Hundreds of school pupils will write, build and perform an original show in the heart of the city.
Somewhere in the Music Hall this week, 500 primary school pupils started planning a takeover. Not the corporate kind. They’re going to fill Union Terrace Gardens on 12 June with an original piece they’ve built from scratch, combining drama, dance, visual art and a brand new song written and produced with children’s band Sprog Rock.
That performance sits at the heart of Light the Blue, Aberdeen Performing Arts’ annual festival for and by young people, running 2 to 14 June across the city centre. Over 1,000 young artists, school pupils and early career creatives from across Scotland are involved. This year’s theme is “What’s your story?”, which in practice means the work on show deals with memory, identity and imagining what comes next.
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Worth your attention
Boys Don’t Dance arrives at the Lemon Tree on Saturday 6 June. It’s a dance theatre piece by Marc Brew, a disabled director, choreographer and dancer, about growing up as a boy who loved dance in a world that wasn’t always comfortable with that. Young disabled and non-disabled dancers from across the region open the evening with a curtain raiser before the main show. Imaginate commissioned the work in partnership with Aberdeen Performing Arts.
The Benedetti Foundation is at the Music Hall on 6 and 7 June with a weekend of orchestral workshops. Four orchestras spanning different ages will work on new and familiar music alongside the Foundation’s tutor and ambassador team.
Families, bandstands, shopping centres
Family Arts Day on Sunday 7 June spreads across Union Terrace Gardens and His Majesty’s Theatre from noon to 4.30pm, aimed at families with children aged 0 to 12. Citymoves Dance Agency dancers will be in the gardens and Aberdeenshire Instrumental Music Service’s Firesnake close things out. Backstage tours of His Majesty’s are part of the programme too.
A week later, on Saturday 13 June, a city-wide Takeover sends local youth groups into unusual spots across Aberdeen, Aberdeenshire and wider Scotland. Bandstands, shopping centres, spaces that don’t usually have a stage. The full schedule is still to come.
Things to wander through, things to close out the fortnight
At the Music Hall throughout the festival, Ray Downie’s Play Space is a free interactive sculpture installation open to all ages. It includes a Kinetic Wave Machine and an Inflating Seesaw among its pieces, all designed around physical play. Free workshops run alongside it covering dance, imaginative play and zero waste instrument making.
The festival closes with the Big Gig on Sunday 14 June at the Music Hall. Big Noise Torry and Aberdeen City Music Service are among the acts on the bill, with NESCol Film and TV students capturing behind-the-scenes footage throughout.
Sharon Burgess, Aberdeen Performing Arts Chief Executive, said: “We’re passionate about placing young people front and centre, and the Playground performance literally does just that, taking over the heart of the city centre to give these young performers the space and freedom to play, discover and perform.”
The details
Light the Blue runs 2 to 14 June 2026 across Aberdeen city centre. Tickets are on sale now at aberdeenperformingarts.com, or at the box office at His Majesty’s Theatre or the Music Hall.
