Providing an immersive, free platform for youth countercultures and nightlife workers, Tour de Moon is the first of its kind, and Newcastle is one of only three nationwide cities to have been chosen to host it.
27-30 May in various locations across the city – tickets available at https://tourdemoon.com/whats-on/newcastle.
Bringing together talks, cinema, music and games all under one cosmic theme – Tour de Moon is truly a festival like no other. Tour de Moon celebrates the relationship between Earth and the Moon with a number of thought-provoking, exciting and original experiences, with a special focus on nightlife, creativity and culture. The festival will prompt visitors to ask,
‘Why can’t we imagine a new way of thinking?’ – highlighting the need for radical imagination in the current global climate as well as encouraging alternative futures.
Tour de Moon is a public festival; tickets are free and can be obtained here. Also visiting Leicester and Southampton, ticket availability will be staggered, with Newcastle’s show available on 27th April.
On its epic journey across the country, Tour de Moon is stopping in Newcastle, when four days of interactive events are taking place across a range of city venues, designed to appeal to everyone from amateur sports teams to die-hard clubbers. In addition to its visit to Newcastle, as well as Leicester and Southampton, a sustainable Moon Convoy will visit nine other locations around the country.
The Newcastle locations to be featured in the festival, which will include an afterparty at World Headquarters until 5am on Saturday, 28 May, are Walker Activity Dome, The Discovery Museum, the Star & Shadow Cinema and the Lime Street creative quarter in the heart of the Ouseburn district.
Partygoers can expect to see live DJ sets from Alannah Lamb and Becky Woodcock and live performances from Hannabiell & Midnight Blue Collective as part of Moon Music.
Across the four days, Newcastle’s up-and-coming creatives and cultural tastemakers will take to stages across the city to talk, debate, create and collaborate in Moon Talks. The line-up includes theatre maker Melody Sproates, comedy performer and podcaster Lee Kyle and Queer Jewish dance artist Jesse Salaman.
Also part of the festival is Moon Experiences; designed to completely repurpose disused buildings within city centres, creating surreal and unusual theatrical spaces. In Newcastle, this includes a takeover of two warehouses in Lime Street, Ouseburn. Visitors can find themselves immersed in plays developed with new talents, whilst taking a trip to the Moon on psychedelic buggy rides.
Independent filmmakers, such as Karnage, Issi Nanabeyin, Mirrored Fatality and many more will be showcasing exclusive commissioned films, as well as musical compositions from artists such as: Spell Songs, Vanishing Twin, together with music and new compositions from some stellar musicians, experimentalists and composers such as Yelfris Valdès, Riz Ahmed, Oliver Coates, Jatinder Singh Durhailay & Suren Seneviratne; Roella Oloro, Rival Consoles, Gruff Rhys, Cosmo Sheldrake, Anna Meredith, Kae Tempest and others.
The Moon Convoy, which arrives on Nelson Street in the city on 27 May, features huge floats and interactive elements starting with a large rotating moon that appears and disappears at night with further interactive and ultra-violet experiences – expect cosmic transformations through live music and DJ sets, a full size replica of nine metre-long Archie The Squid who resides at The Natural History Museum, talks, film screenings, an inflatable game designed with the help of scientists at NASA SSERVI and the SETI Institute, a nine-piece Arkestra and a larger than life red telephone through which visitors can talk to the Moon. There will be plenty of opportunities to capture the Convoy on its parade through Newcastle, which sets off from Civic Centre Car Park from Saturday 18:30.
Tour de Moon’s creator is the creative director, artist and filmmaker Dr. Nelly Ben Hayoun of Nelly Ben Hayoun Studios. Nelly is the founder of NASA’s International Space Orchestra and the tuition-free University of the Underground. Her large-scale projects have included collaborations with Noam Chomsky, Pussy Riot, Massive Attack and Kid Cudi to name but a few. She is known for challenging institutions from within through events, and has done so at the United Nations, NASA and the International Astronautical Federation. Nelly’s fellow directors at Tour de Moon include Magid Magid, former Lord Mayor of Sheffield and founder of Union of Justice, Natasha Patterson, head coach at Pedro Youth Club, Dr Franck Marchis, chair of the exoplanet group at the SETI Institute, Damian Bradfield, President of WeTransfer and Adam Teskey, Manufacturing Director at The Vinyl Factory Plant.
Dr Nelly Ben Hayoun says: “Our main objective for Tour de Moon is to prompt radical imagination, support pluralistic thinking so to offer alternative futures developed by and with youths. With this festival we decided to redistribute our funding and to use our platform to celebrate the nightlife sector and young adults – demographics which have been hit especially hard by the impacts of Covid and funding cuts over the last few years.
“Tour de Moon travels with the night, seeking new beginnings to empower others to create, initiate and innovate with new thinking and pluralistic practices so that history does not repeat itself on and beyond Earth.”
Tour de Moon is one of 10 major creative projects commissioned as part of UNBOXED: Creativity in the UK, which is taking place across England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales in 2022. This is the UK’s most ambitious showcase of creative collaboration and includes free large-scale events, installations and globally accessible digital experiences, and an extensive learning programme.
Martin Green, Chief Creative Officer of UNBOXED said “We are delighted to be on board the cosmic journey that is Tour De Moon, as we meet with young minds to experience and take part in the making of alternative futures in a free and public nationwide event. Now everyone, come along, get your tickets, and have a good time.”
Tour de Moon is made up of eight different strands as follows:
MOON EXPERIENCES:
Moon Experiences is arriving to completely repurpose disused buildings within city centres, creating surreal and unusual theatrical spaces. Visitors can find themselves immersed in plays developed with new talents, whilst taking a trip to the Moon on psychedelic buggy rides. It includes a SoundBath by Loss><Gain, with an original 2 hour experience featuring music and new compositions from some stellar musicians, experimentalists and composers such as Yelfris Valdès, Riz Ahmed, Oliver Coates, Jatinder Singh Durhailay & Suren Seneviratne; Roella Oloro, Rival Consoles, Gruff Rhys, Cosmo Sheldrake, Anna Meredith, Kae Tempest, Jarvis Cocker and more to be announced. 18+
MOON MUSIC:
Moon Music brings the ‘afterparty’ to festival proceedings, a selection of the most unique new musical talents merging popular music with recordings of the galaxy, to create a new musical genre. Moon Music brings together Arkestra (nine young musicians and truth seekers on board a mobile convoy across England); Moon Recordings (a series of newly-commissioned alien musical genres); and Moonbounce (transmission to the
Moon, an Earth-Moon-Earth (EME) technology) to club nights. There is also the moon on the dancefloor… 18+
Featured Newcastle artists and musicians include: Alannah Lamb (DJ), Georgia May (Live act), Nadedja (Live act), RENOK9000 (DJ), Weston (DJ), Becky Woodcock (DJ), Hannabiell & Midnight Blue Collective (Live act), Knats (Live act), PDT (DJ) and Westy (DJ).
MOON TALKS:
Tour de Moon aims to shape our common futures through talks, performance, performed manifestos and sensory delights. Moon Talks – a key pillar of the festival – features a vibrant, pluralistic mix of voices sharing their electric experiences of nightlife through their passion for the moon, science, dancing and debates. 18+
Featured Newcastle speakers and creatives include: poet and activist Dami Fawehinmi, comedian Lee Kyle and dance artist Jesse Salaman, with more to be announced.
MOON CINEMA:
Moon Cinema is a collection of original new short films created by a new generation of filmmakers selected through an international competition. These films explore untraveled terrain, innovative aesthetics and urgent messages on care and youth countercultures and their experiences with nightlife. With Moon Cinema, Tour de Moon provides a platform for unique discourses and non-linear narratives on science subjects. 18+
The Star & Shadow, Newcastle’s volunteer-run community cinema, provides the backdrop for Moon Cinema.
MOON CONVOY:
Moon Convoy is a fully sustainable armada of vehicles, stopping in towns and cities across the UK – with its arrival in Newcastle marking the beginning of a four-days fully programmed festival. On its journey around the country, Moon Convoy will stops at a further nine towns and cities on the way, featuring big floats and interactive pieces starting with a large rotating moon that appears and disappears at night with further interactive and ultra-violet experiences – expect cosmic transformations through live music and DJ sets, a full size replica of nine metre-long Archie The Squid who resides at The Natural History Museum, talks, film screenings, an inflatable game designed with the help of scientists at NASA SSERVI and the SETI Institute, a nine-piece Arkestra and a larger than life red phone through which visitors can talk to the Moon.
MOON GAMES:
What if the Moon had landed on Earth? What if the Moon was a psychedelic inflatable playground; a lunar landscape on which to play Moon Games? Collaborating with astrophysicists, sports groups and youth organisations and designed by NASA, Tour de Moon has fabricated all of this for eager attendees. It’s time to explore the Moon! 16+
MOON HOTLINE:
Moon Hotline is a digital exploration of our own potential. AI (Artificial Intelligence) powered conversations with our new therapist (the Moon), digital experiences taking the form of a giant red phone, and a cascade of memes, videos and music by new talents around the world. It creates a radical online experience for anyone to explore, disappear and reappear…in a wormhole!
MOON PRESS:
Moon Press is an urgent intervention into publishing. A zine that works to break down conventions between the environment, humans, and outer space. Moon Press is released at every full moon with a rotation of monthly appointed guest editors, designers and a selection of brilliant artists that challenge the status quo and offer alternatives for new futures.
BURSARIES:
Nelly’s team has allocated more than £1m of its budget to bursaries for young creatives to produce their own original contributions for the event’s eight strands.
Those who were awarded financial support have also had the opportunity to collaborate with leading scientists and thinkers from NASA SSERVI (Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute), the African Astronomical Society and the SETI (Search for the Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Institute, among others.
Nelly hopes the event will amplify a plurality of young creative voices and ignite radical imagination.
FULL SCHEDULE
MAIN CITIES
Leicester (13th – 16th May 2022),
Newcastle (27th – 30th May 2022) and
Southampton (10th – 13th June 2022)
FULL DETAILS Newcastle 27 May – 30 May 2022
Moon Experiences – 51 Lime Street, Ouseburn, NE1 2P
Moon Games (10.00-16.00)– Walker Activity Dome
Moon Cinema (Friday and Saturday, 12.00-20.00) – Star & Shadow
MoonTalks (Sunday 15.00-18.00)– Star & Shadow
Bar Talks (Saturday 15.00-18.00)– Discovery Museum
Bar Talks (Friday-Monday 19.30-23.00)– WORLD HQ Room 1
Tour de Moon Afterparty (Saturday only 23.00-05.00) – WORLD HQ Room 2
Moon Music (Friday and Saturday 19.00-00.00) – WORLD HQ Room 2
MOON CONVOY TOUR DATES
11th May – Bletchley – Stanier Square
12th May – Wolverhampton – Old Market Square
13th – 16th May – Leicester – Humberstone Gate
17th May – Grimsby – St. James’s Square
18th May – Huddersfield – St. George’s Square
19th May – Blackburn – Cathedral Square
20th May – Barrow-in-Furness – Duke Street, Town Square
27th – 30th May – Newcastle – Nelson Street
8th June – Plymouth – Central Park Events Space
10th – 13th June Southampton – Bargate
14th June – Farnborough – Queensmead Car Park
15th June – Crawley – Memorial Gardens
16th June – London – Hackney – Pedro Youth Club