‘I’m grateful to have Freedom in my life’

THE WORLD ON MY SHOULDERS: Luke Jerram’s Gaia at Hull Minster. Picture by Tom Arran Commercial Photography

Vicky Foster was both a performer and audience member at this year’s Freedom Festival. This is her exclusive review of one of the North’s leading international arts festivals

Freedom Festival started early for me this year, with a phone call from The Broken Orchestra in the early summer, asking if I’d like to write a piece with them for performance in Hull Minster.

It would be underneath Luke Jerram’s beautiful Gaia, as part of the programme.

There’s only one answer to a question like that, so it wasn’t long before we were standing in the Minster making plans.

These included me writing a series of questions that would be emailed to the worldwide network of artists Freedom Festival have worked with, asking about where they live.

It is testament to the way Freedom work, and the relationships they have built up, that within weeks I had enough responses to start writing, weaving together stories from the artists with facts about the earth and climate change.

The first week of the festival was focused, for me, on rehearsals and polishing up the show, and Friday, August 27th was a dream of a day, when all of that came together.

Vicky Foster, standing, performing with Broken Orchestra at Hull Minster

I spent it in Hull Minster, with a set of brilliant musicians, getting ready for our evening performances; Pat Dooner and Carl Conway-Davis of The Broken Orchestra, Gary Hammond on percussion, Steph Halsey on harp, Christina Waldock on cello, and Tom Kay on guitar.

We were looked after and supported all day by Minster staff, HPSS Sound Stage and Lighting, and Freedom Festival volunteers, as the stage was put together, PA set up, and the sound checked, arranging ourselves for a performance in the round.

It’s hard to put into words what it was like to stand under Gaia, surrounded by trees from the Woodland Trust, telling stories into a microphone, with the audience surrounding us and the beautiful sounds the musicians were creating soaring up and around that space.

It would have been special anytime, but after the last eighteen months, everything felt amplified.

I went home that night thinking a lot about trust; that audiences place in performers, giving up a slice of their time and attention; that we place in each other as artists, writing and experimenting together, getting up on stage together; that Freedom placed in all of us, giving us the space, time and support to bring it all together.

It’s fair to say my first night at the festival had quite an impact on me.

Dean Wilson’s Cinema Shack. Picture by Tom Arran Commercial Photography

The next night was spent at Wrecking Ball Music and Books, with a sold-out audience who had come along to spend one night in Deanworld.

It was glorious, from start to finish. I hadn’t laughed so much in a long, long time, and it felt like exactly what I needed. It was a genius joint commission by Back To Ours and Freedom Festival, offering up a platform for the creative collaborations of poet Dean Wilson and filmmaker Dave Lee.

From the moment Emily Render took to the stage to sing Deanworld Is Not Enough with a bobble-hatted Dean walking on the beach behind her in a moody parody of a James Bond opening sequence, I was hooked.

The premiere of Dean and Dave’s new film DeanWorld did not disappoint, living up to the intro and the exceedingly high expectations brought about by their earlier work.

Maggie Crabbe (Rachel Dale), landlady of The Rod and Tackle, was the perfect host, steering us through the mad brilliance of Graham Graham Beck’s Action man with a Giraffe’s Head, the Bingo, for which she provided her own lingo, Andrew Wells’s pebble songs and singalong, the raffle, and Maggie Graham’s raucous set, the highlights of which for me were Bastard and Mars Bar.

The night of course culminated in a set of brand-new poetry from the man himself, Dean Wilson, who brought the house down in the way only Dean can. A fabulous night of art cabaret madness that felt like it could only have happened in Hull, at Freedom, with this set of people.

I had to take Sunday off to recover, but Monday afternoon found me meandering down to Stage at the Dock to see George Orange: Moon.

It was raining when I arrived, but this hadn’t stopped a healthy crowd turning out to place themselves along the wide wooden seats of the open-air amphitheatre.

George, a slack-rope dancer from Chicago, was mic-ed up, wearing a NASA jumpsuit, and making jokes with people as we waited for showtime.

Our clothes may have been dampened, but our spirits were not. Despite being unable to do his usual show because of the health and safety risks inevitably brought about by the addition of a lot of water to a show of contortionism and balancing, we were nonetheless thoroughly entertained for thirty minutes.

The man who had to come out and squeegee the stage became a prop; members of the audience became props.

At one point, a collection of kids were collected on stage to hold up a tightrope that George proceeded to walk across – I didn’t think he was actually going to do it, but he did, and without a single child being squashed in the process. It was quite something.

‘CONTACT GIVES YOU HAPPINESS’: Where There Is Light. Picture by Tom Arran Commercial Photography

The whole thing could only have been pulled off by someone with as many years in the business as George obviously has.

Not many people would have been able to improvise and keep a wet crowd entertained like that, but George did, and he walked a tightrope across his slice of the moon as a finale; all with the River Humber, the tidal barrier and The Deep as a live backdrop. Wonderful stuff.

On Tuesday I made my way along Whitefriargate to the starting point for Duncan Speakman’s Only Expansion, to collect what I needed to partake in the immersive audio experience.

I was expecting headphones, but not the fluffy directional microphones attached to them, the small plastic box I needed to carry over my shoulder, or the accompanying book.

I set off very intrigued but could not have guessed what was going to happen.

There was no set route, so I went in the direction of the Rose Bowl near Queens Gardens, and as I waited at the crossing, the sounds of passing cars and buses became a crashing, mechanical cacophony.

‘THEY SPOKE OF HOPE AND THE LIGHTS GOT BRIGHTER’: Where There Is Light. Picture by Tom Arran Commercial Photography

By the time I got to the fountain it seemed to be raining coloured musical notes. The distorted voices of playing children danced over me. People felt at once closer and further away, like we’d slipped into different dimensions.

I realised there was a lot of tech in that little plastic box, but I was too immersed in what was happening to think too much about it.

I also realised I must be grinning my head off and the people around me, going about their daily business, would have no idea why, so I moved on, heading for the fountains in Queen Victoria Square.

As I approached, a woman running into the spraying water, arms outstretched, shouting, was woven into my personal soundscape. The voice of a man talking on the phone was amplified, echoing around and continually fading until long after I’d passed him.

At one point the book advised I seek higher ground – a vantage point - and I climbed the raised platform where the statue stands. The sounds shifted subtly, the music and effects now suggesting something off-kilter, like something was very wrong.

The timbre of everything I looked at was changed. The voices of people in the street now sounded like distant tannoy announcements – like I needed to pay attention. Like there was something urgent I needed to know or somewhere I needed to be.

‘A SPARK INSIDE OF ME’: Where There Is Light. Picture by Tom Arran Commercial Photography

It was staggeringly clever, and very moving, and this was the first time I realised the implications of Freedom spreading out over two weeks this year, rather than one long weekend.

Usually during Freedom Festival, when you walk into town, it feels like you’re at a festival. It’s busy, there are carnival-type activities going on around you, food stalls, music.

But this year was different - the festival lasted 17 days - and doing Only Expansion on a relatively quiet Tuesday afternoon on my own while other people were just going about their daily business highlighted that. It made for a really interesting transformation of public space that wouldn’t have been the same on a busy festival weekend.

On Wednesday I popped along to the Ferens [art gallery] for Where There is Light. I’d seen a lot of pictures on social media, so I knew it was going to be really pretty, but it was so much more than that.

The hanging strings of coloured lights responded to the stories told by sanctuary-seeking communities that were playing into the installation.

Every time they spoke of something that gave them hope or happiness, the lights got brighter, the colours changing through gold, pink, cool blues and greens, affecting the mood and feel of the otherwise quiet, black space.

‘IT GAVE ME A SHIVER’: C-O-N-T-A-C-T. Picture by Tom Arran Commercial Photography

It was busy when I was there, the voices of children were in turn responding to the lights.

It was like there was a dual soundscape going on, the one recorded by the artists and this impromptu one, created by the children; wows and aaahs at the brightest points, their little faces bathed in gold and pink; uncertain at the darker points, wavering voices calling out the names of the people they were with, wanting to know where they were.

“The contact you have together gives you some happiness” sounded out across the room at one point, as the children began moving again through the lights, running their hands over them, letting them brush over their faces.

One baby girl sat, legs splayed on the floor, fingers reaching towards the lowest hanging light. Just as I stood to leave, I saw her finally grab one and put it in her mouth. “Even despite everything I’ve been through”, said a voice in the room, “there’s a spark inside of me”.

On Friday teatime, I headed for Pier Street to the meeting point for C-O-N-T-A-C-T; “a sensory and immersive theatre experience”.

‘IMMERSIVE EXPERIENCE’: C-O-N-T-A-C-T

This time there was nothing to collect. Following a preparatory email, I’d downloaded the app, charged my phone, brought my headphones and an umbrella.

There were eight of us waiting when the start time arrived. We put in a code to start the app, listened to the instructions to follow the female actor when she arrived, and then waited.

The voice of a young woman began to play in my ears, and I saw her approaching from around the corner. She wasn’t speaking, but she was reacting to the words I was hearing.

Snippets of a song were playing, and when she said: “Why is this song stuck in my head?” I realised we were hearing her internal monologue. I got a little shiver. What a brilliant idea.

All her passing thoughts and anxieties played out in our ears as we followed her along Humber Street. When she stopped to sit on a bench, we all stopped too, watching her, and I began to notice that we are also being watched.

Passers-by were slowing their pace or stopping to look, and I realised how strange we must appear - our little gang following and intently watching this woman who had nothing to distinguish her from anyone else in the street.

‘WE BECAME PART OF THE SHOW’: C-O-N-T-A-C-T. Picture by Tom Arran Commercial Photography

It’s another interesting example of how differently Freedom worked this year. Other people were just there for early drinks or a meal at one of the restaurants, and here we were, in the middle of a theatre show they couldn’t hear or follow.

We moved on, to a quiet grassy space where the dialogue and content became more intense.

Some leaves fell from a tree and I thought what a nice touch to the staging it was before realising, of course, that it was just a tree doing what it would have done whether we were there or not.

By the end of the narrative, we were by the water of the marina, close to a busy road and among throngs of people again, who were moving around us as we formed a little semi-circle around the action which, without the headphones, was nothing more than a man and woman talking on a bench.

There was a sense of closure emerging in the story; catharsis and optimism. When the female actor stood and walked away, we all began to follow as we’d been doing for the last 40 minutes or so, and the male actor stopped us.

We watched her move off in the crowd, and again, I got shivers. What an interesting and emotional way to make theatre.

‘AN EMOTIONAL WAY TO MAKE THEATRE’: C-O-N-T-A-C-T. Picture by Tom Arran Commercial Photography

On Saturday I attended my last event of this year’s festival. Unsilenced is a short film, commissioned by The Warren Youth Project and was being premiered there as part of the festival.

Now, I have to confess I have a soft spot for The Warren. I used their services myself when I was eighteen, not long before I became a mum for the first time, and my nineteen-year-old son has been making music, making friends, and engaging in their activities for a while now.

I know what they can do, but even if I didn’t, the event description would have been enough to draw me in: “Created by an all-female creative team, this film shows the resilience young womxn have, the care responsibilities that can sometimes be thrust upon female figures, and the strength they have to care for those around them, no matter what is happening beyond their front door.”

It was busy inside the café space, chairs and balloons and little packets of popcorn were set out in front of the stage and big screen, and as well as the young people and staff in attendance, a lot of the young women had brought their children.

There was a celebration atmosphere, and once you watched the film, you understood why.

It’s hard to describe the strength, resilience and compassion of the women in the film without trying to tell their stories for them, and I don’t want to do that because they’ve done it so powerfully themselves.

‘FREEDOM AND CONNECTION HAVE NEW MEANINGS THIS YEAR’: People taking part in C-O-N-T-A-C-T

After the showing, the womxn came on stage and answered questions from the audience, some also keeping their kids occupied – babies crawling onto the stage, a little girl crying because she didn’t want her mummy’s voice being taken away by the microphone, a little boy who hijacked a microphone for a while, sighing into it or telling us we’ve all got smelly bums.

Then other young women performed their music and spoken word. It was an emotional couple of hours, and the perfect end to my time at the festival. It felt like closing a circle.

This was not my first Freedom Festival. I used to take my kids when they were small, and I first performed there, as a singer in one of their busking sheds, back in 2013.

I’ve helped out and performed in their Speak Out spoken word tents at a couple of festivals, and my first proper commission for them was in 2019, when I wrote Fair Winds and Following Seas with The Broken Orchestra.

But for all of us, this was the first post-pandemic festival. There was so much more I would have liked to have seen, but as is always the case with Freedom, you can never get round it all.

The clutch of events I got to made me think differently about things; freedom and connection have new meanings this year, and this changed festival found new ways of expressing that.

I feel very privileged to have been a part of it, and I saw enough to make me very grateful, both as an artist, and as a resident of Hull, to have Freedom in my life.