Community Cavalcade

Come and see Hartlepool’s Community Cavalcade! A spectacular mobile performance consisting of multi-art form elements, such as stunning Physical Theatre performances, a sensational Samba Sea Shanty and a dazzling Carnival routine. The Cavalcade also features breathtaking costumes and structures.

Taking the theme of ‘Hartlepool Maritime Monsters, Myths & Magic’, the performances link together and tell four Hartlepool folk tales and legends:

• ‘The Flight of St Bega’ - the mythical tale of Hartlepool's first saint, a virgin who fled a forced marriage in Ireland sailing across the Irish Sea where she was shipwrecked at Cumbria - She was supposed to be the first ever nun in Britain and performed a beautiful snow miracle.
• ‘No More Frying Bacon’ - the comic tale from Elizabethan times when the mayor of Hartlepool confiscated every frying pan in the town on the apparent orders of the Queen who in fact had said that there should be ‘no more firing of the beacon!’
• ‘The Great Gale of 1861’ - the fierce storm in February 1861 when 80 ships were wrecked off the Hartlepool coast and the dramatic rescue attempt of the Rising Sun.
• ‘The Friar's Curse’ - the medieval story of a naughty boy who played a trick on the Franciscan monks on the Headland but the monks got their revenge by putting an unbreakable curse on the town of Hartlepool - that it should have no trees!

There will be over 300 people from across Hartlepool taking part in this spectacular procession, from a range of schools, Hartlepool 6th Form College, Cleveland College of Art and Design, community groups and Handprint Art Studio.

The groups have been working since the beginning of the year with artists building upon their skills and perfecting their performances for your enjoyment.

See the Cavalcade on Saturday July 4th which opens this summer’s major event, Hartlepool Dockfest 09.

Click here for the weekend schedule