Rise Up! Festival returns for second year, showcasing creatives in Aberdeen and Scotland
Rise Up!, a weekend festival celebrating Black and People of Colour creatives in Aberdeen and Scotland, returns next month for its second year with a host of events at Music Hall and The Lemon Tree.
Curated by We Are Here Scotland and commissioned by Aberdeen Performing Arts, Rise Up! will take place on 5 and 6 May with an exciting programme of unity, creativity and expression.
Aberdeen Performing Arts’ Head of Creative Engagement, Susan Whyte, said “We are delighted to be continuing our fantastic partnership with We Are Here Scotland and presenting the second Rise Up! Festival in May. The weekend will feature performances which showcase superbly talented artists, and discussions, workshops and talks which seek to explore how we can collectively improve inclusion and relevance for Black and POC artists and audiences.”
“I’m pleased that for another year We Are Here Scotland is working in partnership with our friends at Aberdeen Performing Arts to produce our second Rise Up Festival,” says We Are Here Scotland founder and director Ica Headlam. “Last year we were able to provide a platform for a multitude of artists and creatives from our community. And this year’s festival is a continuation of everything we developed last year, whilst also highlighting the importance of providing a platform for Black and PoC artists and creatives from the North East of Scotland and further afield. Our platform’s aim is to amplify Black and PoC creatives across Scotland, but we also welcome all to participate, learn and engage.”
Officially launching Rise Up! 2023 with a special keynote is Yahya Barry. A Leader and Consultant in Culture, Heritage and the Creative and Screen Industries, he is the Community Development Lead (Scotland & Northern Ireland) for the Film and Television Charity, and a Member of the Board of Creative Scotland.
The festival boasts some firsts in its programme including a Cabaret kicking weekend performances off on Friday, 5 May. It features a diverse array of performances, including poetry from acclaimed Scottish writer and performer Courtney Stoddart and a comedy set from the hilarious Safeena Rashid. Also on the line-up is the celebrated Egyptian playwright Sara Shaarawi and international talent Dorine Mugisha, who will be performing a dance piece.
On Saturday, 6 May, Rise Under will make its debut, with a strand of the festival run by one of We Are Here Scotland’s INCUBATA group members Raymond Igbinoke. INCUBATA is a pilot programme addressing skills and development gaps, with participants being awarded funding and mentorship in their chosen field. Rise Under, aimed at 12-17 year olds, will see a series of workshops exploring filmmaking, music and screenprinting. Creative film practitioner Sara Stroud will run a ‘Filmmaking on a Budget’ workshop, while rising Aberdeen rapper Chef brings his ‘Finishing the Song’ workshop to the festival, which is the ultimate workshop for taking your music to the next level. Elsewhere, Aberdeen-based visual artists Caitlin Dick and Phoebe McBride will facilitate a screenprinting workshop for all ages. There will also be an Open Mic hosted by Aberdeen poet and spoken word artist Mae Diansangu which will help showcase new talent in the field of music, spoken word, poetry and creative expression.
Rise Up! offers further workshops with decolonisation and pro-liberation coach Ravideep Kaur, who will be facilitating an anti-racism workshop. Widely published writer Andrés N. Ordorica will also lead a workshop exploring the power of friendship in ‘An Ode to Friendship’.
Following on from the success of last year, the festival will host a series of panels exploring important and thought-provoking themes. Times, Metro and Guardian-featured mental health podcast A Sonic Hug presents ‘How do we improve the mental health and wellbeing of BPoC creatives’. There will also be a panel titled ‘Generational experiences as a BPoC creative’, which features panellists of different age groups, who will discuss their experiences of growing up and working in Scotland. Finally, in ‘Uncomfortable conversations in safe spaces’, we will explore how we encourage and foster conversations around diversity, inclusion and equality in the creative industries.
Adding to the Saturday programme, best friends turned co-hosts of Black Scot Pod Suzie Mwanza and Shirley Mcpherson will host a live podcast with a special guest. The podcast has garnered significant attention, regularly featuring in Apple and Spotify’s ‘Black Voices’ playlists, and was launched due to a lack of Black Scottish voices in mainstream media.
As a special addition to the festival, We Are Here Scotland has recently collaborated with Look Again as part of a new initiative to support Black and People of Colour artists in Scotland. To celebrate the launch of their upcoming exhibition, ‘Loved Seeds’, poet Noon Eldin and artist Helen Love will host a performance in the space. Combining clay, poetry and projection in this performance, they will simultaneously make a three dimensional family tree of the nine children of an enslaved woman from 1832 Jamaica.
Rounding off the weekend with a bang, The Lemon Tree will play host to an enigmatic line-up of artists. New pop/R&B girl group 4TUNE will headline with support from gospel-influenced singer-songwriter Rue Cooper and French Cameroonian, award-winning musician and singer Djana Gabrielle. The night closes with a set from Aberdeen-based Iranian DJ Pooyan Saadati.
The Music Hall’s Coda Café will be open throughout for refreshments between events.
