There’s another great week of film and events at Pontio in Bangor this week, with highlights including The Souvenir II, Vanguard and Kenneth Branagh’s Belfast , which has received six nominations for this year’s BAFTA awards.
Join Bangor University’s Confucius Institute with The Ballad of Mulan, as part of their Chinese New Year Celebrations.
Bangor Music Festival 2022 will explore the theme of ‘the senses’ through a number of stimulating concerts and musical events.
Cinema: Book Here: https://www.pontio.co.uk/online/article/ffilm all other events find out more here: https://www.pontio.co.uk/
The Souvenir II (15)
Joanna Hogg, 202, 107m
Cast – Honor Swinton Byrne, Tilda Swinton, Joe Alwyn
Friday 4 – Thursday 10 February
£7.50 standard / £6.50 over 60 / £6 student / £5.50 child (under 18s)
Hogg’s critically acclaimed sequel to The Souvenir is a truly unmissable cinematic event that has already won the prestigious Sight and Sound magazine’s best film of the year award. In the aftermath of her tumultuous relationship with a charismatic and manipulative older man, Julie (Honor Swinton Byrne) begins to untangle her fraught love for him in making her graduation film, sorting fact from his elaborately constructed fiction. Joanna Hogg’s shimmering story of first love and a young woman’s formative years is a portrait of the artist based on her own personal autobiography.
Vanguard (15)
Stanley Tong, 2020, 107m Cast – Jackie Chan, Yang Yang, Ai Lun
Sunday 6 February, 5.30pm
£7.50 standard / £6.50 over 60 / £6 student / £5.50 child (under 18s)
Chinese superstar action star Jackie Chan stars as Tsang Huangting, owner of a covert security agency known as Vanguard, which provides protection to VIP clients, including tycoon Qin Guoli whose dealings in the arms trade have made him the target of a hit squad known as the Arctic Wolves. Members of the Vanguard team stop an attempt on Qin’s life in London, but they’re unable to keep his environmentalist daughter Fareeda from being kidnapped in Africa, along with Vanguard team member Lei Zhenyu(Yang Yang).
Part of the Confucius Institute (Bangor University) Chinese New Year Celebrations
Belfast (12A)
Kenneth Branagh, 2021, 98m
Cast – Jamie Dornan, Catriona Balfe, Jude Hill, Judy Dench
Friday 11 – Friday 25 February
£7.50 standard / £6.50 over 60 / £6 student / £5.50 child (under 18s)
A semi-autobiographical film which chronicles the life of a working class family and their young son during the tumult of the late 1960s in the Northern Ireland capital. Written and directed by Kenneth Branagh, BELFAST is a poignant story of love, laughter and loss in one boy’s childhood. The film introduces 10 year old Jude Hill as the young boy Buddy. Dornan and Balfe play a passionate working-class couple caught up in the mayhem, with Dench and Hinds as sharp-witted grandparents. Already recognised to be one of the very best films of the year. Branagh’s masterpiece is a definite crowd pleaser.
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Events:
Bangor Art Foundation 40+1 Exhibition
Location: Public spaces
Date: 21 January – 2 April 2021
This is an exhibition in collaboration with Storiel and Coleg Menai, celebrating 40 years of the Bangor Art Foundation course. We’ll be showing works by past students from the programme, including a sculpture by Angharad Pearce Jones, a commission by Niki Cotton and film screenings by Bethan Huws, Bedwyr Williams and Russell Owen.
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Confucius Institute, Bangor University, Chinese New Year Celebrations
The Ballad of Mulan
Sunday 6 February 2pm Studio £5/£3 10+
by Red Dragonfly Productions and Grist to the Mill Productions
Woman, warrior, legend. For ten years Mulan disguised as a man, has fought for the Chinese Empire. Now the fighting is coming to an end, one last battle and she will be going home – but can she return to her old life, become a woman again. A search for identity in a violent world.
Commissioned by and performed by West Yorkshire-born British-Chinese actress Michelle Yim, developed with the support and funding from Arts Council England. Produced by the team behind Edfringe Sell-Out ‘The Unknown Soldier’ Grist to the Mill, in collaboration with British East Asian theatre company Red Dragonfly Productions, we bring you the real Chinese heroine that inspired Disney’s animation and live-feature Mulan.
‘A powerful exploration of gender, war, and identity, as relevant and timely today as ever. Expect a little humour, a lot of heart and a refreshing focus on the darker aspects of a familiar tale’
★★★★ Tulpa Magaine, Adelaide Fringe
Presented by Red Dragonfly Productions and Grist to the Mill Productions
Written and Directed by Ross Ericson
Performed by Michelle Yim
Music by Pearl Yim
Costumes by Elizabeth Cooke
Armour and Weapon by Philip Dell
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Bangor Music Festival
Theme: The Senses
UPROAR Ensemble | Darragh Morgan & Electroacoustic WALES | SMOUND (Rhodri Davies, Pat Morgan & Angharad Davies) | Camau Cerdd / Steps in Music | Canolfan Gerdd William Mathias Bangor | New Music Ensemble | Bangor Fusion Ensemble
Bangor Music Festival is a charitable organisation dedicated to presenting contemporary music performed by artist of the highest calibre and has a strong commitment to enrich and educate the North Wales community through workshops and concerts. We see music as a living and thriving art-form and our enthusiasm for new music is reflected in our festival. Contemporary musicians of all ages from around the United Kingdom find inspiration, promotion and most of all, support through the festival. Thanks to the generous and continuous support from the community, we have successfully hosted festivals since 2000.
Tickets can be booked and information for each event can be found here Bangor Music Festival
https://www.pontio.co.uk/Online/default.asp?doWork::WScontent::loadArticle=Load&BOparam::WScontent::loadArticle::article_id=79BA5AF4-FB26-413D-81FB-41CFC382EF77&BOparam::WScontent::loadArticle::context_id=F84F7121-F654-48AD-BAFC-B00E900620C2
Please check your tickets – if you are buying an online ticket or to be at the event in person.
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Blas
BLAS is Pontio’s arts participation project offering children and young people various experiences of the arts. There are three aspects to BLAS, firstly, weekly drama workshops for children and young people, from school year 3 to 13. Secondly, health and well-being arts projects with children and young people. Thirdly, youth arts projects in conjunction with professional companies that visit Pontio.
BLAS was launched in January 2013 following a successful bid for funding from Arts Council of Wales, and since then it has gone from strength to strength undertaking a number of projects with inspiring practitioners and Bangor’s enthusiastic children and communities.
The project is run by Pontio Arts Development Co-ordinator, Mared Elliw Huws and is funded by the Arts Council of Wales and the Widening Access programme at Bangor University
Weekly Drama Workshop
The weekly workshops are returning to Pontio Studio!
Weekly drama and performance workshops to develop confidence, stage presence, performing skills and have fun!
Where: Studio, Pontio
When: Every Monday and Wednesday night – Term Time
Monday: 5:00pm – 6:00pm – Years 3 and 4, 6:15pm – 7:15pm – Years 5 and 6,
Wednesday: 6 :30pm – 7:30pm – Years 7, 8 and 9 – 7:45pm – 8:45pm – Years 10 – 13
Cost: £25 (discount code available for residents of LL57 1 area)
Workshops are held mainly in Welsh. It is not essential to be fluent, and we welcome everyone of all language ability.
For more details email Mared: m.huws@bangor.ac.uk
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National Dance Company Wales host Dance For Parkinson’s
Dance for Parkinson’s classes are fun and informal.
Dance has been proven to develop confidence and strength, whilst temporarily relieving some participants of symptoms in everyday life. Classes are creative and promote feelings of freedom from the physical and social constraints of having Parkinson’s.
We are an Affiliated hub of English National Ballet’s Dance for Parkinson’s programme.
Classes are 90 minutes long, and all you’ll need is a chair.
English National Ballet’s Dance for Parkinson’s programme has been running since 2008. We are proud to be part of the Dance for PD membership, to support Dance for Parkinson’s Partnership and People Dancing and to have an affiliation with Parkinson’s UK. ENB’s national Dance for Parkinson’s programme enjoys close links with Parkinson’s UK and the European Parkinson’s Disease Association EPDA.
Dates
ONLINE: 25 January
ONLINE: 1 / 8 / 15 February
IN THE STUDIO: 1 / 8 / 15 / 22 / 29 March
