Contents:
- Editor's welcome
- Stunning replica of planet Earth comes to Rochdale »
- Cycling Without Age: Connecting with the great outdoors
- GEM Appeal funds Tecan machine for Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital
- Keep your festive shopping local this Christmas
- Hairdressing Trend - Smoky Charcoal
- Do you speak ‘Manc’, ‘Lancashire’ or ‘posh’? Findings from largest ever study of Greater Manchester accents and dialects revealed
- New exhibitions at Touchstones explore Rochdale heritage and identities
- Gym owner’s World Record
- Make a difference this Christmas by choosing Fairtrade
- Toad Lane Concerts: Music at Lunchtime
- Busy Beans Coffee celebrates Good Food award
- Russell’s Café moves to Yorkshire Street
- Rochdale Riverside: Award-winning flagship shopping & leisure development transforms town centre
- Little Amal visits Rochdale
- Barton Kendal wins The British Property Lettings Award for Rochdale
- Step-by-step guide to buying a new house
- Rochdale powerlifter wins bronze at International World Championships
- Chocolate Orange Yule Log recipe
- Beauty Feature: Skin supplements; working from the inside out
- Independent optician Stephen Holt celebrates 50 years of business
- Beware the coming winter of discontent
Winter 2021Stunning replica of planet Earth comes to Rochdale
UK artist Luke Jerram’s internationally renowned replica of Earth is coming to Rochdale, along with a host of out-of-this-world events and activities.
Measuring seven metres in diameter and created from detailed NASA imagery of the Earth’s surface, ‘Gaia’ will provide the opportunity to see Earth on a big scale, floating in three dimensions, alongside a specially made surround sound composition by BAFTA award winning composer Dan Jones.
Gaia – which comes from Greek mythology, meaning the personification of the Earth – will visit Hull, the USA, the Netherlands, Norwich, Norway, and Canada before reaching the borough for the festive season.
Staged in partnership with Rochdale Borough Council and Your Trust (formerly Link4Life), the exhibition is supported financially by the Garfield Weston Foundation.
“We’re delighted to build on the success of Dippy on Tour, bringing another fantastic creative spectacle to the borough,” said Darren Grice, deputy chief executive of Your Trust.
“Just as with Dippy, we hope that seeing the Earth as if floating in space will wow visitors and inspire each of us to protect our precious planet.”
Supporting events during Gaia’s five-week residency include a show into the world of insects and insect-eating performed by TV presenter and ‘gastronaut’, Stefan Gates, as well as performances by M6 Theatre Company in local schools before a public performance of ‘The Storm’ at Number One Riverside, creatively confronting the climate emergency.
Skylight Circus will stage ‘Mammoth’, combining acrobatics, music, and lighting effects to tell a thought-provoking story of extinction and protection of our environment, plus ‘Global Circus’, performed beneath Gaia. Animated with specially commissioned music, this show will be presented live by local asylum seekers and refugees.
You’ll even be able to relax and look up to the sky with a yoga session underneath Gaia, accompanied by a visual arts session with Cartwheel Arts. Schools will benefit too: Rochdale Music Service will use Gaia to spark creativity in music and children can take part in science experiments in front of Gaia, learn about gravity, how to be an astronaut, and a climate change summit for secondary pupils will stimulate debate on environmental sustainability.
A final exhibition will include visual arts planned with young people from the LGBTQ+ community.
Gaia is at Number One Riverside, Smith Street, Rochdale, OL16 1XU from Saturday 20 November 2021 to Friday 24 December 2021. Admission is free.
Opening times:
Weekdays - 9am - 5pm (extended until 6pm on Tuesdays and Thursdays)
Saturday: 10am - 5pm
Sunday: 1pm - 5pm