Coventry City of Culture: Six participants for signature event revealed.

Six people have been chosen to play a starring role in the signature event of Coventry City of Culture.

The six will take on the role of the Energies of the city, they have been selected to represent the personality of Coventry and introduce some of the themes that will be explored across Coventry’s year as City of Culture.

Coventry Moves is taking place on the 5th June.

The six taking part are;

Kare Agendan - Resilience

Kare is a T34 Wheelchair Athlete and Paralympian.

RESILIENCE is the city's ability to rise up from the challenges that confront it. Going beyond simply rebuilding homes and roads after the destruction of warfare, instead building back better, creating a template for a better world – a new Cathedral built next to the ruins of the old as a permanent symbol of rebirth; a Utopian vision for a contemporary city.

And now a city using culture to come together again and build back after a global pandemic.

Sue Bent - Social Justice

Sue Bent is CEO of Central England Law Centre, a Coventry-based charity that employs solicitors and advisors to provide free, independent advice and representation.

She represents the spirit of SOCIAL JUSTICE which is found in Coventry today and throughout its history, from Lady Godivas protest against the unjust taxation of the city’s poor, the workers movements associated with the factories and workshops, or the democratisation movement throughout the globe that came with the mass-production bicycles in the city.

John Bernard - Youthfulness

John Bernard is a poet & rapper based in Coventry.

The YOUTHFULNESS of the city can be found in its curiosity and the refusal of generations of young people to accept the way that things were done before. It lies in its tradition of youth music - Two Tone, Rave, The Enemy and Jay 1, and street culture of skateboarding and parkour.

Pauline Black - Sustainability

Pauline Black is the lead singer of acclaimed Two Tone band The Selecter.

She represents SUSTAINABILITY, which reminds us to connect with our origins, with the land that we come from, to live well with it, to put back as much as we take, to be guardians of the earth’s resource for future generations.

For Coventry Moves, Black will perform a new song with the World Song Choir with orchestration by the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra.

It has been written specially for the event composed by Unamay Olomaiye and Sibongile Mkoba, and lyrics and melody created through workshops with a group of residents from Spon End.

Navin Kundra - People Power

Navin Kundra is a singer, songwriter, actor and live performer.

Representing the PEOPLE POWER of Coventry, who built and rebuilt the city, and made its famous watches and bikes. A thriving manufacturing hub and the UK’s motor city, people travelled from around the world to live and work in Coventry, enriching the life of the city through the food, language and cultures they brought with them.

Coventry is known around the world as a city of welcome and a city of sanctuary, a theme that is explored across its year as City of Culture.

Daniel Lismore - Innovation

Daniel Lismore is a London & Coventry based artist.

He represents the Coventry's spirit of INNOVATION, which stems from the evolution of its industries – from ribbons to watches to sewing machines to bicycles to cars to the jet engine. This inventive spirit inspired a brave new vision for a post-war utopia – twinning cities to bring together ordinary people for dialogue rather than conflict; creating Theatre in Education, which provided access to the arts for every child in the city; and pioneers such as the composer Delia Derbyshire.

Justine Themen, Director of Coventry Moves said:

“In creating our event, we wanted to tangibly represent and celebrate the unique spirit of our city. Working with six young artists, we drew on work with communities to shape six Energies that are woven into the fabric of Coventry’s identity - Social Justice, Innovation, Youthfulness, People Power, Resilience and Sustainability.

We commissioned local writers to encapsulate these energies in words, and are delighted to also be working with an extraordinary range of Coventry talent through the people playing these Energies - people making waves in our world through activism, sport, words, creativity, and music - who capture the city’s spirit in their day-to-day.”

During the event the Energies will perform in live segments for digital content that will be broadcast throughout the day, with Pauline Black performing a new song written for the event at the start of the day.

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