Nineties street chic has arrived on the Belfast arts scene. Scritti Politti, a new festival of street arts, will delve into the hip hop dance culture, aiming to use the creative energies of young people in the city. The festival is setting out to celebrate the zest and spontaneity of alternative art forms and explore how street idioms such as graffiti art can be used in a style unique to Belfast, explains festival organiser Fintan Brady, a member of Belfast Community Theatre.
"What we're interested in as community arts workers is to look at how our experience can be translated into art forms and the bottom line with that is it has to challenge, it has to be exciting and interesting and even scary for people."
Belfast is a city strewn with political murals and graffiti which - although often highly artistic - tends to reproduce the same, staid dogma. The organisers hope the festival will generate graffiti art that acts as a short, sharp, shock to jolt the thinking of the onlooker.
Professional graffiti artists from Paris, Amsterdam and Edinburgh will run masterclasses for 16 to 25-year-olds in the Crescent Arts Centre. Such artists were keen to get involved. "We're labelled as a country of conflict," says Tara Jenkins of BCT, "and that's where they like to work, to sense the tensions in an area that they can then put into their work."
The focal point of the week will be the creation of an aerosol mural on Belfast's lower Ormeau Road - a flashpoint during the summer marching season. The lower Ormeau community has already been involved in discussions on the themes of the mural. The artists will also travel to communities in the greater Belfast area, using a converted mobile advertising unit to run graffiti art workshops.
Other elements of the festival include breakdancing master-classes by the Glasgow Floor Freaks and Belfast City Breakers, mixing and sampling masterclasses by UK hip hop DJ Ollie Teeba and Belfast's Propulse and masterclasses in visuals and video using the latest digital technology. All masterclasses are free and open to anyone aged 16 to 25.
The festival closes on a celebratory note with two club nights pulling together the DJs, breakdancers and graffiti artists involved throughout the week. The organisers hope the festival will generate ideas and motivate young artists to carry our projects in their own community, painting a positive image of Belfast as a creative and vibrant city.
The Scritti Politti Festival of Street Arts takes place on August 25th-30th at the Crescent Arts Centre, Belfast and various venues throughout the city. Masterclass places should be booked through the Crescent Arts Centre on 08 01232 242338