大象传媒

Mintfest took place over the weekend from August 31st - September 2nd.

The festival organisers claimed it would feature some of the best and most unusual outdoor performers and artists from around the world.

Location, location, location...

This was the first festival of its kind to be held in the beautiful town of Kendal located within the Lake District.

The idea for the festival arose after Julie collaborated with Manchester International Arts who are responsible for organising some of the biggest street arts festivals including the Commonwealth Game's street arts programme.

Approximately 18 months ago Manchester International Arts conducted a study into prime locations for street arts festivals and decided that Kendal was ideal because of its location and interesting yards and potential performance spaces within the town.

Weird and wonderful

I popped down to see the weird and wonderful events taking place at the street festival on Sunday and to see if they lived up to the expectations of being 'some of the best and most unusual outdoor performers and artists from around the world.'

This act is mainly aimed at younger children and uses a variety of puppets including a singing mushroom, a rock 'n' roll melon, wiggly worms and a guard dog.

It was a great act for younger children however I was hoping it would not colour the programme for the rest of the day as it wasn't particularly stimulating for the older members of the audience!

I have to say I was pleasantly surprised by the rest of the entertainment on offer on Sunday afternoon and the street festival as a whole did a good job at catering for all age groups.

Here is a brief overview of some of Sunday's performances -

Senmaru is a Japanese street performer who performed many gravity defying tricks such as balancing a tea pot on a stick held with his mouth and impressive juggling skills.

Claiming to be the most famous Japanese person in the world and with the catchphrase 'It's amazing!,' which he had the crowd repeating on several occasions, he was very popular with all age groups within the audience.

Curious Eyebrows

UK based performance group, Curious Eyebrows, produced a very clever and entertaining improvised performance based on a mock up of a cricket commentary.

Many audience members shied away from this act not wanting for themselves to be made the focus of attention, however for those who find it easy to laugh at themselves it was a must see show.

This was probably a favourite act of the day and older audience members really appreciated the intelligence behind such an idea.

Another extremely clever and instinctive performer.

Mr Bunk hails from Canada and was performing his UK debut at Mintfest this year.

He uses his audience as props, encouraging participation and through improvisation creating a spectacle out of absolutely nothing.

The spontaneity of his performance results in a different and unique show each performance however one thing is guaranteed - you will be laughing your socks off every time!

This act, all the way from sunny Spain, were another favourite with the crowds.

They create fantastically strange hairdo's on willing and brave audience members using a variety of materials and coloured sprays.

Although a definite crowd pleaser, I found this act quite boring to watch as it could take up to half an hour to create one hairstyle and the performers were quiet throughout and didn't attempt to put on a show, so to speak, however the end product was always fantastic.

Other performers during the day included -

听A contemporary movement piece called Conference of the Birds by UK based performers Faceless.

A听 bicycle controlled, revolving stage production revealing the woes of married life called Revolution by Manchester based street arts group Artizani.

And various stalls offering portrait drawings, clay modelling and bubble making.

A roaring success

For its first ever year Mintfest was a great achievement.

It is estimated that the festival attracted 11,000 visitors to the small Cumbrian town and feedback has been nothing but positive and encouraging.

Based on the success of the event at the weekend funding has already been established for another street arts festival to take place next year.

The only real disappointment on the day was that there was no Kendal Mint Cake for sale - organisers take note!