Silk Road Live is a unique one day open-air festival being staged in the British Library Piazza, offering an opportunity for people of all ages to experience one of the world's greatest journeys and the role it played over 2000 years in forging the enduring cultural and economic links between London and Asia.

The Silk Road is not one well-defined road but a complex network of trade routes, from precarious mountain paths to sandy tracks across desert wastes. The routes stretch some 8,500km from the shores of the Mediterranean to the ancient heartland of China, and passed through the territories some of the great empires in world history. This was an area with many thriving kingdoms all, at some time, subject to invasion by armies as well as ideas, technologies, and faiths from the surrounding Persian, Arabic, Indian, Turkic, Tibetan and Chinese empires.

Visitors take an experiential and metaphorical journey, maximising the use of the piazza landscaping, where London-based artists use music, storytelling, theatre and visual installations to develop four themes: SILK; TRAVEL; TRADE; FAITH.

Performances and installations include London based theatre company Yellow Earth, who use East Asian traditions (including those of China and Japan); London-based traditional Turkish music and dance group Nu Pelda (New Spring); Sound artist Mukul Patel, whose work includes Diaspora in Synchro City (a composition for ghetto blasters on the theme 'the streets of Asia') and Suvara (a remix project for Afghani musicians Rafi Hanif); aerial performance by Scarabeus. Others include: Mita Bannerjee; Haider Rahman; Dhol Drummers; Taiko Drummers; Ribbon Dancers.

Silk Road Live has been organised in conjunction with Visit London and the British Library, to highlight the importance of trade and exchange of ideas and culture between London and Asia over the 2000 years since the start of the Silk Road.

It precedes 'Silk Road – Trade Travel, War and Faith', a major exhibition organised by the British Library in collaboration with the British Museum. Silk Road Live will be followed by Beijing Modern Sky at the ICA, featuring cutting edge anime and live DJ/VJ sets from Modern Sky, China's hippest record label.

SILK ROAD LIVE
A celebration of one of the world's great journeys at the British Library

SILK
'Silk Road Welcome City' hosts greet people as they arrive at the piazza and give each of them a piece of pre-dyed silk on arrival on which they could create their own 'prayer flag' or 'Lung Ta' (Wind Horse). Along the 'road', audience members can make three marks on the flag –creating their own expression and response to the Silk Road and its role in the transmission of culture, ideas and values.

TRAVEL
The Silk Road followed the lines of oasis settlements, such as Dunhuang and its Thousand Buddha caves (from which Aurel Stein – whose work is the basis of the British Library exhibition - discovered and removed vast numbers of ancient manuscripts). On 'Journey' audiences encounter an area evoking travel through the inhospitable and arid terrain of the central Asian deserts, characterised by extreme climate and strong dust winds.

Along the way, London based theatre company Yellow Earth, who use East Asian traditions, have devised a newly commissioned physical theatre piece. A Mongolian yurt structure also houses storytelling inspired by the Silk Road.

TRADE
An enclosed structure creates a sense of vitality and claustrophobia, to evoke the atmosphere of a bazaar. Stalls are crammed together displaying books and prints, providing demonstrations and displays representing some of the countries along the Silk Road – and their links to London. These include: origami (Japan); calligraphy in Urdu, Mandarin, Sanskrit and Shodo; textiles from India, China and Japan; and a Turkish music stall - from the Kingsland Road.

Sound artist Mukul Patel, whose work includes Diaspora in Synchro City (a composition for ghetto blasters on the theme 'the streets of Asia') and Suvara (a remix project for Afghani musicians Rafi Hanif), has been commissioned to record sounds from different communities in London drawn from countries along the Silk Road, such as Southall Broadway (India and Pakistan), Kingsland Road (Turkey) and Gerard Street (China).

Other musical performance includes traditional Turkish music and dance group Nu Pelda (New Spring), Japanese Taiko drummers and a classically trained flutist from Pakistan.

FAITH
Inspired by the Caves of Dunhuang, where Aurel Stein made his greatest discoveries, an eight metre high, dome-shaped aerial trapeze structure and aerial flags echo the 'Thousand Buddha' concept found in the frescos of the caves, symbolising the omnipresence of Buddha-nature in the universe.

FINALE
Silk Road Live has been developed for people to drop in at any time throughout the day, but there will be additional showpieces at key points, in particular lunchtime and the finale, an aerial performance by Scarabeus telling one of many traditional myths and stories connected with silk. It highlights the role of the Mulberry tree in silk production; the image of a silkworm cocoon (a suspended aerialist dreaming of becoming a moth); and features an enactment of the Chinese Xi Ling-Shi legend - the empress of the silk worms.