Motionhouse proposes Crow, a large-scale performance event to animate the streets of Birmingham and a truly unique collaboration between Motionhouse, English National Ballet, Birmingham Royal Ballet, Northern Ballet Theatre and Welsh National Opera. Crow will feature singers in giant moveable costumes, dancers in the streets and moving buildings alive with aerialists and free runners. Over 150 of the UK’s finest dancers, 40 opera singers, community choirs, free runners and aerialists in the streets of Birmingham will perform to music composed by the acclaimed Errollyn Wallen.   Drawing together four of the country’s most significant national companies for the first time ever Crow explores the notion of a fantastical city with its many different and wonderful inhabitants coming alive to reinvent itself before our eyes. The crows are the people of our city – crows, rooks, ravens, magpies and jays flock and gather in city locales, in their gritty urbanity each representing the old industry and culture of Birmingham. Two and three storey buildings will be the mobile stages for dance action whilst the singers will each be transported atop giant crow mechanicals.  As well as the core mobile performers there will be interludes and staging points along the way – each one peopled by local young participants as performers. The scale of this project combines the retinal burn of never to be forgotten images of true spectacle with the visceral immediacy of standing feet away from the very, very best performers in the country. Reflecting Birmingham’s capacity to re-invent itself both physically and culturally, and inspired by Birmingham's multi-faceted population, Crow will examine the role of the new as a catalyst for change, the incomer as observer and themes of alienation and redemption.  Crow is a story about urbanism and draws on Birmingham's history to create its colourful characters and imaginative world. Crow is a story of the beauty of cities and the gritty realism that underpins this world. The crow is not a pretty bird but a creature of steely resolve,  an inhabitant of the city which struggles to survive and, through imagination and perseverance, learns to thrive.  The crow family is emblematic of particular sections of the heritage of Birmingham, the jewellery trade will be represented by the charm of Magpies that have an eye for the bright and beautiful and are entrepreneurial in their survival techniques. The rag trade is represented by the band of Jays with their bright flashes of colour, making them the most ornate and attractive of the birds. A clattering of Jackdaws from their occupation of abandoned buildings, castles and cathedrals will be the citizens who turn any opportunity into a home and a future. Those who work together in industry or retail are represented by the parliament of rooks. The powerful are an unkindness of Ravens majestic in their power to appear as portents for the future, feared for what they might do as a bird that plays with toys, people and things. Quick to seize a chance the crow is a creature that lives on its wits and it is this quality that the performance celebrates in crows, cities and especially Birmingham.