DaDa Welcomes Artists and Audiences to Bluecoat Weekender

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DaDaFest is set to take over the Bluecoat this weekend with a busy programme of events and activities as part of the 2025 festival. The Bluecoat Weekender will take place on Saturday and Sunday, 22-23 March, at the historic School Lane site.

The ‘weekender’ is a core part of the wider DaDaFest International 40 (DDFI40) which runs from 8-31 March and celebrates DaDa’s 40th anniversary. The theme of this year’s festival is Rage: A Quiet Riot!

Award-winning Deaf and disability-led arts organization DaDa has called the Bluecoat its home since 2008 and has welcomed many disabled artists to the Liverpool arts venue during that time.

The Bluecoat Weekender brings together a host of events and activities including art installation Painting With Light, Zack Mennell’s Rage Reactor, Dora Colquhoun’s Would You Like a Seat?, storytelling with Natalie Denny and pop-up poetry with Amina Atiq.

DaDa Chief Executive and artist Zoe Partington is Painting in Light at venues across the Liverpool City Region throughout the festival, including the Bluecoat. Her light sculptures convey stories, messages and insights into disabled people’s struggles in a world where society still excludes them from the mainstream.

The Bluecoat Performance Space is the venue for Rage Reactor. Open from 11am to 5pm on both Saturday and Sunday, the event sees artist Zack Mennell working with an archive of NHS and DWP letters and with family photos to create a commissioned installation alongside three performances over the two days which combine poetic explorations of childhood trauma with the trauma the civil nuclear industry enacts on the land.

Live activations will take place between 1.30-2.30pm on 22 March and noon-1pm and 3.30-4.30pm on 23 March.

The Bluecoat Garden hosts an interactive performance from neurodivergent theatre maker Dora Colquhoun on Saturday, 22 March, where the fictional National Bureau for Sitting (NBFS) will assess members of the public to see whether they can take a seat in a very comfortable Chesterfield chair.

Deaf author Natalie Denny leads DaDaFest International 40 Storytime at The Bluecoat Festival Hub from 11am-noon on 22 March where she will share her much loved ‘Keisha Jones’ series.

And Amina Atiq will present Pop Up Poetry in the Bluecoat Garden and Courtyard on Sunday, 23 March, with specially developed work reflecting on the festival theme RAGE performed alongside some of her existing poems.

Meanwhile DaDaFest@Bluecoat, running until 31 March, is an archive exhibition which charts festivals, events and exhibitions hosted at the School Lane arts centre.

There will also be a DDFI40 Festival Hub and Quiet Space in the Bluecoat Bistro which will be open to both artists and audiences throughout the weekend for networking, informal meetings or simply to take time out.

And the Bluecoat Festival Hub is the venue for Ignite 1:1 Artist Advice Sessions with Arts Council England on 23 March, with Deaf, disabled or neurodivergent creatives or organisations able to access the in-person advice from an ACE Relationship Manager. Drop in between midday and 5pm, BSL interpretation available between 2 and 4 pm.

All the events during the Bluecoat Weekender are free to attend.

DaDa, founded in 1984, develops and presents excellent disability and Deaf arts through an artistic programme that includes high quality festivals, interventions and events, fed in to by a year-round programme of engagement work with developing and established artists, young disabled, Deaf and neurodivergent people, their families and the wider community.

DaDaFest, which was launched in 2001, showcases the work of disabled, Deaf and neurodivergent artists.

The not-for-profit arts organisation has also just launched a new podcast with BBC Radio Merseyside’s Tom Walker, titled Power Not Pity, with the first episode seeing him visit The Bluecoat to talk about DaDaFest International 40, DaDa’s historic relationship with the School Lane venue and the new DaDa@Bluecoat retrospective exhibition.

DaDa’s chief executive Zoe Partington says: “We’ve enjoyed a fantastic DaDaFest so far and have had some amazing responses both from our audiences and from the many artists we are working with as part of this memorable DDFI40.

“This Bluecoat Weekender remains a hugely important part of the festival. We have a busy programme of events and activities planned over the day on Saturday and Sunday, including performances, exhibitions and installations, and I’m delighted that every event being held here this weekend is free to access.

“The Bluecoat has been our home for almost 20 years and over that time, influenced by DaDa, the venue has revolutionized representation of disabled artists and audiences within its own practice and programming. The relationship between The Bluecoat and DaDa remains a hugely rewarding one and is celebrated in the exhibition that runs throughout the festival.”