Precarious Carnaval
One canal. Three days. Five miles.
- Role
- Producer
- Location
- Bridgewater Canal, Salford
- With
- Est.1761 / Arts Council England
- Date
- July 2019
We produced Precarious Carnaval, three days of carnival along five miles of the Bridgewater Canal
Working with artists Lowri Evans, Renato Bolelli Rebouças and Rodolfo Amorim, the production team, Est.1761 and the local community, Dark Olive produced Precarious Carnaval — a huge performance in, on and around the Bridgewater Canal, from Boothstown to Barton, celebrating its 258th birthday.
Precarious Carnaval By Lowri Evans, Renato Bolelli Rebouças & Rodolfo Amorim Friday 5th – Sunday 7th July 2019 | Bridgewater Canal, Salford
The year before, award winning theatre makers from Brazil and the UK spent a month living along the Bridgewater Canal, getting to know the waterway and the people that use it. During their time they fished for stories, made costumes, took portraits of the people they met, set up beaches on the canal banks and said hello to every person they passed.
What they started scheming became Precarious Carnaval, mixing Brazilian festival with a distinctly Salford feel — a weekend that pulled together hundreds of local people for a colourful celebration of community connected by one very special canal. There was a confetti of personal stories, spectacular happenings and plenty of group get togethers, in a carnaval where nothing was as it seemed. It was joyous and jagged, perfectly precarious.
The carnival ran through Barton, Boothstown, Eccles, Patricroft, Monton and Worsley. Hundreds of local makers and shakers took part — primary schools, choirs, dance troupes, knitting groups, boat builders, big bands, brass bands, theatre makers, youth clubs, art galleries, organ museums and community associations — and thousands of people came out along the water to watch, across three acts over three days.
One canal. Three days. Five miles. Nothing went wrong.
Est.1761 takes its name from the year the Bridgewater Canal opened. It began in 2014, when Salford City Council secured funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund, Peel Holdings and partner organisations to revitalise the canal through Salford.
Precarious Carnaval was an Est.1761 commission, supported by Arts Council England. Photography by Stephen King. Film by People Staring.
