One year since Wondrous Stories!

We can’t believe it’s been a whole year since we opened the Birmingham 2022 Festival with the incredible Wondrous Stories with our producing partners Outdoor Places Unusual Spaces.

It really was an amazing experience to work with so many fantastic people. Thank you to everyone who took part or contributed to the success of the show, either onstage or behind the scenes. We couldn’t have done it without you!

Thanks of course to the Birmingham 2022 Festival for commissioning the project.

As a special treat, we are so excited to share this never-before-seen full length film from the show…

From the 17-20 March, we turned the whole of Centenary Square into the stage for Wondrous Stories, with a cast of more than 250 people and reaching audiences of more than 20,000 from all across the city and region over four nights, it was a real celebration of community and togetherness.

A huge thank you and a massive shout out to every single person who was part of the Wondrous Stories adventure with us!

To bring the square to life, our professional dance-circus artists were joined by aerialist LJ Marles plus guest performers from inclusive wheelchair dance group Freewheelin, dancers from the Critical Mass project, Motionhouse Youth, Motionhouse community class participants, Timmins Academy and the Centre for Advanced Training programme run by DanceXchange/Fabric and Sampad.

The show featured additional choreography by Jamaal Burkmar and Sonia Sabri, live spoken word performance from Coventry and Birmingham-based artists Raza Hussain and Sebbie Mudhai, and actor Leon Finnan, and digital projections by Logela Multimedia.

Birmingham’s Choir With No Name sang to an incredibly beautiful soundtrack by Sophy Smith and Tim Dickinson (are you still singing the Wondrous Stories song? We are!). Designer Sophie Donaldson led Birmingham City University students in costume creation.

Check out our programme to see the full credits from the show, including all the unsung heroes who worked so hard behind the scenes to help make things happen…from BSL interpreters, support workers, parents, carers and Dance Leaders, to admin staff from all the organisations involved…and so many more. You’re all amazing.

We were very proud and honoured that Wondrous Stories won the prestigious Access All Areas award in the Diversity and Inclusion category at a ceremony in London on the 12th of January. This was an opportunity to acknowledge and celebrate all the hard work which went into making this show as inclusive as possible.  

A huge thank you to everyone at the Birmingham 2022 Festival team, our producers OPUS, and to the funders of the project, Arts Council England, National Lottery Heritage Fund and the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport.