Nine Nights

Nine Nights brought epic, broad-canvas storytelling to the streets and the people of Belfast for one amazing evening.

ArtsEkta, organisers of the Belfast Mela, commissioned us to create a huge mass participatory outdoor arts production against the dramatic backdrop of Belfast City Hall to celebrate the Indian festival of lights – one of seven Creative Belfast projects funded by Belfast City Council and the Arts Council of Northern Ireland through the Creative & Cultural Belfast Fund.

Having worked on Derry~Londonderry UK City of Culture 2013, our return to Northern Ireland for Nine Nights in 2015 was another opportunity for us to apply our proven formula of participatory outdoor art as way of helping people from all walks of life collaborate on a shared collective celebration.

Outdoor arts applies a different alchemy to healing than the tried-and-tested formulas of politics. Nine Nights showed how drama and spectacle inspired by Indian folklore, myths and legends could take on a contemporary relevance by addressing powerful themes such as discord and peace.

Community participation was critical to the success of Nine Nights – which is why we began the show with a dramatic mass torchlight procession, with over 600 local people and performers weaving their way from Custom House Square along Donegal Place to City Hall. The show featured a compelling narrative, mass choreography, puppetry, dance, live music and lighting, using the City Hall to maximum dramatic effect as we immersed the audience in a range of sensory storytelling techniques.

Light is hugely important in such celebrations, and another key element to our creative treatment was an expertly choreographed high-level display of finale pyrotechnics – dwarfing City Hall and matching the creative ambition of the entire production.

Ahead of the event, we built momentum by creating a strategic website, which aimed to attracting participants for roles in the procession, dance and event production.

Nine Nights is a great example of our ongoing collaborations with black, Asian and ethnic minority arts organisations to create works that reflect a range of diverse communities and important celebratory moments in their cultures.

Conceived and directed by Nick Clarke working with ArtSekta Belfast