10 events you can’t miss at Liverpool Light Night

Liverpool is set to come alive for its eighth annual LightNight later this month, with over 100 free cultural events at venues across the city.

The event, taking place on Friday May 19, will see 100 arts organisations come together to stage the free late night festival, with more than 900 artists and performers taking part to respond to the theme of ‘Time’.

Venues opening late into the night will include Tate Liverpool, Merseyside Maritime Museum, Bluecoat, Black Lodge Brewery, FACT, Liverpool Cathedral, Dorothy, Liverpool John Moores University, Everyman Theatre, Constellations, Liverpool Town Hall, Baltic Creative and many more.

A number of new venues will also open their doors for the 2017 festival, including Unity Theatre which will reopen to the public on LightNight following a £845,000 redevelopment marked by a special series of mini-commissions and a ‘reawakening’ ceremony.

Here are the events you can’t miss on the night…

Where the Time Goes
LJMU John Foster Garden, 17:00 – 23:00
Musician and composer Jonathan Raisin will create a sound installation in a secret garden in the heart of Liverpool. With specially written words and music from hidden speakers, it will be a long poem, a meditation to reflect on time, change and what remains the same.

The Handless Project and re-awakening of Unity Theatre
Hope Place and Unity Theatre, 18:30 – 23:00
Unity Theatre re-opens on LightNight following a £845,000 redevelopment. The Handless Project is a 24-hour ritual journey around Liverpool by artist Aleasha Chaunte. Inspired by the fairy tale ‘The Handless Maiden’, the journey is inspired by the personal stories of people living and working in Liverpool. At 18:30 the Unity building will be ceremonially ‘awakened’ followed by an installation and performed mediation on the stages of sleep.

Fancy a Selfie?
Bluecoat, 17:00 – 21:00
Join artists from Blue Room, Bluecoat’s inclusive arts programme, as they take you on a fancy-dress journey through time. Create your own accessories and props in a drop-in costume workshop or take a shortcut and use the pre-made props and costumes, then visit the photo booth or one of the selfie stations to capture and share your moment.

What if we could remake time?
Liverpool Town Hall, 18:00 – 21:00
In this talk, philosopher Dr. Michelle Bastian will discuss clock-time and its possibilities for being redesigned. Exploring examples of how artists, activists and designers have remade the clock, she asks whether clock-making could be opened to non-experts and used to explore the conflicting times of our everyday lives.

The Super Sonic Assembly
Liverpool Cathedral, 18:45 – 23:00
Bridging past, present and future through song and dance, the Super Sonic Assembly showcases the evolution of music since WWII. This fun, interactive family event features choirs, community participation and a DJ set. Community choirs and the Reverend Cleve Freckleton lead a journey from the 40s, through the Summer of Love to the present day.

Gaming Through Time
Contemporary Urban Centre, 18:00 – 20:00
Inspired by the number of retro games that came out of Liverpool, this interactive, playable exhibition is home to many consoles of the past; from the Commodore 64 to the ZX Spectrum and a Nintendo Entertainment System, moving into the modern day with consoles such as the SEGA Dreamcast and Playstation 1.

Same as we Ever Were
Albert Dock, 17:00 – 20:00
Liverpool’s waterfront will be the stage for Merseyside Dance Initiative experiential outdoor performance with community groups and professional dance artists. Working with five community groups and with performers aged 1-75, movement material changes and manifests itself throughout this experiential performance as the dance passes from group to group.

Fanny & George’s Georgian Liverpool
Merseyside Maritime Museum, 17:30 – 21:00
Join Fanny and George for a poke around Georgian Liverpool and discover death, disease and docks, plus a few beauty secrets that will make your hair curl. With tales of smuggling, ‘oyster selling’, and a good old fashioned day out at the hanging, this performance is not the for the faint-hearted.

Time, Space and Climate Change
LJMU John Foster Building & Gardens, 17:00 – 22:00
This is a must-see for any budding scientists. A fun, interactive installation features experts from LJMU’s Astrophysics Research Institute and Department of Geography to explore how scientists work out what the space is in space. Hands on activities will also explore how climate change has, and continues to change, over time.

Light Field
Ropewalks Square, 21:00 – 23:00
A collaboration between sound artist Bill Thompson and dance artist Saffy Setohy, Light Field invites people to both become and activate the installation. Lo-fi kinetically powered sound and light objects create a field of gently glowing beacons, controlled by choreography and movement.