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Event
Information:
The
first night-time trail through the
streets of Paris and its
contemporary-art scene took place on
5 October 2002, and the opportunity
for anyone to explore artistic
creation for a night has come back
every year since (usually in
October). Discover Nuit Blanche (Sleepness
night).
Nuit
Blanche (literally White Night, All-Nighter
or Sleepless Night in French) or
Light Night is an annual all-night
or night-time arts festival. Its
exact beginning is disputed between
Paris, St Petersburg, and Berlin,
but, taking elements from all of
these, the idea of a night-time
festival of the arts has spread
around the world since 1997, taking
hold from Toronto to Tel Aviv and
Lima to Leeds. A Nuit Blanche will
typically have museums, private and
public art galleries, and other
cultural institutions open and free
of charge, with the centre of the
city itself being turned into a de
facto art gallery, providing space
for art installations, performances
(music, film, dance, performance
art), themed social gatherings, and
other activities.
The
current all-night festivals have
their roots in several cities. St
Petersburg, for two hundred years
capital of the Russian Empire and
still a major European cultural
centre, is one of the world's most
northerly cities, and as such has
long summer days broken only by a
brief period of twilight from
mid-May to mid-July, the celebrated
phenomenon known as the white
nights. This led to the annual
celebrations known as the White
Nights Festival, which features
months of pop culture (e.g. the
Rolling Stones in the open air at
Palace Square) and high culture
events ("Stars of the White Nights
Festival" at the Mariinsky Theatre),
street carnivals, and the Scarlet
Sails celebration, known for its
fireworks. So "white nights" in the
Russian context is both a natural
phenomenon of the summer, and a
long-standing cultural festival that
spreads over weeks or months in
midsummer.
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