Culture Night Belfast #CNB14 Making headlines, Buggy Boogie, Science, Wonder Women & a Methane Mardi Gras

Culture Night Belfast is now well-established … and epic. Along with many other cities and towns across the island, this Friday night (19 September) Belfast will see thousands of people ambling about soaking up the balmy atmosphere.

A couple of hundred free events will pop up in streets and venues, mostly concentrated in and around the Cathedral Quarter. The full programme is online (and available in many cafes and buildings across the city). Here's a sample ...

1230-1300 – Ten x 9 – Black Box – A special lunchtime performance to hear 9 people who have up to 10 minutes each to tell a real story from their lives.

1500-1800 – CNB14 for the Under 4s ... and the Buggy Boogie! – Office of Important Art, Castle Court shopping centre – An interactive creative haven of art, photographic and singing workshops and cast your dreams upon the magical wishing tree! At 5pm the youngsters and parents will boogie all the way to Buoy Park in their very own Buggy Boogie! Look out for Belfast Met Art & Design students who are organising fun for children with origami  in University of Ulster from 1600-1800. Booktrust will encourage parents and carers to tell Super Stories for Super Heroes from 1600-1800 - costumes encouraged! And children’s workshops in Translink’s bus parked up in York Street from 1600-2100.

1830-2030 – Science in the Square – Writers Square - a taster from the NI Science Festival whose science buskers will give live scientific demonstrations: the physics of balloons to 3D printers, come get your geek on with some interactive science.

1600-2200 – Big Red Rocket – Writers Square – Bright Stem (artist and designer Andrew Wood) will be creating a whopping 4.6 meter high Red Space Rocket!

1800-2100 – Belfast Roller Derby – Writers Square - Watch the Belfast Banshees and Norn Iron Maidens as they demonstrate how this hard-hitting, fast-paced sport, which is growing rapidly in popularity, is played.

1800-1930 – Belfast's Annual Slow Bicycle Race – Academy Street – The last shall be first as spectators assume the role of judge and jury (equipped with whistles and horns) as they observe the competitors over the 20m course. The rules are simple: (1) Forward motion shall be provided by the muscles of the rider; (2) No part of the competitor's body may touch the ground; (3) he bicycle must maintain forward motion at all times; (4) The bicycle must remain within the boundaries of the course.

1600-2200 – Culture Knit Fever – Cathedral Gardens – can the city’s yarn bombers construct a gigantic outdoor installation in Buoy Park?

1600-2200 – Headliners! – Belfast Telegraph, Royal Avenue – Head along and see yourself on the front page!

1700-2200 – Dawsons Music Block Party – 121-125 Royal Avenue – Dawsons in association with Beat Emporium featuring live DJ sets, local musicians and Vibe Academy performers.

1600-2200 – Pop-up Cabaret – Assembly Rooms, 2-6 Waring Street – 4.15pm Swing Gals / 5.00pm Ursula Burns - the most dangerous harpist in the world / 5.45pm Kenneth Fall / 6.30pm The Late Twos (presented by EBAF) / 7.30pm Swing Gals / 8.15pm Ursula Burns / 9pm Traditional Irish Music

1600-2200 – Café Chess – Caffe Nero, 17-21 Lombard Street - Sit down and play chess with a friend, a chess player, or a total stranger.

1600-2200 – Unfolding – 70-74 Donegall Street – Jonny McEwan’s continuously developing, code-driven, generative art installation.

1600-2200 – Growing Up – Talbot Street – Every child dreams of a house but their imaginative doodles of fairy-tale palaces, fortified castles and galactic space stations rarely become a reality when they grow up. White Ink Architects have taken a 5-year-old's dream house doodle and turned it into an architectural installation, displayed for all to see and admire, that begs the grown-up question, "Is the dream beyond reach in the reality of adult life?"

1600-1800 – Not Nice Portraits – University of Ulster – Fine artist Miguel Martin will be turning his sketch pad on Culture Night participants to create some cringe worthy portraits.

1700-2000 on the hour – A Wander of Wonder Women – starting from Morning Star, Pottingers Entry – Belfast Feminist Network will take you on a wander through Belfast streets to meet iconic women from throughout history. Hear about their amazing lives as Cleopatra, Joan of Arc, Emmeline Pankhurst and other wonder women take over the city.

1900-2000 – The Methane Mardi Gras – leaving City Hall at 7pm to head into Cathedral Quarter – A grotesque troupe of fracking’s evil offspring will take over the streets of the Cathedral Quarter to disgust unsuspecting Culture Night revellers. Beware as Pollution, Disease, Rogue Methane, Gas-Flare, Flow-Back, and others have a literal Blow Out all over your city, just like they will if hydraulic fracturing is allowed to go ahead by the Stormont Executive. Brought to CNB by Friends of the Earth & No Fracking Northern Ireland.

1900-2000 – Myths of Belfast – University of Ulster – A short 30 minute film explores the city’s architectural and urban identity and finds that it doesn’t have one! Instead, it has a constantly shifting set of agreed ‘myths’ tacitly accepted as ‘truth’. Through a series of interviews with architects, planners, community activists and built environment professionals this short film attempts to document these shifts over the course of the 20th century, exposing the unplanned and arbitrary nature of ‘urban identity’.

Cyclists should note that there St Anne’s Cathedral car park (off Academy Street) is offering a free and manned bike park on Friday evening. And watch out for Culture Night Radio which you may hear around the streets as well as online.

Watch out for other Culture Night Extra events running in and around the main Culture Night.

Saturday 1100-1200 – The Boy Who Dreamed of Space Rockets – Reading by Andrew Wood from his forthcoming début children's book.



Photo via KeithBelfast.