Archived press release

Date Published: 22/05/07

The countdown has started to this year’s spectacular Roald Dahl Festival and local schoolchildren will be getting involved with the preparations for the popular annual event. The festival takes place on 7 July when the streets of Aylesbury ...

The countdown has started to this year’s spectacular Roald Dahl Festival and local schoolchildren will be getting involved with the preparations for the popular annual event.

The festival takes place on 7 July when the streets of Aylesbury will be brought to life with a colourful parade of artwork, carnival music, dance and costumes. This year’s festival parade will be themed on Roald Dahl’s The BFG and will include all the fantastic characters from the book.

More than 400 children and young people from local secondary schools, primary schools and community groups will be making giant puppets and smaller hand-held artwork to carry in the carnival parade.

Over the next few weeks, community artists Sarah Worthington and Stuart McLellan will be going into classrooms across the district, helping to inspire ideas and creative thinking through a series of workshops.

Organised by Aylesbury Vale District Council, the free workshops are traditionally held in schools during the weeks before the festival. This year there are five secondary schools and 30 primary schools involved in the parade, a much higher number compared to previous years. The Uptown Coffee Bar in Aylesbury will also be taking part in the workshops and the parade for the first time.

The council has developed links with Creative Partnerships, an arts agency which specialises in placing artists in schools, to allow more young people to take part in the festival workshops.

Dan Clucas, Arts Development Manager, said: “We want as many children and young people as possible to get involved in this year’s festival parade, and one of the best ways of doing this is helping them to create artwork they can be proud of. The workshops will be led by professional artists and provide an ideal way for young people to get together to learn new skills in an informal, fun and interactive way. There’s an incredible amount of work going into this year’s carnival parade, and I think everyone will be delighted with the results.”

This year’s festival parade, on 7 July, will leave the Civic Centre at 11am and wind its way through Market Square and Kingsbury. After the parade there will be lots to see and do, including arts and crafts workshops, face painting and story-telling.

To find out more about the festival, please visit www.aylesburyvaledc.gov.uk or call 01296 585210.