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Press Release
PRESS RELEASE – Friday 14th January 2022
WOW FESTIVAL LONDON 2022
FRIDAY 11 - SUNDAY 13 MARCH
WOW FESTIVAL LONDON PRESENTS PATRISSE CULLORS, ELIZABETH DAY, PANDORA SYKES AND MORE IN 2022
- PATRISSE CULLORS, CO-FOUNDER AND FORMER EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF THE BLACK LIVES MATTER GLOBAL NETWORK FOUNDATION, LAUNCHES AN ABOLITIONIST’S HANDBOOK:12STEPS TO CHANGING YOURSELF
- SUNDAY AFTERNOON WITH ELIZABETH DAY AND SPECIAL GUESTS
- LUCY KIRKWOOD’S MASTERPIECE MARYLAND DIRECTED BY VICKY FEATHERSTONE, MILLI BHATIA AND LUCY MORRISON
- LISA TADDEO AND PANDORA SYKES IN CONVERSATION ON WHAT HAPPENS WHEN WE ARE PUSHED TO THE BRINK
- FIGS IN WIGS REPRISE CRITICALLY ACCLAIMED LITTLE WIMMIN
- UNDER 10’s FEMINIST CORNER, WOW MARKETPLACE, THE URGENT CONVERSATION LED BY JUDE KELLY AND MORE
- PREVIOUSLY ANNOUNCED: MARIAN KEYES, WARSAN SHIRE, DEBORAH FRANCES-WHITE AND SUHAIYMAH MANZOOR-KHAN
- WOW - WOMEN OF THE WORLD’S 2022 LONDON FESTIVAL RUNS 11-13 MARCH AT THE SOUTHBANK CENTRE WITH TICKETS ON SALE NOW
WOW - Women of the World has announced headliners for its 2022 London Festival, which returns to the Southbank Centre from 11-13 March, supported by Bloomberg, to mark International Women’s Day. Led by Founder Jude Kelly, the London edition of the world’s biggest, most comprehensive festival celebrating women, girls and non-binary people is back in person after some of the toughest years in recent history for gender equality.
The line-up revealed today includes unmissable events with Black Lives Matter co-founder and former Executive Director, and TIME 100 most influential person Patrisse Cullors; author and broadcaster Elizabeth Day of the podcast phenomenon How to Fail; bestselling writers Lisa Taddeo and Pandora Sykes;Lucy Kirkwood’s searing, timely play Maryland, and a riotous festival finisher from Figs in Wigs - Little Wimmin - a brilliantly satirical adaptation of the Louisa May Alcott classic.
They join previously announced bestselling author Marian Keyes, poet Warsan Shire, comedian Deborah Frances-White, activist Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan, as well as The Urgent Conversation, a panel on the most pressing gender equality issues - with the timely programme and panel to be confirmed just ahead of the weekend.
On 11 March WOW will present Patrisse Cullors: An Abolitionist Journey, a very special evening where the New York Times Best-Selling author, Artist, Educator and Abolitionist will launch her groundbreaking second book, An Abolitionist’s Handbook: 12 Steps to Changing Yourself and the World.
The co-founder and former Executive Director of the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation has worked extensively supporting Black-led movements in the US, UK and Canada and now at this exclusive WOW event, Patrisse will discuss how everyday activists can get the tools to effectively fight for a world where communities are treated with dignity, care and respect. Leading with love, fierce compassion and precision, she reimagines what reparations look like for Black lives and offers an innovative approach on how to be a modern-day abolitionist. There will be over 100 tickets available at £10 for this special event.
Also on Friday evening, Lisa Taddeo, New York Times bestselling author of Three Women, will be in conversation with Pandora Sykes, podcaster, journalist and author of Sunday Times bestseller How Do We Know We're Doing It Right?. The US and UK literary legends come together to discuss what happens when we are pushed to the brink. Lisa’s latest book, Animal explores the impact of a male-dominated society and what the legacy of its impact might be. In this intimate chat in the Queen Elizabeth Hall, the writers will explore the animal that dwells within us all, threatening to emerge when pushed to the edges of endurance.
On Sunday afternoon Elizabeth Day, presenter of the chart-topping podcast How to Fail and author of the Sunday Times bestseller How to Fail: Everything I’ve Ever Learned From Things Going Wrong, will be joined by a line-up of very special guests on the Royal Festival Hall stage for Sunday Afternoon at WOW with Elizabeth Day. They’ll share their highs and lows, loves, challenges and failures in this WOW special.
WOW Festival will also present performances as part of the 2022 line-up. On Sunday afternoon WOW will present a script-in-hand performance of Lucy Kirkwood’s Maryland, in partnership with the Royal Court Theatre, where it premiered to sold out audiences in autumn 2021.
Kirkwood’s play is an urgent, extraordinary, communal rallying cry in response to the normalising of horrific actions being committed against all women and victims of gendered violence. This reprised performance is co-directed by Milli Bhatia, Vicky Featherstone and Lucy Morrison, and will be followed by a panel discussion with members of the creative team.
On Sunday evening the glorious, uproarious Figs in Wigs will reprise their critically acclaimed feminist ‘adaptation’ of Louisa May Alcott's classic novel Little Women - Little Wimmin. Wild, absurdit and satirical, Little Wimmin dismantles the traditional canon, poking fun at the traditions of theatre and ‘the classics’. The cast of five women transform the novel into a darkly funny and thought-provoking show with their distinctive punky perspective.
There also be music across the weekend as part of WOW’s ongoing WOW Sounds programme showcasing incredible women, girls and non-binary musicians. Indonesian Muslim all-girl rock band Voice of Baceprot (VOB) will be WOW's first ever digital artist in residence. The band formed in 2014 when they started using music to raise awareness of the lack of education for girls in their communities. As part of their digital residency, supported by the British Council, the acclaimed band will create new work and music videos about gender equality to perform at the festival online. They join the previously announced WOW London 2022 Artist-in-Residence Miss Baby Sol.
Other speaker highlights that have previously been announced include: the internationally bestselling author of some of the most widely loved, genre-defying novels of the past thirty years Marian Keyes, who will be in discussion about Again, Rachel, her eagerly awaited sequal to Rachel’s Holiday; award-winning Somali British poet and activist and celebrated collaborator on Beyoncé’s Lemonade and Black Is KingWarsan Shire, who will launch her long-awaited first full-length poetry collection Bless the Daughter Raised by a Voice in Her Head in a London exclusive; The Guilty Feminist host Deborah Frances-White with some of her most personal ever “I’m a feminist but…” confessions; writer, poet and activist, Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan launching her new book, Tangled in Terror: Uprooting Islamophobia; and The Urgent Conversation, WOW’s response to the most up to date and recent happenings that affect gender equality in societies around the world. The line-up of speakers and topics of discussion will be decided just before the event to ensure it’s absolutely current.
WOW London 2022 will see the return of many other WOW favourites including the free-to-explore WOW Marketplace and the sold-out Under 10’s Feminist Corners, which invite children to explore equality and discover what life is like for their peers across the world.
The festival’s day programme, final events and a digital programme accessible worldwide will be announced in the coming weeks.
Run by UK charity The WOW Foundation, 2022 is the 12th WOW London Festival. In 2018, WOW Founder Jude Kelly built on the success of the festival to create UK-based charity The WOW Foundation to run the global WOW movement that believes a gender equal world is urgently needed, possible and desirable. Since the inaugural London Festival in 2011, WOW and its partners across the world have reached more than three million people in more than 100 festivals and events across six continents. You can get inspired by listening here to the second series of the WoW Podcast, which celebrates the achievements of women and girls and takes a frank look at the obstacles in their way. Other recent events include November’s first ever WOW Festival in Taiwan, WOW Kaohsiung, and Shameless! Festival of Actvism Against Sexual Violence in London, a co-produced festival by WOW and Birckbeck University of London’s SHaME project to address the global crisis of sexual violence.
Details of more 2022 WOW Festivals across the world, including the return of WOW Virtual Pakistan in March and the first ever WOW Rotherham, will be announced shortly.
The WOW Foundation is proudly supported by its Global Founding Partner Bloomberg, and Global Partner Mastercard.
ENDS
IMAGES
Images are available here.
LISTINGS
11 – 13 March, Southbank Centre
Under 10’s Feminist Corners (SOLD OUT)
Sat 10.30am for girls aged 6-7 years old
Sat 1.30pm for girls aged 8-10 years old
Sat 4.30pm for boys aged 8-10 years old
Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan: Tangled In Terror
Friday 11 March
8.30pm-10pm, £10
Purcell Room at Queen Elizabeth Hall (BSL)
Lisa Taddeo & Pandora Sykes in Conversation
Friday 11 March
6.30pm, £25
Queen Elizabeth Hall
Patrisse Cullors: An Abolitionist Journey
Friday 11 March
7pm-8pm, £10, £18, £28, £38
Royal Festival Hall (BSL & STT)
The Urgent Conversation
Saturday 12 March
6.15pm-7.45pm, £10
Purcell Room at Queen Elizabeth Hall (BSL)
Marian Keyes at WOW: Again, Rachel
Saturday 12 March
6pm-7.30pm, £25
Queen Elizabeth Hall (BSL)
Warsan Shire at WOW: Bless the Daughter
Saturday 12 March
8.30pm-10pm, £25
Queen Elizabeth Hall (BSL)
Deborah Frances-White Stands Up at WOW
Saturday 12 March
9pm-10.30pm, £22
Purcell Room at Queen Elizabeth Hall (BSL)
Sunday 13 March
2pm-3.30pm, £15
Queen Elizabeth Hall
Sunday Afternoon with Elizabeth Day at WOW
Sunday 13 March
4pm-5.30pm, £18, £28, £38
Royal Festival Hall (BSL & STT)
Little Wimmin
Sunday 13 March
7pm-9pm, £25
Queen Elizabeth Hall
NOTES TO EDITORS
About The WOW Foundation
The WOW Foundation was created by Jude Kelly CBE in 2018 to run the global movement that is WOW - Women of the World Festivals. The Festivals began in the UK in 2010, launched by Kelly at the Southbank Centre London, where she was Artistic Director, to celebrate women and girls, taking a frank look at what prevents them from achieving their potential, raising awareness globally of the issues they face, and discussing solutions together.
To date, WOW has reached over 3 million people in 30 locations on six continents, in locations including Australia, Brazil, China, Egypt, Finland, Nepal, Nigeria, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Somaliland, the UK and the USA. In 2018/19 WOW was in Rio de Janeiro, Cardiff, Bradford, Bangladesh, Brisbane, Janakpur (Nepal), Baltimore, London, Exeter, Norwich, Perth, Beijing, Ghana and Nigeria. In June 2020, WOW held its first ever worldwide online festival focused on women and girls — WOW Global 24. The festival travelled around the world everywhere from the UK to Nigeria, and Pakistan to Australia exploring the intersectional impact of COVID-19 on gender inequality, and responding to Black Lives Matter. In 2021, WOW’s first ever sold out Shameless! Festival of Activism Against Sexual Violence took place, co-organised with Birkbeck’s SHaME project.
Over the last 10 years the Festivals have developed a reputation as a space for world renowned artists, activists, thinkers and performers including Angela Davis, Malala Yousafzai, Annie Lennox, Patrick Stewart, Baroness Doreen Lawrence and Salma Hayek, to come and participate, alongside thousands of women and girls who don’t have public profiles but are doing amazing things. WOW provides platforms for people of all kinds, changes attitudes, brings communities together and provides a unique space for people to work together towards gender equality in their own communities. One example of the impact of the festival came in 2015, with the founding of the Women’s Equality Party by Sandi Toksvig and Catherine Mayer.
In 2018 Kelly left the Southbank Centre to run The WOW Foundation full time as a charity working to build, convene and sustain a global movement that believes a gender equal world is possible and desirable through festivals and empowering women and girls. The unique festival model creates numerous pathways for participants to take part in WOW projects, amplify their own causes, or start new initiatives which have a wide impact on communities. It is the biggest, most comprehensive and most significant festival dedicated to presenting work by women and promoting equality for women and girls.
WOW festivals and events are presented by arrangement with the Southbank Centre.
The President of WOW - Women of the World is HRH The Duchess of Cornwall.
About Bloomberg
Bloomberg – the global business, financial information and news leader – is a founding supporter of WOW - Women of the World Festivals. Bloomberg has long supported organisations and causes that advance gender equality and seek to address challenges women face around the world, from maternal and reproductive health to women’s economic empowerment and inspiring the new generation of female leaders. Bloomberg has proudly supported WOW Festivals since 2012 www.bloomberg.com/women
About the Southbank Centre
The Southbank Centre is the UK’s largest arts centre occupying a prominent riverside location that sits in the midst of London’s most vibrant cultural quarter on the South Bank of the Thames. We exist to present great cultural experiences that bring people together and we achieve this by providing the space for artists to create and present their best work and by creating a place where as many people as possible can come together to experience bold, unusual and eye-opening work. We want to take people out of the everyday, every day. The site has an extraordinary creative and architectural history stretching back to the 1951 Festival of Britain. The Southbank Centre is made up of the Royal Festival Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall, Purcell Room and Hayward Gallery as well as being home to the National Poetry Library and the Arts Council Collection. It is also home to four Resident Orchestras (London Philharmonic Orchestra, Philharmonia Orchestra, London Sinfonietta and Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment) and four Associate Orchestras (Aurora Orchestra, BBC Concert Orchestra, Chineke! Orchestra and National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain).