LIFT have announced the first seven shows in their 2016 festival which runs from 2 June to 2 July.
Billed as London’s largest international performance festival, productions will take place at the Barbican, the Royal Court Theatre and Sadler’s Wells.
LIFT’s artistic director Mark Ball commented: “Many of these shows reflect, remember and celebrate old and new worlds, bringing people from different countries together and creating new communities on stage which tell us about the richness of the world, the joy of connection and the power of belonging.”
At the Barbican
• Forced Entertainment’s Complete Works: Table Top Shakespeare will run 1 to 6 March. To celebrate the 400th Anniversary of Shakespeare’s death, Forced Entrainment which will condense and perform all of Shakespeare’s plays on a tabletop using a cast of everyday objects.
• Odéon–Théâtre de l’Europe present Phaedra(s) which will run 9 to 18 June. Directed by Poland’s Krzysztof Warlikowski, Phaedra(s) stars French film actress Isabelle Huppert. This new production is based on Sarah Kane’s Phaedra’s Love and incorporates extracts from J M Coetzee’s novel Elizabeth Costello as well as new material from Lebanese-Canadian playwright Wajdi Mouawad.
• Blitz Theatre Group’s Late Night will run from the 15 to 18 June. Billed as “emotive and poetic, with a quiet stillness”, the show focuses on the past and the future and of a Europe in ruins.
At the Royal Court Theatre
• Leading Argentinian writer, director and actress Lola Arias returns to LIFT following her 2014 premiere of The Year I Was Born. Her new show, The Islands explores the fallout from the Falklands. From June 2016, exact dates to be announced.
• Constanza Macras presents Open for Everything. Berlin’s DorkyPark and Roma musicians and performers contemplate Europe’s last nomadic tribe. June 2016 – exact dates to be announced.
• The Migration Commissions is a series of newly commissioned works by international and UK artists, created in response to the refugee and migrant crisis and performed in unlikely spaces journeying around the Royal Court Theatre building. June 2016 – exact dates to be announced
At Sadler’s Wells
• Frank Van Laecke and Alain Platel bring En avant, marche! from 16 to 17 June. The show takes inspiration from local music groups from communities across Europe. At every venue, the four actors and seven musicians will be joined by a local brass band or marching band on stage.