Lift festival returns to London after seven-year break
Published Tuesday 29 April 2008 at 15:25 by Matthew Hemley
International arts festival Lift will return to London this summer following a break of seven years.
An artist's impression of how The Lift may look at Southbank
Taking place across June and July, Lift Festival 2008 will includes UK premieres of productions from Australia, India and South Africa and will play in venues in Stratford, east London, and the Southbank Centre.
This year’s event will also see the launch of a mobile hub called The Lift, which will stand four storeys high and will act as a theatre, concert hall, cinema and public meeting space throughout the festival.
It will also allow communities to find out more about the performances they have seen, by engaging in discussions about the shows and listening to panel debates which tackle the issues explored in the performances.
This year’s three-week festival is Lift’s first since 2001, following which a decision was made to “unframe” the festival and take it out of its biennial cycle, replacing it instead with the Lift Enquiry, a five-year commitment to offering year-round events.
But the event’s organisers have now decided to reinstate the festival, with the mobile hub playing a key part in the event.
Lift director of communications Margred Pryce said: “This festival is about the customer’s experience - we are offering them a way to engage with the work and the artists. We are inviting them to hear why artists created the work and understand more about where they are coming from, so the engagement becomes a much richer experience.”
Lift Festival 2008 starts in Stratford on June 12 with a ten-day programme of events to be staged at the Theatre Royal Stratford East, performing arts venue Stratford Circus and in the new mobile hub, which will be based in Stratford Park.
Highlights include Dangalnama, a performance directed by Indian director Prasad Vanarase and Every Year, Every Day, I am Walking, a piece exploring the psychological impact of war on young people.
The festival runs at the Southbank Centre from June 26 until July 6, with shows including Murundak, a performance about contemporary Aboriginal life presented by Black Arm Band, which will be staged at the Royal Festival Hall.
The Southbank section will include the UK premiere of Report on the Body, a performance from China’s only independent dance company, Living Dance Studio. The Lift hub will be positioned in Southbank Centre Square.
Lift has also entered into a partnership with London Thames Gateway Development Corporation, which has provided a grant to allow three further festivals to take place over the next three years.
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20.01.09Collaboration in European theatre
Ideas for international cooperation in staging theatre productions will be the focus of a conference in Erlangen, Germany, at the end of next week.
Photo: German CulturalFoundation
Europe is growing together and cultural work in the European Union, theatre included, is becoming more and more based on international collaboration. What will the collaborative theatre of the future look and sound like? Which models of theatre production and organisation provide best-practice examples for European theatre? A symposium in the south-eastern German city of Erlangen next week (January 29 – February 1) will explore these issues. The symposium, which is open to the public, will examine new ideas and models for cooperative work in theatre. The specific aesthetics and dramaturgies of individual countries and regions will be presented and their international influence will be examined. The promotion of theatre exchanges and funding and support for playwrights in Europe will also be a focus of discussions.The conference is being organised by the Dramaturgischen Gesellschaft in Berlin, along with the Theater Erlangen, the University of Erlangen and the German Federal Cultural Foundation.
back
20.01.09Collaboration in European theatre
Ideas for international cooperation in staging theatre productions will be the focus of a conference in Erlangen, Germany, at the end of next week.
Photo: German CulturalFoundation
Europe is growing together and cultural work in the European Union, theatre included, is becoming more and more based on international collaboration. What will the collaborative theatre of the future look and sound like? Which models of theatre production and organisation provide best-practice examples for European theatre? A symposium in the south-eastern German city of Erlangen next week (January 29 – February 1) will explore these issues. The symposium, which is open to the public, will examine new ideas and models for cooperative work in theatre. The specific aesthetics and dramaturgies of individual countries and regions will be presented and their international influence will be examined. The promotion of theatre exchanges and funding and support for playwrights in Europe will also be a focus of discussions.The conference is being organised by the Dramaturgischen Gesellschaft in Berlin, along with the Theater Erlangen, the University of Erlangen and the German Federal Cultural Foundation.
back
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