Groundwork Festival celebrates the summer solstice with a dance on a Cornish beach

Cornwall’s new Groundwork Festival brings a changing programme of international art to locations around the Lizard Peninsula throughout this summer. There is a particular emphasis on moving image, sound and performance, with works currently on show including Janet Cardiff’s walkthrough musical soundscape The Forty Part Motet (2001) in a redundant Penzance church; Christina Mackie’s sculptural and video installation in The King’s Room of the historic Godolphin House; and a new film commission by the Dutch artist Manon de Boer in an ancient Cornish farmstead above the Helford River. This weekend (22-24 June), the action also goes shoreside as 30 women—trained dancers from Cornwall, the rest of the UK and beyond—take part in a dramatic new work developed especially for Par Beach, near St Austell by choreographer Rosemary Lee. Free and open to all there will be three performances: Friday and Saturday night and Sunday morning: the perfect way to mark the passing of the Summer Solstice.