Manchester Day Parade: Outdoor Community Art

In 2016 and 2017 we co-created parade costumes, centre piece, and choreography with Polish residents of Manchester for their contribution to Manchester Day Parade, Manchester’s biggest city event. We work for Walk the Plank and Europia Manchester. The central idea of Manchester Day Parade is to develop community and artists alongside one another, and to get them to work together. In 2016, FairerTales co-created the theme “Science marries Folklore. A village wedding for Nikolaus Copernicus and Marie Sklodowska-Curie”. This included designing and making the centre piece and sewing costumes for 30 participants. The work was supported by Ruta Stasieviciute.

The topic for Manchester Day Parade 2017 was “Abracadabra”. After a community brainstorming session, Hannah Wadle from FairerTales, and collaborating artist Ruta Stasieviciute developed the theme “Rush Hour Reverie – When Wilderness Reconquered the City” for Europia Manchester. Ruta took on the development of an extraordinary centre piece, a tree that was emerging out of a car.

Hannah from FairerTales, meanwhile, was responsible for the costume design. She designed two sets of costumes that showed a transformation from urban street life to mystical forest life, as implied by the theme. Road workers that turned into moths by lining up in pairs and flicking their road sign, and business beasts – wild, vegetative creatures that emerged from inside business suits. The costumes and their roles were performed with a music mix and a choreography that we created together with choreographer and dancer Trixabelle Bold.