Green Man festival have today shared their updated music lineup alongside the incredible lineups for Talking Shop, Last Laugh and Cinedrome, as well as four exciting visual arts commissions. The news follows the announcement in July that they will be going ahead this year from 19-22nd August, returning to the magical surroundings of the Black Mountains, deep in the heart of the Brecon Beacons for its 19th year to a sold out audience.
The phenomenal Tirzah will now be headlining Green Man’s opening night on Thursday 19 August, and will be joined across the weekend by new additions Ghostpoet, Nubiyan Twist, Dream Wife, Lynks, Honeyglaze, Ibibio Sound Machine and Shovel Dance Collective. Unfortunately, due to Covid-related complications, Little Dragon, Puma Blue, Viagra Boys, Marisa Anderson and The Maytals Band will no longer be able to perform. Another fantastic addition to the Green Man 2021 lineup and set to grace the epic Mountain Stage is Teddy Hunter – winner of the Green Rising competition after beating off competition from 3,000 hopefuls and over 30,000 votes. The Cardiff based audio visual artist and alternative musician takes root in sonic arts, the environment and the gentle immersive ambience combined with songwriting and traditional instrumentation – her performances slowly unfurling fragmented strata of sounds collectively entwining with the ethereal humanity of layered vocals.
Alongside the music, there is so much to explore across the sprawling Green Man festival fields, including art, science, comedy, spoken word performances, talks and more. The festival are this year pleased to announce four new commissions by visual artists working with moving-image, video Augmented & Virtual Reality (AR&VR), and projection mapping, with artists Gweni Llwyd, Freya Dooley, Beth Kettel, and Kristina Pulejkova each exhibiting new and significantly reconfigured work over the four days.
As we sit between a global pandemic and a climate crisis, these four artists are looking deeply at the natural world, its systems and structures with each work seeking to communicate through the festival environment, creating a new fictional reality within the larger temporary city of Green Man. The commissions are supported by Arts Council England, Arts Council Wales and Green Man Trust. Beth Kettel’s work is a co-commission with Forma.
Green Man’s Babbling Tongues stage salutes the glory of the spoken word. Home to Talking Shop by day, providing a fine medley of literature, talks and musical debates – and Last Laugh comedy by night. Today, they have announced this year’s lineup.
Across the weekend, Nadine Shah is in conversation with Jude Rogers; Stephanie Phillips, lead singer of feminist punk band Big Joanie and author of Why Solange Matters and Kate Solomon whose 2020 debut told the story of Amy Winehouse join Michelle Kambasha to explore the creative and cultural reach of two remarkable musicians; The Poet Laureate, shed-owner and LYR frontman, Simon Armitage, joining Green Man to discuss poetry, podcasting, music, and 30 years as one of the country’s most celebrated writers; Anita Sethi will be discussing identity, place, nature, and how she turned the horror of a racist attack on a TransPennine train into her Wainwright Prize-nominated memoir; Ash Kenazi presents The Pink Room: a live podcast recording with Self Esteem; Chilly Gonzales will explore his great and unapologetic love for the music of Enya; and much more.
Last Laugh’s 2021 lineup includes Chloe Petts, Alex Kealy, Leo Reich, Esyllt Sears, Erika Ehler, Alasdair Beckett King, Stuart Laws, Jen Ives, Barbara Nice, Kiri Pritchard Mclean, Frank Foucault, Charlie George, Robin Morgan, Chris Beets, Ania Magliano, Yuriko Kotani, Tarot, Lauren Stone, Hannah Platt, Cerys Bradley, Mark Olver, Olga Koch, Helen Bauer, Sunil Patel, Jordan Brookes, Ola Labib, Stuart Goldsmith, Ray Badran, Danny Clives, Rob Deering, Tadiwa Mahlunge, Jessica Fostekew, Toussaint Douglass, Leila Navabi, Priya Hall, Gavin Osborn and Rich Wilson.
Other areas of the festival include its own Welsh Beer Festival to enjoy a crisp Welsh pint of Growler, a prehistoric / Land Before Little Folk themed area of discovery and exploration for the ‘little folk’, DJ, busking and crafting workshops for teenagers in the Somewhere area.
Another popular area of Green Man’s diverse festival is Einstein’s Garden where you can grab those lab goggles and get down and groovy with all kinds of mind-boggling scientific installations, from wildlife walks to crazy experiments and talks in the Omni Tent and Workshop Dome – both fully powered by hydrogen fuel cells. Meanwhile, on the solar-powered Solar Stage, music, comedy, and theatre get a scientific twist, with performances that are impossible to predict and guaranteed to get your imagination whirring.
The Omni Tent will host Is Monogamy Dead? With award-winning comedian Rosie Wilby; Beeology – a comedic and heartwarming circus and theatre movement-based show inspired by bees and exploring our future; Vagina Museum Presents: Bajingo Bingo; and much more. Meanwhile, The Solar Stage welcomes Ensonglopedia with award-winning comedy science songwriter, John Hinton, presenting an electrifying mix of peer reviewed musical mayhem; Convince your MP to take climate action – a workshop to empower you to lobby your MP; winner of the White Review Poet’s Prize in 2021 Kandace Siobhan Walker will be reciting poetry and short stories; and much more. Elsewhere, The Workshop Dome will house The Doors of Perception where you’ll explore how your brain develops to process the world; Meditate on this: moving meditation where festivalgoers can learn about the science of meditation and the mind-body connection; Bug Box Building to get stuck into making a home for insects that you can take away with you and Anatomical Body Painting where you can join the Anatomical Society to paint bones, ligaments and muscles on your own body.
Among the hills and glades of Green Man, in their film tent ‘Cinedrome’ you can fly away to lands far and wide, from the exotic to the out-of-this-world and bathe in the flicker of cult classics, family favourites, the weird, wonderful, and divine. All weekend long Green Man will show a fine selection of movies including Crock of Gold, Sound of Metal, Poly Styrene: I Am A Cliche, The Witches of the Orient, Black Bear, Sisters with Transistors, Mandabi, Gagarine, The Story of Looking, The Great Green Wall, Dogtanian and the Three Muskehounds, Moonbound, Night of the Kings, The Toll (plus Q&A with director Ryan Hooper, Sweetheart, Jazz On A Summer’s Day, Mary and the Witch’s Flower, Wildfire, White Riot , Lady Boss, Gunda, Horrible Histories: Rotten Romans, Ainbo: Spirit of the Amazon.
The safety of ticket-holders, artists, crew and everyone who comes to Green Man is their first priority, therefore anyone over the age of 16 attending the festival site will have to demonstrate they have received a negative NHS Lateral Flow Test within 48hrs prior to their arrival, or demonstrate that they have received 2 vaccinations at least 14 days prior to their arrival.
We can’t wait!
