4 September 2014
PRESS RELEASE
Deloitte Ignite 2014
ACTORS DAMIAN LEWIS AND HELEN MCCRORY TO FEATURE IN SHORT FILMS IN DELOITTE IGNITE AT THE ROYAL OPERA HOUSE
Friday 5 September – Sunday 28 September 2014
Actors Damian Lewis and Helen McCrory will feature in the opening weekend of the Royal Opera House’s annual contemporary arts festival Deloitte Ignite (5-7 September), appearing in a pair of short films. Damian has read the story of Prometheus from Ted Hughes’s Tales from Ovid, and Helen has read Yeats’ Leda and the Swan and The Mother of God for films to be screened to festival goers in the Paul Hamlyn Hall.
Damian and Helen have also lent their voices to short animations telling the stories of Prometheus and Leda which will also be screened in the opening weekend and online. The films were commissioned from recent graduates from Kingston University’s Illustration and Animation degree course.
Lewis said of the festival “There’s a cross-pollination of art forms so we’ve got dance, singing, we have the visual arts…where better to bring all these art forms together and for you to come and enjoy yourself, please don’t miss it.”
Tickets are available each day during the opening weekend of the festival, this year curated by The Royal Ballet and the National Gallery’s Dr Minna Moore Ede centred on the theme of myth. Contemporary art installations from Bill Viola, Tom Hunter, Mat Collishaw, sound recordist Chris Watson and muralist Phlegm take over front of house spaces, with live story-telling, group yoga sessions, talks and insight events making for a diverse and exciting programme of performance and events.
Lewis said “I think the important thing about a festival like this is that these different art forms can come together while remaining independent and expressive in their own way, and can also become a homogenous creative whole. That’s what I think we will all see.”
To watch Damian introduce the festival please go to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPvYVYBXgco
To watch Damian talk about why he thinks the Prometheus myth is the perfect inspiration for Deloitte Ignite please visit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qstXLx4ktXg
Deloitte Ignite
Royal Opera House, Covent Garden
5 – 28 September 2014
Tickets are available at the Royal Opera House Box Office – www.roh.org.uk / 0207 304 4000 or on the door throughout the first weekend on a first come first serve basis.
For further information: http://www.roh.org.uk/about/deloitte-ignite
Download the opening weekend full brochure: http://static.roh.org.uk/about/deloitte/images/2014/Deloitte-Ignite-brochure-2014.pdf
Deloitte Ignite 2014 Festival at a Glance
Opening Weekend 5-7 September
- Turner Prize-winning Chris Ofili to paint Royal Ballet dancers for the world premiere of a new piece from choreographer Aakash Odedra in Sampling The Myth, a mixed bill narrated by the UK’s foremost expert on mythology Marina Warner
- Sampling the Myth also includes world premieres of three specially commissioned dance films from Kim Brandstrup (with a narration by Fiona Shaw), Robert Binet and Charlotte Edmonds
- Contemporary art installations from artists Bill Viola, Mat Collishaw, Tom Hunter taking over Royal Opera House front of house areas
- Shop fronts along Covent Garden Piazza will host a site-specific choreographic performance piece from Luca Silvestrini and his company Protein throughout the weekend
- Street artist Phlegm to use the interior and exterior of The Royal Opera House as a vast canvas for his large scale interpretations of classical myth
- Family events including scavenger hunt, workshops and costume displays
- Short film screenings in the Linbury studio theatre
Royal Opera House
The Deloitte partnership with the Royal Opera House brings together both organisations in their appetite for innovation and commitment to widening access to the arts. This relationship, was initially for five years and has been extended for a further five years which allows the Royal Opera House to continue to stage a broad range of ground-breaking work each year with a new vision from the chosen curator. Deloitte Ignite builds upon the continuing projects that the Royal Opera House has developed to engage and stimulate new audiences and communities across the UK including its innovative contemporary programme in the Linbury Studio Theatre, free BP Big Screens of opera and ballet each summer, family performances, cinema screenings, schools matinees, reduced ticket pricing on main stage performances and free daytime events.
Deloitte
With some 13,000 people across the UK and Switzerland, Deloitte is renowned for its innovation, collaboration, industry expertise, and outstanding quality of client service. Deloitte’s depth of talent across many disciplines allows it to deliver a total solution to clients of all sizes through its four business divisions: Audit, Tax, Consulting and Corporate Finance. This collaboration between Deloitte and the Royal Opera House brings together both organisations’ appetite for innovation, desire to challenge the preconceptions of the audience and engage with young professionals. Deloitte Ignite is the showpiece of the sponsorship and provides a platform to stage a range of pioneering performances to reach a more diverse audience. In this press release references to Deloitte are references to Deloitte LLP, which is among the country’s leading professional services firms.
Deloitte LLP is the United Kingdom member firm of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited (“DTTL”), a UK private company limited by guarantee, whose member firms are legally separate and independent entities. Please see www.deloitte.co.uk/about for a detailed description of the legal structure of DTTL and its member firms. The information contained in this press release is correct at the time of going to press. For more information, please visit www.deloitte.co.uk Member of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited.
Award winning Deloitte Ignite
Deloitte and the Royal Opera House were awarded the Hollis Sponsorship Award in 2009 and 2012, Arts and Business category, for the first Deloitte Ignite in September 2008, the Arts & Business Cultural Branding Award in 2010 for the 2009 festival and the CorpComms Digi Award in 2010 for best use of Twitter.
