Love Light Festival Norwich
Charlie fell in love with lights
February is that time of year when you suddenly see hearts and roses popping up everywhere. People get in a romantic mood as Valentine’s Day approaches and even if you are not interested in this tradition, you can’t escape. The city of Norwich organized a three-day event to celebrate the love: The Love Light Festival took place from 13th to 15th February 2020.
Charlie has no particular interest in Valentine’s celebrations, but she loves light installations and photographing them. Plus, it was a good opportunity to visit Norwich as Charlie had never been there before.
Night market
The first day of the festival, the market in Norwich was supposed to extend its opening hours to turn it into a night market. Charlie is not sure what had happened, but only 20% of the stalls in the market were open in the evening, most of them food stalls. She enjoyed her Chilli Dog, but the night market was a bit disappointing. Charlie went again the next day and it was much better during the day with lots of interesting shops. It is similar to the market in Camden, just a few sizes smaller.
Bilbobasso
On Thursday and Friday evening, the city of Norwich had invited the French dance couple that forms the Compagnie Bilbobasso to present their performance “Amor”. It is the perfect combination of dance, performance, pyrotechnic and fire show and Charlie enjoyed that very much, although it was a bit chilly towards the end in the cold February air. You can read a review of the Bilbobasso performance on dancetog.com.
Parade
The schedule of the Love Light Festival 2020 had a parade listed for Friday evening and Charlie wasn’t too sure where the best place would be to watch and photograph it. She asked the people that were handing out festival programmes and maps for a recommendation, but nobody knew the route for the parade. All they could tell was that it started at the Cathedral and finished at the Forum. That wasn’t very helpful, was it?
Both gates to the cathedral were crowded with people and Charlie didn’t know where to go in this vast area. She asked several bystanders if they knew where the parade would start, but everybody was merely hoping to be in the right spot. Charlie decided to wait at a crossing outside the cathedral grounds. No matter which gate they would come through, they would have to pass by this spot.
The parade started 20 minutes late, 20 long, cold minutes, and it made Charlie question the definition of “parade”. How many participants do you need to call it a parade? Obviously, one group with a light installation and music was enough. Charlie was disappointed.
Light Installations
In different locations all over the city were light installations to be found, a map would indicate where to go and what to expect. The most impressive one was the reflection on the castle walls. It shows two birds, titled “Love Birds” in front of changing backgrounds.
A similar reflection could be seen on the façade of the cathedral, but it was a bit more difficult to see because of the crowd.
Charlie was equally impressed by the so called “Sound portals”. It was a ring of light on a stone wall. The sound could transport the viewer into another world and one of the visitors summarized it perfectly with the words: “It looks like a portal into another dimension.”
If Charlie thinks about all the things she has seen that weekend in Norwich, the one that stuck to her mind the most was the Bilbobasso performance. It was an impressive show and a well-rounded fusion of dance and fire.
