegness will have a major role to play in 2009 and this will attract international visitors and opinion formers.
'Other initiatives the Arts Council has supported include an international touring exhibition of Bathing Beauties, a project to design architecturally inspired beach huts and a lifeboat station, which attracted artists and architects from 15 countries. The Lincolnshire Coast is starting to develop a reputation as a perfect site for innovation and creativity, something that Black / North SEA can only enhance.

Source: Arts Council - May 2008

Exhilarating And Challenging European Arts Tour Reaches Its Final Destination - Skegness, On 25th September 2009

There are just five weeks to go until a nine-day international arts spectacular, which has been on tour around Europe's coastline for the last two years, reaches its final destination - Skegness.

The Black/North SEAS project opens in the UK on 25th September, bringing with it a core programme of 16 challenging, exciting, entertaining and thought-provoking events to one of the Britain's most well known coastal resorts.

Artists, actors and performers from across Europe will descend on Skegness, the home of Butlins and the 'Red Coats' with the aim of entertaining people but also broadening their horizons, challenging their perceptions and beliefs and leaving a legacy which will help change the way people see Skegness for the better.

As well as the core programme of 16 acts, which include The Kiss and Waste Project looking at the personal stories of women across the Black and North Seas and Suitcases a theatrical exploration of Bulgaria's communist past, over 30 artists from across the East Midlands will come together to make Black/North SEAS one of the most exciting, vibrant, diverse and stereotype-challenging events the UK has ever seen.

Black/North SEAS has been brought to life by Swedish arts organisation Intercult, with the help of funding from the European Union, and is coming to the UK thanks to East Lindsey District Council, Skegness Town Council, Lincolnshire County Council, the University of Lincoln and the Arts Council England.

"This project is one of the most exciting, challenging and thought provoking initiatives ever to be staged in the UK," says Cllr Adam Grist Portfolio Holder for Leisure at East Lindsey District Council. "People from Turkey, Bulgaria, the Ukraine, Norway and Denmark have already hosted SEAS. All of them have been amazed by the spectacle. The local communities have thoroughly enjoyed the entertainment on offer, businesses have appreciated the influx of people from further afield and the discussion about the future of coastal resorts has given people a great deal of optimism. We hope that SEAS will bring the same wave of optimism to Skegness."

Black/North SEAS set sail in 2008 and has visited Odessa, Istanbul, Mangalia and Varna on Europe's Black Sea coastline and Helsingborg, Göteborg and Tromso on the North Sea. Skegness was chosen as the tour's final port of call due to the town's similarities with the other locations.

"Skegness is one the United Kingdom's most traditional and best loved resorts. It has such resonance and awareness, not only in Lincolnshire but the country as a whole," says Adam Jeanes, SEAS Project Director. "The town has, like so many other places on the world's coasts, suffered from local people leaving, a lack of investment by major employers, coastal erosion and other climate-related factors, but at its heart is still a vibrant, exciting and appealing place with a strong community spirit. By working with Arts Council England to bring SEAS to Skegness, we hope to challenge the way people see Skegness, attract visitors to the town and also leave a legacy by placing the future of coastal resorts on the national agenda."

In addition to 16 touring events, the involvement of over 90 UK artists and many other events involving schools, colleges and local groups, the Black/North SEAS programme also features a two-day conference, SeaScape on 1st and 2nd October.

SeaScape will see over 100 MPs, planners, councillors, architects, artists and public sector officials focused on coastal regeneration schemes in the UK, funded through CABE's Sea Change programme, and across the Black and North Seas coastal areas. Very different places with very similar issues, all seeking innovative ways to move forward and sell their unique position and strengths

Many of the SEAS events will be free, performed in public spaces so that as many people as possible can see them. Some events, staged in licenced premises, will be ticketed, with prices ranging from £5 to £10.

A full programme and further information are available from www.skegnessinternational.com or 01507 601111.

People interested in attending the SeaScape Conference should visit
www.e-lindsey.gov.uk/SeaScape

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Most Recent SEAS Press Articles [ from September 2009 ]

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