Who are we in Coventry? Join for us Part 2 of the Resonate Festival Word and Voices Roadshow on 19th September at the Assembly Festival Gardens to explore how life-stories and languages from our past, present and future make us who we are as Coventrians!
Children and families (and indeed those of any age!) drop into the Treehouse from 11am to have a go at a range of interactive activities celebrating how multi-lingual and multi-cultural Coventry is. Find out more about when Latin was spoken here and how many languages we now speak in the city. Design a t-shirt with a favourite language slogan of your choice. Find the global roots of words we use every day. Try your hand at translating animal noises in different languages, and join us as we use Disney songs to demonstrate how Google translate doesn’t always have the answer! Make up your own language poem and contribute your sense of what speaking different languages brings to your life.
In the Piccolo Theatre, people of any age can join us for a series of fascinating interactive talks from 12-3pm, covering topics like the cities and languages Coventry is twinned with across the globe; how the Coventry accent has shifted through the ages; try your hand at learning Chinese from scratch, and a deeper dive into the over 100 languages spoken in Coventry.
Piccolo Theatre:
12-12.45pm - Twinned Cities of Coventry and their languages – Michael Hammond
12.45-1.30pm - Coventry’s Changing Accent – Chris Strelluf
1.30-2.15pm - Coventry’s 120+ languages – Ellen Smith-Denis
2.15-3pm - Learn Chinese in 40 mins – Qian Liu and Zhiyan Guo
3-4.30pm - Short Coventry Life Story Films (with Intros to each one): Roma Allotment Project, Home Truths project, Noises of the Past, Cinema 3, Brutalist Architectures, Comrades of the City, Imagineer Initiative
For teenagers and adults, join us in the Treehouse from midday to engage with a series of interactive booths, workshops and performances, that speak to the different stories we tell – and need to tell – in and about Coventry. Learn more about Binley Colliery, chat with the artists capturing the mechanical inventions imagined by Coventry’s school children and try your hand at combined story-telling and weaving as well as story-telling and origami. Pot seeds while hearing more about the Roma allotment project. Find out more from the Queer and Coloured and Colonial Hangover research projects about different life-stories of our city. Watch performances from story-tellers of the future, live readings of personal stories related to racism in Coventry’s past and join in the fun of a live performance of poetic song and giddha dance! Catch up with a curated series of short films related to these and other life-story projects in the Piccolo Theatre 3-4.30pm.
Treehouse:
- Interactive Activities and Displays running all day from 11am, with specific interactive workshops at the following times:
11-12pm - Where Google Translate wont help: Disney songs and the importance of language learning
12-1pm - Weaving and Telling stories
1-2pm - Pot seeds and the Roma Allotment project
2-3pm - The Colonial Hangover in Coventry
3-4pm - Queer and Coloured in Coventry
4-5pm - Sounds of the Future – the voices of Coventry’s future
5-6pm - Alternative Trails Performance – poetic song and giddha performance
6-7pm - Racist Tones Readings – live readings of personal experiences of racism in Coventry’s past.