Aroundtown Magazine May June 2023 edition

OUT & ABOUT
A festival with the
WOW factor
This June, Rotherham town centre
will host a festival of colour, conversation and
culture as WOW Women of the World Festival
Rotherham returns for a second year.
After the success of last year’s
inaugural event, WOW Rotherham,
which celebrates women, girls, and
non-binary people, is back with a
new location on Saturday 10th June.
The town centre will become a
festival hub, with a variety of free
creative workshops, performances,
and talks taking place in All Saints
Square and various venues on High
Street and Imperial Buildings.
At the heart of the festival will
be the WOW Marketplace in the
Minster Gardens, with a mix of stalls
from female-led businesses selling
everything from spices to slogan
t-shirts.
WOW Rotherham is part of
the worldwide WOW Festival
movement, the biggest and most
comprehensive festival dedicated
to women, girls, and non-binary
people. It celebrates their
achievements while also looking
closely at what barriers are still
preventing them from achieving their
full potential.
Inspired by the positive impact
of last year’s event, a host of
businesses have signed up to be
part of WOW Rotherham 2023.
Venues including Hygge @ Rise
community cafe, The Ministry coffee
shop, Broadway Diner, Riverside
Records, Society hair salon, and
Holy Ghost Tattoo Collective will be
getting involved in a whole range
of creative ways, from hosting talks
and performances, to curating
window displays and sharing special
food offers throughout the day.
Listen and learn about some of
the most pressing issues impacting
gender equality, such as parenting
and childcare, work and skills,
diversity and a warm welcome,
body positivity, gender identity
and sexuality, and mental health
and wellbeing.
WOW Rotherham is a chance
for everyone to share their stories
and discuss solutions to change the
world for the women of tomorrow.
This year’s festival is about being
inclusive and having conversations,
with pockets of joy and inspiration
for all ages. Throughout the day
there will be an art trail featuring a
variety of outdoor performances.
Serving up warm words from
their burger van will be Poetry
Takeaway, the world’s first mobile
poetry emporium, who will be
delivering poetry workshops to whet
your creative writing appetite.
Be enthralled by Mimbre
acrobatic theatre as their female
performers explore what it means
when one body is carried by another
in their touring show, Lifted.
A generation is on the move, and
it will be time to get into the groove
as Compact Disco dances into town
with their oversized disco ball made
entirely from old CDs. Request a
song from your discotheque era
that makes you jump back
into boogie wonderland.
And don’t forget to take your
seat for a musical moment like
no other as Bootworks Theatre
Company present The JukeBoxes,
featuring slapstick versions of
famous singers re-creating classic
pop music videos in a lip-syncing
musical medley.
Tasked with bringing people
together is community producer,
Noor Salih who has been working
alongside community groups and
independent businesses to create a
festival Rotherham can be proud of.
WOW Rotherham has also seen a
team of trainee festival makers aged
between 16-25 get involved as part
of the WOWsers programme which
aims to help tackle the challenges of
gender inequality through arts and
creative careers.
Saturday 10th June
A free event dedicated to
women, girls, and non-binary
people
Creative workshops,
performances, talks and
live music at venues across
Rotherham Town Centre
WOW Marketplace in the
Minster Gardens
For more information, follow
@WOWRotherham on
Facebook or visit
wow.fluxrotherham.org.uk
Brought to you by Flux
Rotherham, RMBC Events, and
Children’s Capital of Culture
in partnership with The WOW
Foundation.
28 aroundtownmagazine.co.uk