Entertainment
The Bristol Harbour Festival has a variety of entertainment from dance acts, interactive theatre, international circus acts and a mix of musicians. The Dance Village, programmed by Ashley Russell will be showcasing; The Netherlands Dance Company will be dancing a piece by Hans van Manen. The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre will be bringing a single dancer doing a solo piece by the company’s new artistic director Robert Battle. New York City Ballet will be performing a piece from Swan Lake as well as an excerpt from Stars and Stripes. The Bristol Old Vic is involved with the festival for the first time, with two specially commissioned performances ‘Run’ and ‘Fallen’ from The Bristol Old Vic’s Young Company. Cirque Bijou and the circus stage will now be based in Castle Park, the newest expansion to the festival. Mario Queen Of the Circus will also be performing, along with the Invisible Circus The Queen Square music stage is programmed by Colston Hall with headliners such asSt Pauls and St Georges Reggae Orchestra and Ska Cubano.
In 2009, Beth Rowley, The Hot 8 Brass Band, Sheelanagig, The Blessing and Phantom Limb appeared on the Queen Square Stage, programmed by Colston Hall and supported by Willmott Dixon. Let's Tea Party, Kid Carpet, Nuala and the Alchemy Quartet, The She Creatures, Natty, Barry Adamson and Alex Wilson's Uplifting Roots on the Amphitheatre Stage. Babel, Bobby Andersen and Slow made up some of the highlighted acts on the Cascade Steps stage. Locally sourced youth acts played on the Remix Stage, in the Mud Dock area of the harbour. The 2009 festival had a new 'Dance Village' which featured international and locally celebrated dance performers including two principal dancers from the Martha Graham Dance Company in New York. The Millennium Square Circus Stage programmed by Cirque Bijou featured Duo Ssens, a world class static trapeze act, local comperes Stickleback Plasticus and the Black Eagles, acrobats all the way from Tanzania. After parties took place at local venues including the Thekla and the Louisiana.
In 2012 the Bristol Harbour Festival attracted the biggest crowd to date with 300,000 people visiting the festival. The Irene and The Matthew were two of the tall ships to attend the Harbour Festival this year.
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