If you live in the Nottingham area you will have either heard of, or visited Wheee – Lakesides Annual, International Children’s Theatre and Dance Festival. 

Whee was founded in 2005, Lakeside itself however is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year, which is very exciting! Whee will take place from 2 to the 10th of June and features 6 different productions.

Myself and three other Nottingham bloggers were invited the launch : Penny from A Residence Becky from Baby Budgeting and Louise from My Gorgeous Boys – who brought with her one of her gorgeous boys!

Shona Powell, Director at the Lakeside said:

“We are incredibly excited to be welcoming six incredible companies to Lakeside as well as our international touring, home-grown Architects of Air. The shows coming to Lakeside Arts Centre are suitable for a range of ages.  The performances are lively, vibrant and will amaze all from two to ninety-two.  Great theatre for children is undoubtedly fabulous theatre for adults, and we’ve got a clutch of absolute gems lined up”

Tickets to all the events and further information is available at Lakeside Arts or call the box office on 0115 8467777

We will be going as a family, and we can’t wait!

Whilst we at the launch we were very privileged and invited into the luminarium that will also be at the Whee event.

A luminarium is a sculpture people enter into, to be moved into a sense of wonder at the beauty of light and colour.

Penny and Becky

The luminarium is built by the Architects of Air (AoA), and they are celebrating 20 years of touring this year.  As we entered through the airlock, of Exxopolis (the name of this, the 20th luminarium) we were transported into a bubble of colour and light. We wandered around the twist and turns of tunnels and openings until we came to this:

This is only a snippet of the choir as they sang.  They filled the area with a beautiful sound, it was quite mesmerizing. The gentleman that you can see sitting on the ground is the company founder and designer Alan Parkinson.

Only a portion of the luminarium was there, I can not wait to see the full effect.  There will be a dome, that will be surrounded by 10 stained glass windows rising 7 meters off the ground.

Amanda, (Me) Becky and Penny, in front of a template of one of the ‘Penrose tile’ style windows.

Architects of Air was originally a Nottingham community based project, so how fantastic that both the Lakeside and AoA can celebrate both of their anniversaries together this way. They are also offering workshops to Nottingham community groups to make these stained glass windows.

 This is Penny, having a go.

Once the Exxopolis has made its world premier at Lakeside Arts theatre, it will then go onto tour worldwide. So these windows will also be touring and are set to represent the creative energy of Nottingham.

**STOP PRESS**

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