This year's London 2012 Open Weekend, supported by BP, will take place this weekend (22-24 July), marking the countdown to one year to go to the Olympic and Paralympic Games.
The London 2012 Open Weekend aims to showcase the best of what the UK has to offer in art, dance, film and sport. As part of Open Weekend 2011, there will be a raft of free family activities in and around West Midlands.
The centre of Birmingham will be buzzing with Jamaica Live!, a pop-up festival celebrating the Jamaica team’s visit to the city in 2012. Expect good times and good food with special guests Levi Roots, the Reggae Philharmonic Orchestra, Birmingham gospel sensation Monique and many more.
Pop around the corner to Chamberlain Square and find Circus in the City, a colourful array of circus activities with No Fit State circus and the Birmingham Hippodrome.
Also in Birmingham city centre Dancexchange launch their Outdoor Dance Programme with Breathe the Beat, inviting passers by to learn a new hip hop dance from French sensation Salah.
In Worcestershire, Rosie Kay Dance Company brings the Severn Valley Railway to life with The Great Train Dance, a large-scale dance event performed on the train and inspired by a Hitchcock thriller.
Central Youth Theatre brings some Glamour and Romance to Wolverhampton in special previews of the Everybody Dance Now Festival.
Coventry will experience outdoor theatre in unexpected places in Talking Birds’ The Q.
Audiences in Telford can enjoy an afternoon picnic at Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Park, a free concert of classical music for all the family.
Staffordshire plays host to an Anglo-Saxon Relay, a celebration of the Staffordshire Hoard as it tours between Stafford, Tamworth and Lichfield. A rider on horseback will take a flame to the three towns, with Anglo-Saxon events in each venue.
And in The Great West Midlands Poetry Relay, ten poets will create a poem in ten parts over a day, travelling around the West Midlands, passing the poetry baton and culminating in a grand release where the finished poem will be carried away by a flock of racing pigeons.
Around 60 events are expected to take place across the region in Open Weekend 2011 – set to be the biggest and best yet.
Open Weekend 2011 follows the success of the past three previous years, in which over 2.4 million people across the UK unleashed their creativity across a series of sporting, art and cultural activities in celebration of the countdown to the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.
Full listings can be found at http://www.london2012.com/open-weekend