Well done to everyone involved in the Paa Joe & the Lion Grand Finale

Date published: 3 Jun 2013

Posted by: Joe Pick

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City Arts would like to congratulate everyone involved in the Paa Joe & the Lion residency and Grand Finale event, and thank the wonderful audience who came and joined in the celebrations.  Saturday 1st June at Clumber Park was a fantastic day of workshops and a spectacular evening of celebration and we are pleased to have been a part of it.

Paa Joe and his son Jacob’s residency was celebrated with a Ghanaian influenced funeral ritual.  The beautiful lion coffin they created was led through the grounds of the park and down to the lake, where it traveled across the water towards the afterlife.  Performances on the night included dance, theatre and music from Sabar Soundsystem.

Click here to see our photos of the Grand Finale event.

Here is slightly shaky video of the view from the audience:

During the day artist Stephen Jon led a very busy mask making workshop in the City Arts Dome, creating the lion and bird masks with families.  Outside, Mark Beeston led a workshop creating chimes that were used in the Grand Finale.  Panya Banjoko ran a poetry workshop just before the event so that members of the audience wrote poems, their wishes or messages to loved ones and post them into the coffin before it set off on its journey.  Panya then read these messages at the beginning of the performance.

Click here to see some photos from our day of workshops at Clumber Park

Paa Joe & the Lion was produced by Artdocs in partnership with City Arts, the National Trust in the Midlands and Nottinghamshire County Council.  The event was filmed as part of forthcoming feature documentary film, Paa Joe & the Lion.