London’s annual celebration of contemporary visual theatre
2016 LONDON INTERNATIONAL MIME FESTIVAL
Saturday 9th January– Saturday 6th February 2016
www.mimelondon.com
The London International Mime Festival, directed by Helen Lannaghan and Joseph Seelig, is a unique event in the theatre calendar, a once a year chance to see the very best and newest contemporary visual theatre, including cutting edge circus-theatre, live animation and puppetry, mask, physical and visual theatre.
Over 29 days, 18 invited companies will give 112 performances of productions that are almost all UK or London premieres, at the Barbican, Central Saint Martin’s Platform Theatre, Jacksons Lane, Shaw Theatre, Soho Theatre, Southbank Centre, The Peacock, and, for the first time, Tate Modern. Artists from Australia, Belgium, France, Germany, Holland, New Zealand, Spain and Sweden will be joining some of Britain’s fast emerging talents as well as established names.
MARCEL – UK Premiere
Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord, Paris (France)
Shaw Theatre, 100-110 Euston Road, London NW1 2AJ
www.shaw-theatre.com
Saturday 9th – Tuesday 12th January
Saturday, Monday and Tuesday 7.30pm; Sunday 3pm
After-show discussion: Monday 11th January
Runs 60 mins / no interval
Tickets: £20 (£17.50 concessions). Booking fee applies.
Booking: www.mimelondon.com/houben_magni2016
Age guidance: 8+
British Sign Language interpreted performance: Tuesday 12th January (Jacqui Beckford)
LIMF 2016 opens with Marcel, performed by Complicite original members Jos Houben and Marcello Magni and produced by the famous Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord in Paris. A tender and witty exploration of how to get round ageing, these two distinguished performers revisit their early days with Complicité in celebrating the art of physical comedy and the beauty of the ‘gag’.
Jos and Marcello met as students at the École Jacques Lecoq in Paris. They last appeared together on stage in London in Peter Brook’s production of Fragments in 2008.
‘Irresistibly funny, liberating, absurd and touching… two great comic performers’ – Le Monde
Supported by Institut français.
THE ART OF LAUGHTER
Jos Houben (Belgium)
Shaw Theatre, 100-110 Euston Road, London NW1 2AJ
www.shaw-theatre.com Sunday 10th January, 6.30pm
Runs 60 mins / no interval
Tickets: £20 (£17.50 concessions). Booking fee applies.
Booking: www.mimelondon.com/jos_houben2016
Age guidance: 8+
ONE PERFORMANCE ONLY
The Art of Laughter is sixty minutes of brilliant observation which proves that in certain conditions, it’s impossible for people not to laugh. As a special festival highlight, Jos Houben reprises his acclaimed performance-demonstration, explaining and illustrating just what makes us chuckle. Jos has been involved with many of the most successful physical comedy creations of recent years, most notably in this country with The Right Size. Since its premiere in 2008, Jos has performed The Art of Laughter around the world, including two, month-long seasons at the renowned Théâtre du Rond Point in Paris. A Total Theatre Award Winner.
‘With the subtlest of glances… Houben has the entire audience in stitches’ – The Scotsman
TIPPING POINT – London Premiere
Ockham’s Razor (UK)
Platform Theatre, Central Saint Martins, London, N1C 4AA www.platform-theatre.com
Monday 11th – Saturday 23rd January, 7.30pm (not Sunday 17th).
Aftershow discussions: Thursday 14th and Thursday 21st January Runs 70 mins / no interval
Tickets: £18 (£16 concessions). Monday 11th January all seats £12.
Booking: www.mimelondon.com/ockhams_razor2016
Age guidance: 6+
Following the sell-out success of Not Until We Are Lost, Ockham’s Razor returns with its new full length production Tipping Point. Poles are balanced on fingertips, hung from the roof, lashed, climbed, swung from and walked along, they become forests, cross roads and pendulums. The performers balance, climb and cling to this teetering world, supporting each other as they wrestle with the moment when things begin to shift. They must decide whether to rail against the chaos, struggling to exert order on a disordered world, or ride it out, allowing life to tilt towards the tipping point. Tipping Point features a live performance of a multi-layered surround sound musical landscape specially composed by Adem Ilham & Quinta who have previously worked with Radiohead, Hot Chip and Bat For Lashes.
‘Physically thrilling’ – The Sunday Times
NAUTILUS -London Premiere
Trygve Wakenshaw (New Zealand)
Soho Theatre, 21 Dean Street, London, W1D 3NE
www.sohotheatre.com
Monday 11th – Saturday 23rd January 8.45pm (not Sunday 17th); Saturday matinees 4pm.
Runs 75 mins / no interval
Previews: Monday 11th and Tuesday 12th January.
Tickets: Previews: £12.50; then Monday – Thursday £15 (£12.50 concessions); Friday and Saturday £17.50 (£15 concessions); Saturday matinees £15 (£12.50 concessions).
Online booking: www.mimelondon.com/trygve_wakenshaw2016
Age guidance: 12+
NAUTILUS is the final part of rubber-limbed Trygve’s ‘underwater trilogy’, the follow-up to delirious, sell-out, physical comedies KRAKEN (LIMF15) and SQUIDBOY. Oozing with whimsy, dripping with charm and magnificently mad, Trygve is his own animator in a cartoon world. A master of risqué innocence, he trained with Philippe Gaulier, developing a uniquely eccentric style of mime-comedy that has won him legions of fans the world over. His awards include Time Out Best Comedy of 2014 and Edinburgh Underbelly Award 2014. Nautilus was nominated for the 2015 Foster’s Edinburgh Comedy Award at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
‘Astonishing, original, witty and engrossing’ – The Arts Desk
MI GRAN OBRA (My Great Work) – London Premiere
David Espinosa (Spain)
Tate Modern, Bankside, London SE1 9TG www.tate.org.uk/visit/tate-modern Thursday 14th – Sunday 17th January
Runs 55 mins / no interval
Thurs 14th 3pm and 5pm; Friday 15th and Saturday 16th 5pm, 7pm and 9pm; Sunday 17th 1pm, 3pm and 5pm.
Tickets: £18 (£16 concessions) (£26 including Alexander Calder exhibition ticket valid for use on the same day only, £23 concessions)
Booking: www.mimelondon.com/david_espinosa2016
Age guidance: 12+
Catalan actor, director and puppeteer, David Espinosa thinks big but gets real, adapting his ambition to a stage no bigger than a small table. His Great Work is a colossal spectacle in miniature. Its dramatic story unfolds in an exquisite, playful and highly imaginative production that also explores the relationship between performers, objects and viewers, and questions our own ideas of art and culture. Mi Gran Obra was first seen in the UK at the 2014 BE Festival. These performances are related to the Tate Modern exhibition Alexander Calder: Performing Sculpture.
‘A delightful, successful critique of spectacular, exorbitantly expensive theatrical projects’ – Art & Culture Today
Supported by Institut Ramon Llull – Catalan Language & Culture
OOG – London Premiere
Al Seed (UK)
Jacksons Lane, 269a Archway Road, London, N6 5AA
www.jacksonslane.org.uk
Friday 15th – Sunday 17th January, Friday and Saturday 8pm; Sunday 5pm
Aftershow discussion: Saturday 16th January
Runs 40 mins / no interval
Tickets: £18 (£16 concessions)
Online booking: www.mimelondon.com/al_seed2016
Age guidance: 12+
The end of a war. A locked cellar. A beam of light. Oog leads you deep into the fractured mind of a shell-shocked soldier. Utilising Guy Veale’s powerful soundtrack, this is an intensely physical and poetic exploration of the trauma of conflict and violence, and the psychological damage it inflicts. It burns indelible images on the mind as it questions what happens when humans morph into something different, something less than human. A companion piece to The Factory, shown at the ICA as part of LIMF 2007, Oog won a Total Theatre Award at the 2015 Edinburgh Festival.
‘Visual imagery that sometimes takes the breath away… An experience that will leave no-one who sees it completely unchanged’
– The Scotsman
EXPIRY DATE – UK Premiere
BabaFish (Belgium)
The Pit, Barbican Centre, Silk Street, London EC2Y 8DS
www.barbican.org.uk
Tuesday 19th – Saturday 23rd January, 7.45pm
Aftershow discussion: Wednesday 20th January
Runs 60 mins / no interval
Tickets: £18, plus booking fee
Online booking: www.mimelondon.com/babafish2016
Age guidance: 12+
Dominoes topple… an hourglass is overturned. Time is ever-present in this ephemeral retrospective of one man’s life, his scattered memories conveyed through acrobatics, movement, music and dance. Joseph sits alone at home, preparing for the final hour. Arms outstretched, he reaches into his past, reflecting on moments of a fast-escaping existence filled with struggle and love. Yet always the clock keeps ticking. Assisted by her father, an inventor by trade, Swedish-born artist Anna Nilsson has devised a Heath Robinson set, where a ball bearing spins around weird and wonderful machinery and pendulums wave. It provides a poignant backdrop for an abstract tale about time running out, characterised by four performers and their unpredictable mix of acting, juggling, hand-balancing and singing.
‘An astonishing show of great impact’- Dordogne Libre
Supported by Wallonie-Bruxelles International & The Agency Wallonie-Bruxelles Théâtre/Danse
THINGS EASILY FORGOTTEN – UK Premiere
Xavier Bobès (Spain)
Southbank Centre, Belvedere Road, London SE1 8XX
www.southbankcentre.co.uk
Thursday 21st – Sunday 24th January, Thursday and Friday 5pm and 8pm; Saturday 2pm, 5pm and 8pm; Sunday 11am, 2pm and 5pm.
Runs 75 mins / no interval
Tickets: £18 (£9 concessions)
Booking: www.mimelondon.com/xavier_bobes2016
Age guidance: 16+
A brief history of Spain in the second half of the twentieth century, for five people, by and with Catalan artist Xavier Bobès. Around a table, in an intimate, salon setting, a powerful sequence of close-up sensory experiences invokes old memories and invents new ones. Through this miscellany of sights and sounds, objects and photos, a fascinating story unfolds in a powerful sequence exploring memory and identity. Bobès has been creating unusual visual theatre since 2003, when he established his company, Playground. His work has been performed all over the world.
‘Xavier Bobès is a magician manipulating time itself’ – Putxinelli Magazine
Supported by Institut Ramon Llull – Catalan Language & Culture
ANECKXANDER – A tragic autobiography of the body – UK Premiere
Alexander Vantournhout & Bauke Lievens (Belgium)
Jacksons Lane, 269a Archway Road, London, N6 5AA
www.jacksonslane.org.uk
Friday 22nd – Sunday 24th January, Friday and Saturday 8pm; Sunday 5pm.
Aftershow discussion: Saturday 23rd January
Runs 45 mins / no interval
Tickets: £18 (£16 concessions)
Booking: www.mimelondon.com/vantournhout_lievens2016
Age guidance: 16+ – this performance contains extensive nudity
Aneckxander unfolds in a minimal setting with one acrobatic body, a few carefully selected objects, and music by Arvo Pärt. Balancing on the fine line between tragedy and comedy, Alexander Vantournhout rewrites the autobiography of his own body: from subject to object to matter. It all started when someone told him that his neck was rather long, the result is a raw self-portrait in which the body both exposes itself to and tries to escape from the prying eyes of those looking at it. Alexander studied in Brussels, at PARTS training school, and at the ESAC circus school. He collaborated with Bauke Lievens to produce Aneckxander, which went on to be a prize-winner at the prestigious CircusNext competition. Bauke Lievens’ projects include work with several previous LIMF artists including Kaori Ito, Un Loup Pour l’Homme, and les ballets C de la B.
‘Extremely powerful performance that deals with the complex relationship of the body, the artist and performance. True physical commitment’ – Telegram
HORROR – UK Premiere
Jakop Ahlbom Company (Netherlands)
The Peacock, Sadler’s Wells, Portugal Street, Holborn, WC2A 2HT
www.peacocktheatre.com
Monday 25th – Tuesday 26th January, 7.30pm
Aftershow discussion: Monday 25th January
Runs 80 mins / no interval
Tickets: £12 – £29
Booking: www.mimelondon.com/jakop_ahlbom2016
Age guidance: 14+
A deserted mansion… a young woman returns to the place of her bleak childhood. No longer able to suppress memories of her cruel parents and strange sister, she is forced to confront the past. Jakop Ahlbom’s imaginative hommage to the horror movie genre is ingenuously gruesome, genuinely scary and frequently very funny.
Referencing Gothic spine-chillers as well as more recent frighteners like The Shining, Rosemary’s Baby and The Exorcist, Horror will have you shuddering at the edge of your seat. Swedish-born Jakop Ahlbom recently directed his first opera, staged at Deutsche Oper Berlin, and his dance film Off Ground, starring Louise Lecavalier, won the the prestigious Prix Italia TV Award. Lebensraum, his previous show for the LIMF 2014 garnered rave reviews and played to sell-out houses.
‘Excellent special effects, witty and irresistibly scary’ – Volkskrant
KITE – World Premiere
The Wrong Crowd (UK)
Soho Theatre, 21 Dean Street, London, W1D 3NE
www.sohotheatre.com
Tuesday 26th January – Saturday 6th February 7pm (not 31 Jan); Saturday matinees 2pm
Previews Tuesday 26th – Wednesday 27th January
Schools matinees: Thursday 28th and Friday 29th January
Aftershow discussion: Saturday 30th January and Saturday 6th February after 2pm performance Runs 60 mins / no interval
Tickets: Previews £10; then Monday – Thursday £15 (£10 con); Friday and Saturday £17.50 (£15 con)
Online booking: www.mimelondon.com/wrong_crowd2016
Age guidance: 7+
A lonely girl is taken to live in her grandma’s airless flat where the windows are shut tight. Her memories of seagulls and sand dunes begin to fade in the silence. One night a handmade kite comes to life and heralds the start of a wild adventure and the chance to find what it seemed was lost forever. Inspired by the world of indoor-kite flying and stories such as The Snowman and The Red Balloon, Kite is a play without words, with original music, dance, puppetry and of course kites. From acclaimed theatre company The Wrong Crowd, creators of inventive, playful and compelling new theatre (Swanhunter, Hag, The Girl with the Iron Claws), Kite is a poignant love-song to the wind, freedom and the joy of play.
‘Both music and staging are expertly crafted, there are gasps of delight from both kids and adults’ – The Times on Swanhunter 2015
DARK CIRCUS – UK Premiere
Stereoptik (France)
The Pit, Barbican Centre, Silk Street, London EC2Y 8DS
www.barbican.org.uk
Tuesday 26th – Saturday 30th January 7.45pm; Saturday matinee 3pm
Aftershow discussion: Wednesday 27th January
Runs 55 mins / no interval
Tickets: £18, plus booking fee
Online booking: www.mimelondon.com/stereoptik2016
Age guidance: 7+
Paper, ink, sand and silhouettes spring into being in the skilled hands of two visual artists who draw and play music live to build a big top universe, their striking creations projected onto a large screen.
‘Come for the show, stay for the woe.’ A sinister ringmaster invites the inhabitants of a dreary city to his circus tent, where he presides over catastrophic acts. The trapeze artist plummets, the animal trainer is devoured, the human cannonball is lost in space … until a juggler strikes a discordant note, releasing the flash of colour everyone has been waiting for. Born from the imagination of French illustrator Pef, the fantastical story of Dark Circus is animated onstage by Stereoptik duo, Romain Bermond and Jean-Baptiste Maillet.
‘A total pleasure … filled with lyricism and freshness’ – Le Monde
Supported by Institut français
IL RITORNO – UK Premiere
Circa (Australia)
Barbican Theatre, Silk Street, London EC2Y 8DS
www.barbican.org.uk
Wednesday 27th – Sunday 31st January 7.45pm; Saturday matinee 2.30pm
Aftershow discussion: Thursday 28th January
Runs 75 mins / no interval
Tickets: £16 – £30, plus booking fee
Online booking: www.mimelondon.com/circa2016
Age guidance: 12+
Ulysses desires only to return home after twenty years of wandering and war. His wife Penelope hangs on in the belief he might one day arrive. History has separated them. Now hope unites them.
Il Ritorno is distilled from Monteverdi’s opera The Return of Ulysses (Il ritorno d’Ulisse) and layered with themes from Primo Levi’s The Truce – a memoir by a Second World War refugee. Drawing on mythology to explore states of exile, this potent production fuses live singing and music with the thrilling physicality of contemporary circus as Circa’s acrobatic artists push their bodies and emotions to the extreme.
‘A luminous new work… Il Ritorno offers a powerful vision of humanity and compassion’ – The Australian
INFINITA – UK Premiere
Familie Floez (Germany)
The Peacock, Sadler’s Wells, Portugal Street, Holborn, WC2A 2HT www.peacocktheatre.com
Thursday 28th – Saturday 30th January, Thursday & Friday 7.30pm; Saturday 6pm
Aftershow discussion: Friday 29th January
Runs 90 mins / no interval
Tickets: £15 – £29, plus booking fee
Booking: www.mimelondon.com/familie_floez2016
Age guidance: 7+
After sell-out successes with Teatro Delusio (LIMF’05), Ristorante Immortale (LIMF’06) and Hotel Paradiso (LIMF’09) and a five star hit at the recent Edinburgh Fringe, Germany’s mask theatre masters, Familie Floez return to the Mime Festival with another brilliant visual comedy. In Infinita, a cast of irresistible, larger-than-life characters are seen both as warring children, and then in later life as residents of an old people’s home. The wily games of nursery one-upmanship seem hardly to change with the passage of time; survival of the craftiest is still the rule of the day. Infinita plays out in a succession of increasingly hilarious scenes, combining poignancy, astute observation and some superbly skilled slapstick.
A show about birth, sex and old age, about our first and last moments, when the greatest miracles occur. And all without a word spoken!
‘One of the most beautiful shows I’ve seen… run, run to see it!’- Telerama
Supported by the Goethe-Institut London
THE BEST THING – World Premiere
Vamos Theatre (UK)
Jacksons Lane, 269a Archway Road, London, N6 5AA
www.jacksonslane.org.uk
Thursday 28th – Sunday 31st January, Thursday – Saturday 8pm; Sunday 5pm
Aftershow discussion: Saturday 30th January
Runs 90 mins / plus interval
Tickets: £18 (£16 concessions)
Booking: www.mimelondon.com/vamos_theatre2016
Age guidance: 12+
It’s 1966. The record player is on, her hair’s bobbed and eye-lashes curled: for seventeen year old Susan, life is an adventure waiting to begin. But what happens next turns everything upside down, and its repercussions will last for decades to come. Step into the wordless world of Vamos Theatre for this bitter-sweet story of mistaken morals and broken hearts, 45s and beehives, where sexual revolution proves a hard and rocky path to tread. Funny, heart-
breaking and human, The Best Thing is a ‘swinging sixties’ story of unconditional love. Led by artistic director, Rachael Savage, Vamos Theatre has become Britain’s leading, full mask theatre group, touring nationally and overseas with inventive and entertaining productions based on real life stories.
‘Life-affirming, funny, deeply touching and highly, highly recommended!’ – Plays To See (Finding Joy, LIMF14)
WUNDERKAMMER – London Premiere
Figurentheater Tűbingen (Germany)
The Pit, Barbican Centre, Silk Street, London EC2Y 8DS
www.barbican.org.uk
Tuesday 2nd – Saturday 6th February, 7.45pm
Aftershow discussion: Wednesday 3rd February
Runs 70 mins / no interval
Tickets: £18, plus booking fee
Booking: www.mimelondon.com/figurentheater_tubingen2016
Age guidance: 12+
Three puppeteers welcome you to a cabinet of curiosities where rare artefacts and familiar objects, the wonderful and the mundane, come together in near-perfect equilibrium.
One by one they mysteriously emerge: a pair of golden hands caresses human hair, long-limbed folk dance and sway, two miniature musicians comically duel it out, and an unfathomable creature floats in air and water.
Demonstrating the allure and magnetism of string marionettes, Frank Soehnle returns to the festival with a company of renowned German puppeteers who visibly orchestrate their strange cast with utmost grace, eliciting the subtlest expressions of movement. Referencing art, science and the natural world through their mystical creations, they all interact and elegantly play, to the tempo of an atmospheric score. Sweet, melancholic and sometimes tongue in cheek, Wunderkammer is a gem of puppet-theatre.
‘A fantastic reflection on the power of the imagination’ – Stuttgarter Nachrichten
Supported by the Goethe-Institut London
HE WHO FALLS (Celui qui tombe) – UK Premiere
Compagnie Yoann Bourgeois (France)
Barbican Theatre, Silk Street, London EC2Y 8DS
www.barbican.org.uk
Wednesday 3rd – Saturday 6th February, 7.45pm
Aftershow discussion: Thursday 4th February
Runs 65 mins / no interval
Tickets: £16 – £28, plus booking fee
Online booking: www.mimelondon.com/yoann_bourgeois2016
Age guidance: 8+
Six performers appear to defy the laws of gravity, responding with strength and grace to maintain balance onboard a constantly shifting platform. When an imposing, suspended, podium begins to spin, pivot, swing and elevate, the only way to withstand its forces is through agile movement. Faced by such instability, bodies lean, climb, hang and fall, coming together and then apart, in this perilous dance of survival. A French artist equally dedicated to the circus arts and contemporary dance, Yoann Bourgeois has long been fascinated by ideas of weightlessness and the physics of suspension. For this ingenious show, he challenges performers from both disciplines to meet the physical demands of
his intriguing staging, each scenario choreographed to rousing tracks, from opera aria, Casta Diva, to Frank
Sinatra’s My Way. He Who Falls premiered at the Lyon Biennale de la Danse in 2014
‘A poetic creation … it’s impossible not to fall for its charm’ – Time Out Paris
Supported by Institut français
ALL GENIUS ALL IDIOT – UK Premiere
Svalbard (Sweden)
Jacksons Lane, 269a Archway Road, London, N6 5AA www.jacksonslane.org.uk
Wednesday 3rd – Saturday 6th February, 8pm
Aftershow discussion: Friday 5th February
Runs 60 mins / no interval
Tickets: £18 (£16 concessions)
Online booking: www.mimelondon.com/svalbard2016
Age guidance: 12+ (contains strong language)
Quirky and outrageous in equal measure, All Genius All Idiot, revels in the absurdities of life, using extreme circus artistry to highlight human behaviour at its most animalistic.
Svalbard bends the edges of contemporary circus and blends it with theatre, physical comedy and live music to create a truly original piece that you will remember for its surreal quality as well as its awe-inspiring skills. All Genius All Idiot features Chinese pole, aerial rope, hand balance and acrobatics, driven by a hauntingly beautiful and, at times, bizarre, original soundtrack played live by the performers.
Svalbard’s members met whilst training at Stockholm’s University of Dance and Circus. All Genius All Idiot is their debut show.
‘If Jim Jarmusch directed a circus show – this would be it!’ @Adrian Berry (Artistic Director, Jacksons Lane)
Film screenings and festival workshops – the full programme is available at www.mimelondon.com/film_workshops2016