Yoko Ono is centre stage for refurbished Bluecoat opening

Feb 8 2008 by Vicky Anderson, Liverpool Daily Post

YOKO ONO will stage an exclusive performance as part of the opening season of the refurbished Bluecoat.

The newly-restored arts centre in Liverpool opens its doors to the public again with a celebratory weekend on Saturday, March 15.

It has been closed for three years as it underwent a major £12.5m refurbishment, including a new art wing with four galleries and a performance space which has already been lauded in architectural circles.

Yesterday the Bluecoat unveiled its opening season which will feature such high-profile performers and speakers as Jeanette Winterson, author of Oranges are Not the Only Fruit (March 15), poet Tom Paulin (March 16), and the first home town performance by Liverpool band Clinic for some eight years on April 2.

Yoko Ono will return to the Bluecoat – where she first performed in 1967 – with an exclusive hour-long performance, still in the planning stages, on Friday, April 4.

Her work will also feature in Now Then, the first exhibition at the Bluecoat featuring four other artists.

She said: “I fell in love with Liverpool the first time I went there as an artist. When I arrived, the first thing that caught my eyes was the beautiful, old elegance of the city by the water. Performing at the Bluecoat is an experience I’ve never forgotten.”

The programme at the Bluecoat will span the genres of art, performance and literature.

Chief executive Alastair Upton said: “The Bluecoat will be a living embodiment of all that we want it to be, where you can see creative talent on the cusp of national and international renown – the Turner Prize winners of tomorrow, leading new composers, choreographers, musicians, writers, craftspeople and artists of all kinds.

“Above all it will encourage, explain and endorse creativity. This is a building with a vision and its purpose is to make the process of art visible.”

Also over the opening weekend there will be performance art from Ranji Shah and a performance from the Steve Reid Ensemble featuring Keiren Hebden, known for his electronic one-man project Four Tet.

Tickets are now on sale for the above events at www.thebluecoat.org.uk – but there will be free performances over the opening weekend for visitors to enjoy, including Liverpool artist Philip Jeck who makes sound collages from the grooves of forgotten records and Sense of Sound, the Bluecoat’s resident acapella group, among others.

vickyanderson@dailypost.co.uk