NEWS - PRESS RELEASES

Siobhan Logan during her visit to Tromso, December 2007.

Arctic Poetry In June

'Stories Drummed to Polar Skies' at the Richard Attenborough Centre, University of Leicester with Siobhan Logan.

Issued on 17 June 2008

Saturday June 28th 7.30 pm

Leicester in June is to be the setting for a unique event about the Northern Lights and life beyond the Arctic Circle. Stories and images from a trip to the arctic will feature in a new show, Stories Drummed to Polar Skies by Siobhan Logan at the University of Leicester Richard Attenborough Centre on Saturday June 28th at 7.30 pm.

Siobhan said: ‘We want to make our Leicester audience shiver under arctic skies and transport them to one of the last wildernesses.’

When local poet and teacher Siobhan Logan needed to research her poem sequence about the Northern Lights, she decided to turn to the experts in the Physics and Astronomy Department at the University of Leicester. Their Radio & Space Plasma Physics Group, which specialises in studying the aurora, supported Siobhan's visit to Tromso in Northern Norway in December 2007.

Professor Stan Cowley, of the University’s Radio & Space Plasma Physics Group said:

‘Science may tell us of the mechanisms of the auroras, but another language is required to express our reaction to the sight of flickering lights over frozen landscapes.’

In Tromso, Siobhan met auroral scientists and a Saami reindeer herder and got to see how life is changing in the Arctic today.

‘For a writer, it was such an inspiring place. I was interested in the myths indigenous Arctic people have created about the Northern Lights but also what the scientists can tell us about the aurora. I came back with my head full of the creatures, characters and stories of the north.’

Siobhan was asked to make a short film of the experience for the BBC Video Nation website. And subsequently, she was invited to perform some of her poems at a Northern Lights event at the Science Museum in London in March 2008. But the Leicester show at the Attenborough Centre will be the culmination of several years’ work.

The show will feature stunning photography of the Northern Lights and Saami music as well as Siobhan’s poems. She will be joined by well-known local writers and performers Chris D’Lacey, Rod Duncan and Maxine Linnell who will help to bring to life her stories of the arctic.

‘Stir into the mixture a green sari, 35 glowsticks, a Saami tent and a drum and you have the ingredients for a really fun show. And we’re performing in the wonderful theatre space of the Attenborough Centre,’ Siobhan added.

Tickets are available for £5 (concessions £3) from the Richard Attenborough Centre on: 0116 252 2455 or www.le.ac.uk/racentre .

Information about the forthcoming show and her Tromso trip can be found on Siobhan’s website at: www.siobhanlogan.co.uk . The BBC short film she made of her visit to Tromso can be viewed by clicking here .

Contact details: siobhan.logan1@ntlworld.com or phone 0116 299 6162