By Emily Rooney
The Light Up Leicester festival came to a stunning peak on Saturday night (7th MARCH) with a parade through the city, which was part of Liberty UK presented by ArtReach.
The parade, titled Sense of Unity, featured drummers lit with LED lights, puppets and live music.
It began by the clock tower in the centre of the city, snaking through the streets of Leicester, passing by the market and the cathedral via the recently renamed Green Dragon Square, eventually culminating in a final dance and music performance in Jubilee Square.
To start, a small LED puppet, controlled by four people who operated a limb each, was used, but when the parade had made its way to the cathedral, the small puppet, around the size of a toddler, was turned off and a large puppet as tall as one of the cathedral windows was used.
The music during the parade was a mix of live drums from the LED-lit drummers, and music coming out of a large speaker on a bike that was at the back of the parade.
As well as the parade through the city centre, there were also several large-scale installations throughout the city, such as Shoefiti, an artwork by Deepa Mann-Kler, exploring the practice of people throwing shoes over telephone wires in cities, recreated on a condensed scale down Silver Street, in rainbow coloured lights built into casts of the artist’s shoes.
As well as static artwork, there was also interactive artwork, such as Shadowdance in Green Dragon Square, which encouraged members of the public to dance around to create shadow projections on the wall.
The Light up Leicester festival was partially funded by Arts Council England.
