Fierce! Festival has established an international reputation for risk-taking, excellence and innovation and is now widely recognised as one of the UK’s most important contemporary arts festivals. It has consistently engaged new audiences with a broadening programme, delivered in conjunction with a wide variety of producing and presenting partners including Warwick Arts Centre, Birmingham Hippodrome, Birmingham Rep, Compton Verney, Birmingham Royal Ballet, and the CBSO.
Fierce Festival was founded by one of the UK’s leading producers, Mark Ball, in 1998. In 2007, Fierce Ten marked the Festival’s 10th birthday with major collaborations with the cultural institutions of the West Midlands including “Ballet on the Buses” with Birmingham Royal Ballet, the live “Sky Orchestra” with Luke Jerram and CBSO and Joshua Sofaer’s iconic project “Name in Lights”.
In 2008, Fierce! scored another world first with Myfiercefestival: the first time a major strand of a festival was curated by the public. Following a call out for artists to present their work to the world at large via their website; the final line up was chosen by public vote. The nine selected works were presented in a range of specially reserved spaces including Birmingham Hippodrome, Patrick Centre, Warwick Arts Centre and Birmingham Town Hall. From studios to conventional performance spaces, to foyers, cupboards, dressing rooms and spaces on the roads, pavements and piazzas outside, an eclectic range of work was shown to a sell-out audience of Fierce! fans.
In 2009, following an extensive search which attracted international interest, Fierce! Festival announced the appointment of its new artistic leaders, Laura McDermott and Harun Morrison as the new Joint Artistic Directors of Fierce! Festival and its related year round programme of work. Talented producers in their own right, with highly developed curatorial voices, between them McDermott and Morrison have worked as producers at Greenwich + Dockland’s Festivals, LIFT, the Royal Opera House and Battersea Arts Centre (BAC).
