The snows have melted and all around we will start to see the newness of Spring.  Fierce has been about “the new” ever since it began, if that’s not a contradiction in terms:  it has celebrated the contemporary, the fresh and the novel.

So it’s only natural that we should celebrate the new blog:  it’s the first green shoot of the “new” Fierce – new direction, new artistic vision, new Artistic Directors (and direction) and a fresh approach.

So what’s been going on when there has been no festival?  Well – to extend the gardening metaphor (possibly to death) – we’ve been preparing the soil. 

We had a quiet year in terms of performance in Birmingham – our partners at University of Warwick had a “Fierce” season and there was a wonderful sunny afternoon in May when the Reverend Billy converted all of us to the Church of Stop Shopping outside the Ikon.  The honoured guests at Ringside (hosted with the Birmingham Rep) wowed audiences at the Town Hall – exceptionally altered for the event.

So it might feel like we’ve not been around much:  if it’s any consolation we missed the Fierce Festival in 2009 as much as we hope you did!

But elsewhere we’ve been busy:  the Wunderbar festival is what happens when you take 11 years of festivals experience and distill it, in 18 months, into a brand new region.  The result was a quirky and action packed 10 days in the North East that felt like an event that had always been there.  Kevin has written about that below so I won’t go on about it here save to say that it had a wonderful atmosphere and discovering Newcastle and the North East has been a real privilege.

We’ve continued our training work:  we took 11 arts organisations of varying size and complexity on a journey into the social internet.  We’ve made new friends and learned a lot ourselves about the value of sharing your thinking online.  This blog will show us thinking out loud and welcoming your input.

We won a big scary national, EU-procurement style tender from Business Link, and now I’m delighted to say that we are approved suppliers of business training alongside the likes of the University of Warwick Business School.  We’re working with creative industries to support business growth that has a creative vision at its heart.

We found out lots more about Street and Circus arts when we organised a series of events under the title “elemental” in each of the English Arts Council regions – if you ever want to know more about that world check out our record of the intiative at www.elementalexchange.org.uk.

But that was all last year – and 2010 and all its’ new challenges beckon.  While Laura and Harun share their impressions of a new city – I’m off to do the same.  As part of the Clore Fellowship programme I get the opportunity to go on secondment.  So I’m off to New York – to Brooklyn’s St Ann’s Warehouse – to find out how performance gets made and produced in a country with no statutory arts funding which is increasingly reliant on donations from wealthy individuals.  If it sounds familiar it’s because that ’s what the Tories are proposing if they are elected.

So it will be a Fierce Spring for me too:  I hope to be able to share some of the work I see or the things I think are cool along the way.  I’ll be back in the Summer, I don’t know if the rain will fall or the sun will shine, but it will be a Fierce one.

On Monday Helga’s most recent column for the Birmingham Post went to print, you can find it here.

“Fierce Earth recently announced the exciting arrival of its new joint Artistic Directors, Laura McDermott and Harun Morrison. Hailing from London, most recently from Battersea Arts Centre, relocating to Birmingham later in the year…

So how best to introduce Laura and Harun to the city and its creative and cultural life? In particular, what hidden gems could they find in the region beyond the usual suspects.

To find out, I did what is now called “crowdsourcing”, but in my day was known as “asking around”. What follows is a selection of my creative colleagues’ brilliant ideas. I don’t have space to name-check them here but, thank you, you know who you are!

From our office in the Jewellery Quarter, they could nip into the Pen Museum and make their own steel pen using Victorian presses. Or the button factory at Toye, Kenning & Spencer. In addition to the world-class Pre-Raphaelite paintings at the Museum and Art Gallery, they could enjoy the Burne-Jones stained glass windows at St Phillips Cathedral, then the Pugin architecture of St Chad’s.

You encounter the creative city where it socialises. The Rainbow on Digbeth High St, coffee and patisseries at Maison Mayçi, Kings Heath, fabulous Thai food and architecture at Bartons Arms, Newtown.

My personal hidden gem, Russells on Lozells Road, for a feast of mutton soup, chicken and dumplings, rice and peas washed down with tropical “Sexy”.

Perhaps you only truly know Birmingham once you’ve travelled the entire Outer Circle bus route. Perhaps Laura and Harun could join the psychogeographers of www.birminghamitsnotshit.co.uk. Every 11 November, they board the 11C for eleven hours, disembarking at ten that night, having documented the experience (and taking breaks of up to 30 minutes wherever they fancy).

Probably because our suburbs are essentially a network of connecting villages, they are a fund of under-appreciated treasures, including Moseley private park, home of Moseley Folk Festival, Perrot’s Folly in Edgbaston and Saint Nicolas Place at Kings Norton Green (one of the oldest collection of Tudor buildings in the UK). One is never far from a green space, be it Cofton Park, Cannon Hill or the Waseley and Lickey Hills.

At this rate, Laura and Harun will have an unusually pleasant induction process! Discovering Birmingham’s treasures can take a lifetime. By showing our city off to newcomers, we discover it ourselves.”

Can you suggest any more of Birmingham’s hidden treasures?