Autumn Season at Live at LICA

​Live at LICA (Lancaster Institute for the Contemporary Arts) brings a wealth of UK and international artists of the highest calibre to Lancaster every year in public programmes of professional theatre, dance, exhibitions and concerts.  In 2010 the Guardian declared that this is “the place in England to see the most innovative new work”.

The autumn season launches with an exciting project to see Lancaster and the campus from a completely different perspective. Proto-type Theater is bringing their award-winning project Fortnight to the city.  Fortnight is a playful experience where you’ll be sent various communications and invited to secret events and locations across Lancaster over a two-week period.  In order to take part you must sign up before 13 October. 

Other theatre highlights, at the Nuffield, include the return of Quarantine who are performing their innovative show Entitled on 22 October. Their performance attempts to make theatre out of real people’s lives and attracted a four star review in the Guardian newspaper. 

Meanwhile, the ever-popular Reckless Sleepers return to Lancaster to perform a revised version of their critically-acclaimed 1998 show Schrodinger on 10 and 11 November. 

The theatre also plays hosts to the final tour from the highly acclaimed dance company The Featherstonehaughs. Their show, Draw on the Sketchbooks of Egon Schiele, involves the dancers cleverly recreating the bodies in the Austrian expressionist painter’s dramatic pictures. It’s on at the theatre on 3 November. The night before (2 November) the company will perform Edits which looks at how time is played with in film.

In the Great Hall the Concert programme has a reputation for presenting top class seasons of music and this autumn is no exception with a mix of welcome returners and new musical talent. 

This season the Steinway Piano Campaign gains momentum as it aims to raise funds to replace the piano in the Great Hall.  The highlight of the fundraising campaign takes place on 27 October when Martin Roscoe returns to Lancaster along with Ulrich Gerhartz, Steinway & Sons Director of Concert and Artist Services.  Ulrich will talk about his life as a guardian of the Steinway quality while Martin showcases some of the most wonderful piano music ever written. 

Other highlights of the concert programme include popular Lancashire-born soprano Amanda Roocroft on 10 November whilst harpist Ruth Wall performs her concert - The Girl with Three Harps - in the round so the audience can experience these unique instruments in close up on 17 November. 

Ending on a festive high on 1 December, we welcome Sector7, a group of vocalists and instrumentalists featuring Lancaster graduate Sarah Ellen Hughes.  The concert will include music by Gershwin, Stevie Wonder, Herbie Hancock and Rodgers & Hammerstein.

If you are attending a theatre or concert event why not pop into the Peter Scott Gallery before the performance?  Entrance is free throughout the year.  This Autumn you will find the uncanny, dark and otherworldly work of Franko B and Rachel Goodyear, both major artists featuring animals in their practice. The relationships in Goodyear’s images are inexplicable and enigmatic, the connections between humans and animals strange and unnerving. A similar dark sensation can be felt in Franko B’s installation of jet-black creatures, yet the unease is tinged with a romance and the potential of new life.

The second exhibition Was I there? has its roots in rock music, punk and noise, although the focus is very much on fact and fabrication. Using the rich gig history of the University’s Great Hall complex, within which the gallery sits, the exhibition uses a mixture of historical and contemporary footage, posters and other memorabilia to bring us into a world of powerful music and legendary performances.

For ticket information on all Live at LICA events, and to book, visit www.liveatlica.org  or contact the box office on 01524 594151, email boxoffice@liveatlica.org