Limelight, Saturday night, by Sans façon

Limelight, Saturday night, Arlington, Virginia

In 2010 in six cities across the UK and America, sidewalks were turned into impromptu stages by turning street lights into theatre spotlights. With its first African venue last month in Gaborone, Botswana, Limelight: Saturday night is continuing to tour and is set to visit 6 more cities this year .

The spotlight attracted the young and the old, solo performers and couples, family groups and folks out for a night on the town. Some avoided the limelight, slinking around its edge like jail breakers avoiding the watchtowers light, whilst others bathed in it whole-heartedly. Performances have been spontaneous, surprising, and often quite touching. They ranged from the hilarious, the tipsy, the tender and the skilful but above all the romantics hogged the limelight. Displays included all manner of dance moves, from graceful stag leaps to the robot dance, serenades and passionate canoodling. For some it was simply enough to stand basking in the warmth of the lights whilst other needed to display their physical strength and sporting prowess.

Limelight: Saturday night is a new live public art installation and video work by Glasgow based arts practice Sans façon. The simple intervention replaces two streetlights with theatre spotlights instantly transforming the street into a stage and passers-by into performers, somewhere between spectacle and surveillance. This intentionally subtle alteration to street lighting suggests the latent potential of public realm as places of interaction and offers an alternative approach to city’s lighting as more than securitarian.

Limelight: Saturday night started its 2011 tour in Gaborone, its first venue on the African continent. Past host cities in 2010: Glasgow’s Merchant City, Quayside in Newcastle, Church Street in Inverness, King’s Road London, Clarendon in Arlington, Virginia, Crossroads in Kansas City, Missouri. Scheduled host cities for 2011: Toronto (Canada), Istanbul (Turkey), Berlin (Germany), Miami (USA), Prague (Czech Republic), Frankfurt (Germany) and Buenos Aires (Argentina).

For more information on Limelight: Saturday night please visit the blog: www.limelightontour.blogspot.com

About Sans façon: Sans façon formed in 2001 as a collaborative art practice between a British artist, Tristan Surtees and a French architect, Charles Blanc. For more information please visit www.sansfacon.co.uk and www.sansfacondailyrecord.blogspot.com

For more information, hi-resolution images and interviews with the artists please contact Kerry Spring on ++(0)141 429 02432 / ++(0)7866 678 404 or email Kerry(at)sansfacon.co.uk

Commissioners: Limelight: Saturday night has been chosen to form part of a series of works commissioned to mark the launch of ARTISPHERE, a new visual and performing arts centre in Arlington VA, USA. For more information please visit www.arlingtonarts.org/venues/Artisphere.aspx

Limelight, Saturday night, Glasgow, Scotland