International Mother Language Day
Saturday 21 February
Celebrate all things language and culture here at Manchester Libraries with the following FREE events for International Mother Language Day on Saturday 21 February:
North City Library: 11am-1pm
Longsight Library: 12-2pm
Central Library (in the Performance Space): 1-4pm
Forum Library Wythenshawe (in the Creative Space): 2-4pm
North City Library 11am-1pm
First up, we have North City Library starting at 11am. Featuring a wide mix of arts and crafts, storytelling and music, there’s plenty to entertain you!
Join storyteller Neysa Killeen for a relaxed sharing of Irish folklore for children. Including weird and wonderful tales of magic and courage, these stories will delight and inspire children and their grown-ups. There will be four stories told at intervals throughout the event.
In between stories, you can immerse yourself in Afro-Brazilian Carnival grooves and moves during several performances and workshops. Join Emma and Adriana to watch their high energy performance, and try your hand at Afro-Brazilian movement too! Adriana lives and breathes the sheer joy and uplifting power of dance. Originally from São Paulo, Brazil, she has studied with and worked as lead dancer and teacher for Meninos do Morumbi and performed with different samba Schools in São Paulo during Carnival. Emma says “Percussion inspired me as a young person and helped me to be in touch with my heritage, where I spent lots of time learning and shadowing my mentors and other musicians. This brought around opportunities for me to write my own percussion arrangements and teach them in different groups, and develop as a teacher/leader.”
You can also take part in our silent disco where you can have a boogie along to our World Music playlist as well as join in with a variety of crafts such as badgemaking, scratch art banners and help us to write some lovely messages on the library windows!
Longsight Library 12-2pm
Next up at 12pm is Longsight Library where we’ll be creating and learning all about cultures and languages. This will include colourful paper mosaic fruit pictures in Urdu with artist Nadia Sultana.
Equatorial New Guinea born artist Tina Ramos Ekongo will be helping you create your own Spanish Language Cards.
Our lovely partners and friends Anamika Culture Group, Dragons Voice, OMF, artist Emma Martin, Better We and more will be here also with fantastic activities for all the family!
Central Library 1-4pm
Join us in the Performance Space on the ground floor of Central Library to celebrate the languages and cultures of Manchester’s local communities. Enjoy live performances and try your hand at traditional crafts.
Suitable for all ages, everyone is welcome. Part of Super Duper Family Festival.
Discover the full programme at https://www.visitmanchester.com/super-duper-family-festival/
Forum Library Wythenshawe 2-4pm
Join us in our Creative Space for an afternoon of fun and celebration, we will have lots of workshops and performances including:
- Ayna Arts, a Manchester based theatre company, Ayna is the Bangla word for mirror, the group perform shows that explore social and humanitarian issues. Ayna Arts will kick off our event with a 15 minute performance to delight all.
- Afro-Tots, the amazing Afro-Tots community play group will run a creative Flag workshop, they will then end the event with an interactive music and dance performance. They will also offer face painting.
- Drum Therapy Collective, Drum Therapy Collective provide rhythm-based wellbeing activities and music therapy, they will run fun music sessions with percussion instruments and drums.
- Siu Mo Wong, Lulu a local artist will run a creative art activity based around the languages we speak, it will be fun for all, and you will have something lovely to take home.
- Library staff, we will have staff from Forum library and the Children’s team offering a mix of craft activities to celebrate how proud Wythenshawe is of it’s mix of languages and culture.
The event is free and open to all, with a mix of activity for all ages and tastes, you will enjoy a fun, creative and entertaining afternoon, celebrating Manchester’s 200+ spoken languages.
