VISUAL THEATRE FESTIVAL #5 30 JAN – 4 FEB 2012 TRAVERSE THEATRE
www.manipulatefestival.org
PRESENTS...
MANIPULATE VISUAL THEATRE FESTIVAL Welcome to our annual festival of innovative international theatre and film. manipulate brings powerful and challenging work of the highest quality from around the world to Scotland, offering us the opportunity to present exceptional animation, object theatre and puppetry – and all their related styles and techniques – to our enthusiastic audiences. With companies and practitioners from Austria, the Czech Republic, England, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Russia and Scotland – and a film programme from all global points in between - we present a festival designed to entertain, intrigue and inspire. This year, for the first time, we are also presenting manipulate events at the Norwich Puppet Theatre, one of the UK’s most important and influential centres of puppetry during the past 40 years. So leave any preconceptions at the door and enter the vibrant world of the best of innovative, international theatre and film.
TICKETING INFORMATION PERFORMANCE: £15 / £11 / £6 SCREENING: £6 FESTIVAL FILM PASS: £20 for a pass entitling you to entry to all film events. BOX OFFICE OPENING TIMES Monday to Saturday: 10am – 6pm Performance days: until performance time Sundays: two hours before performance time
SIMON HART Artistic Director EMMA HUTCHISON Festivals and Projects Manager SUSIE WILSON Film Curator Cover Image – Luvos: Editta Braun Company
HOW TO BOOK In person: Traverse Box Office Cambridge Street, Edinburgh, EH1 2ED Online: www.manipulatefestival.org Telephone: 0131 228 1404 All access enquiries should be directed to the Box Office staff on 0131 228 1404 or email boxoffice@traverse.co.uk. Artlink offers an escort service to help people with disability enjoy the arts. Latecomers will not be admitted
www.manipulatefestival.org and follow @manipulatefest on
With thanks to our media partners
H
PERFORMANCE
02
HAMLETMACHINE COMBINING PUPPETRY, SHADOW THEATRE AND PHYSICAL THEATRE, THE PERFORMANCE IS TINGED WITH MELANCHOLY... WHOLLY ENIGMATIC. LIBÉRATION
COMPAGNIE SANS SOUCIS / FRANCE, 55’ MONDAY 30 JANUARY, 7.30PM TRAVERSE ONE Written by the German playwright, Heiner Müller, this controversial piece condenses Shakespeare’s Hamlet into an explosive nine page play that has become a modern classic. By exploring Shakespeare’s theme of human frailty within a twentieth century context, Müller grapples with notions of communism, feminism and political upheaval at a time when Germany was still split between East and West. Using dynamic video projection and highly theatrical object manipulation Compagnie Sans Soucis vividly captures the tensions and urgency of the original piece. The result is a visually arresting work that bristles with menace as it explores Hamlet’s desperate struggle with the fragility of his world view – and by extension our own. Compagnie Sans Soucis was established in 2005 and is based at the Creative Centre in Caen, Northern France. A close collaboration between two puppeteers who are also comedians, the company’s work is characterised by its sense of poetry and versatility of technique.
HAMLETMACHINE MANIPULATE VISUAL THEATRE FESTIVAL 2012
PERFORMANCE
PLUCKED... A TRUE FAIRY TALE YOU ARE PLUNGED INTO A BIZARRE MICRO-WORLD WHERE ANYTHING CAN HAPPEN – AND WHAT DOES HAPPEN, HOWEVER STRANGE SEEMS PERFECTLY NORMAL. THE GUARDIAN
ACTORS ARE PLAYING A PART WHEREAS PUPPETS HAVE AN INTRINSIC HONESTY AS THEY CAN’T DO ANYTHING BUT BE WHAT THEY ARE. INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY
INVISIBLE THREAD / ENGLAND, 65’+INTERVAL TUESDAY 31 JANUARY, 7.30PM TRAVERSE ONE Plucked...a true fairy tale Pull from your loins a nest of twigs, beware the wolf man and the raven too! Drawing from a rich fabric of myth and fairytale to chart a transformation from beauty to beast and beyond Invisible Thread uses object theatre, live video-feed painting, puppetry and animation to conjure up a dark miniature world full of striking and disturbing beauty. Entering this world you will quickly discover the odd little creatures who live there. Look further and you will see that despite their ghoulish appearance and peculiar manners they are brimming with eccentric charm and mischief. A founding member of Faulty Optic, Liz Walker has an international reputation for creating unique visual theatre full of macabre humour that presents surreal, provocative adult puppetry of the highest artistic quality.
PLUCKED IS A BIG NIGHT OUT EVENT
Strange and haunting, funny and tragic, the latest offering from this world renowned artistic will quicken your heart and fray your nerves.
Big Night Out events are aimed at young people with an interest in arts and culture. You can attend for just £5.00 and we will give you one free chaperone ticket for every 10 youth tickets bought.
C
PLUCKED... A TRUE FAIRY TALE
SCREENING: FEATURE FILM
04
CHICO & RITA
E
ONE OF THE 10 BEST FILMS OF THE YEAR. MARK KERMODE, BBC
CHICO & RITA
DIR: FERNANDO TRUEBA, TONO ERRANDO, JAVIER MARISCAL / SPAIN 2010, 90’, CERT. 15 TUESDAY 31 JANUARY, 9.15PM TRAVERSE TWO
Havana 1948. Chico is a young piano player with big dreams. Rita is a beautiful singer with an extraordinary voice. Music and romantic desire unites them, but their journey - in the tradition of the Latin ballad, the bolero - brings heartache and torment. Spanish director, Fernando Trueba, has been producing awardwinning films for more than two decades, including the Oscar and BAFTA winning Belle Epoque. In Chico & Rita, Trueba invokes the great names of Cuban and American jazz to tell this tragicomic love story. Spanish with English subtitles
MANIPULATE VISUAL THEATRE FESTIVAL 2012
PERFORMANCE
POLARIS THE STAGING MAKES GREAT USE OF SIMPLE SOUND EFFECTS AND THE PERFORMERS HAVE A STUPENDOUS, YET SUBTLE VIRTUOSITY. THE GUARDIAN
WARIOT IDEAL / CZECH REPUBLIC, 55’ WEDNESDAY 1 FEBRUARY, 7.30PM TRAVERSE TWO A story about loneliness and a wait for help that never arrives. A story about the strength of friendship and fidelity. A story of the fight to endure unendurable conditions, of experiencing the tangible warmth of memories and feeling nothing...but the fucking cold. Polaris draws you into the tale of two 19th century polar explorers who are lost and freezing to death. Amidst memories of their lives left behind and exposure-driven delusions of dancing penguins and hungry wolves, their tale touches on how strongly we strive to live and the haven that companionship can provide. Polaris harks back to a pioneering age in which exploration was the noblest of pursuits. It paints a stunning tableau of the Arctic landscape in which this young Czech company tell a truly heartfelt tale with such nuance and sensitivity that you can’t help but shiver. Wariot Ideal formed in 2009 as the result of a long term collaboration between the theatre company Adriatik Presents and actor Vojta Švejda. By combining physical theatre, improvisation, mime, film and sound design, Wariot Ideal is constantly searching for a new means of artistic expression that will appeal across generations.
THIS DRAMA OF TWO MEN LOST IN THE ANTARCTIC IS IN DANGER OF GIVING MIME A GOOD NAME. THE LIST
POLARIS
SCREENING: FEATURE FILM
06
WALTZ WITH BASHIR DIFFICULT TO REMEMBER, IMPOSSIBLE TO FORGET. BOSTON GLOBE
DIR: ARI FOLMAN / ISRAEL 2008, 87’, CERT. 18 WEDNESDAY 1 FEBRUARY, 9.15PM TRAVERSE TWO
AN EXTRAORDINARY, HARROWING, PROVOCATIVE PICTURE. WE STAGGERED OUT OF THE SCREENING IN A DAZE. THE GUARDIAN
Ari meets an old Israeli army comrade who refers to a disturbing incident that Ari remembers nothing at all about. Intrigued, he begins to interview other soldiers who were there and slowly his own memory of the night in question begins to reform in a series of powerfully surreal images. Waltz with Bashir is an animated documentary, a potent exploration of the director’s own experience of war told as he tries to piece together his fractured memories of the major Israeli incursion into Lebanon in 1982.
WALTZ WITH BASHIR S Hebrew with English subtitles
MANIPULATE VISUAL THEATRE FESTIVAL 2012
PERFORMANCE
GOBO.DIGITAL GLOSSARY THIS SMALL, DELIBERATELY IMPERFECTLY FORMED SHOW IS NOT JUST A VISUALLY PLEASING BOX OF TRICKS BUT SOMETHING MORE: IT TRANSFORMS, WITH A TICKLE OF POSSIBILITY, THE DESPAIR OF BECKETT’S WORLD WHERE NOTHING EVER CHANGES INTO THE FEELING THAT WE COULD REMAKE OUR OWN WORLD IF WE TRY.
AKHE ENGINEERING THEATRE / RUSSIA, 60’ THURSDAY 2 FEBRUARY, 7.30PM TRAVERSE ONE
Gobo.Digital Glossary hurtles through seventeen sketches at breakneck speed, immersing you in a surreal world of theatrical tomfoolery. Using lasers, cameras, shadows and an array of bizarre handmade contraptions, the two characters at the chaotic centre of this show create a stream of comic, touching and stirring images. In their world of constant tinkering and playful experiments, everything from exploding hearts to boxing kangaroos is explored and examined with childish curiosity and frenetic energy.
GOBO.DIGITAL GLOSSARY THE GUARDIAN
And as connections are examined and perspectives altered, this playful romp transforms itself in the hands of two dexterous performers into a forceful, intricate and absorbing piece of visual theatre.
Akhe is a theatre group from St Petersburg with a potent international reputation as celebrated masters of the avant garde known to push theatre to its very limits. The company’s two leading members, Maksim Isaev and Pavel Semchenko, are multi-disciplinary artists, creating visual art and directing films in addition to their provocative and vibrant work in theatre.
UTTERLY BIZARRE AND ALMOST ENTIRELY MYSTIFYING BUT ALSO STRANGELY COMPELLING AND, PERHAPS EVEN ODDLY NECESSARY. AKHE’S PIECE MAKES IMPOSSIBILITIES SEEM POSSIBLE. CULTURE WARS
SCREENING: SHORT FILMS
08
L OFF TO THE ASYLUM 70’, NO CERT., 18+ THURSDAY 2 FEBRUARY, 9.15PM TRAVERSE TWO
Tall tales and visceral imaginings expose the lengths to which we go to explore the madness of human nature.
THE HOLY CHICKEN OF LOVE AND MUSIC DIR: NOMINT / GREECE 2010, 3’ The Holy Chicken is a magnificent beast, but it is worshipped and exploited in equal measure.
NO ROOM FOR GEROLD DIR: DANIEL NOCKE / GERMANY 2006, 5’ After 10 years in the flat, Gerold the crocodile is being evicted. Is Ellen the wildebeest behind it?
THE EXTERNAL WORLD DIR: DAVID O’REILLY / GERMANY 2010, 17’ A boy learns to play the piano.
MILLHAVEN DIR: BARTEK KULAS / POLAND 2010, 7’ Sensitive Loretta is acutely aware that sooner or later everyone must die. Sometimes she helps things along.
LOVE & THEFT DIR: ANDREAS HYKADE / GERMANY 2010, 7’ A psychedelic, stream-of-consciousness music video love letter to the glorious world of cartoons.
STICKY ENDS DIR: OSMAN CERFON / FRANCE 2010, 6’ Misfortune is a man with a fish’s head. Bubbles spreading unhappiness escape from his mouth.
SPIN DIR: MAX HATTLER / FRANCE, UK 2010, 4’ When conflict becomes spectacle, the lines between destruction and entertainment are blurred.
THE LOST TOWN OF SWITEZ DIR: KAMIL POLAK / POLAND, FRANCE, CANADA 2010, 21’ An accidental traveller, drawn by mysterious forces, discovers the secret of a ghostly town.
MANIPULATE VISUAL THEATRE FESTIVAL 2012
PERFORMANCE
SNAPSHOTS
FRIDAY 3 FEBRUARY, 7.30PM TRAVERSE TWO CREATION & PLAY VARIOUS / SCOTLAND, 60’
HER CUP OF TEA TIP CONNECTION / FINLAND, 30’
Three leading Scottish puppeteers, have each been given an award by Puppet Animation Scotland. Matched with three leading directors, each pair has created a ten minute piece of visual theatre. Apart from that, anything goes...
The instant a tea bag is dropped into a cup of hot water, the irreversible happens: something is destroyed and something new is created. A moment as simple as this can be the moment your destiny is decided.
DIVIDED BY TWO Ailie Cohen & Gerry Mulgrew (Artistic Director, Communicado)
PAC A MAC Shona Reppe & MarkThomson (Artistic Director, Royal Lyceum Theatre)
GRIT Tortoise in a Nutshell & Dominic Hill (Artistic Director, Citizens Theatre) Between each piece we will screen a programme of short films.
In Chekov’s tragicomedy Uncle Vanya, Sonja is the dutiful daughter of a bitter old man. Her predicament of undeclared love and a search for an escape from monotony is delicately explored in a play examining that most human of moments when the words ‘I love you’ are said with equal parts hope and dread. TIP Connection is a Finnish ensemble formed by graduates of the Turku Arts Academy. Its work involves international partnerships and the company has already collaborated with artists in Estonia, France, Lithuania, Norway and Russia.
G M
SCREENING: FEATURE FILM
10
GOODBYE MR CHRISTIE IF DISNEY IS ANIMATION’S HEART, THEN BRITISH ANIMATOR PHIL MULLOY IS ITS BOWELS. OTTAWA INTERNATIONAL ANIMATION FESTIVAL
DIR: PHIL MULLOY / UK 2010, 77’, CERT. 18 FRIDAY 3 FEBRUARY, 10.00PM TRAVERSE TWO
In a picturesque English village, Mr. Christie, a seemingly honest husband, family man and dog owner, is implicated in a scandal when he is caught having sex with a French sailor. Mr. Christie is in fact a selfish arrogant monster whose life is about to change forever. Mulloy uses his primitive and distinctive style of animation to produce darkly satirical films that frequently challenge the dominant social values of our time. His absurd style is both confrontational and bleakly comic.
GOODBYE MR CHRISTIE MANIPULATE VISUAL THEATRE FESTIVAL 2012
PERFORMANCE
LUVOS FOR THE PAST TEN YEARS WE HAVE BEEN AWED AND TOUCHED BY THE STUNNING WORK OF DANCER AND CHOREOGRAPHER EDITTA BRAUN. TANZ AFFICHE
A VISION OF A BEAUTIFUL AND EROTIC YET DANGEROUS ARTIFICIAL WORLD; A SINISTER GAME MADE EVEN MORE COMPELLING BY THE BEGUILING MUSIC AND INGENIOUS LIGHTING.
EDITTA BRAUN COMPANY / AUSTRIA, 55’ SATURDAY 4 FEBRUARY, 7.30PM TRAVERSE ONE Influential Austrian choreographer, Editta Braun, ushers you into a brave new world, revealing a vision of genetic modifications wreaking havoc with humanity. Simultaneously bizarre and touching, this piece plays with the body at its most familiar and most alien, asking what surprises can be uncovered by an intense exploration of the human form? It opens up the disorientation felt when we can’t control the transformations taking place in our own bodies. Movement, nakedness and touch are all bewildering if we can’t distinguish one form from the next.
LUVOS NEUE KRONENZEITUNG
Since 1989 the editta braun company has been creating work within powerfully simple frameworks, rejecting the everyday distractions of modern society. The ensemble’s work is characterised by an expressive style into which elements of social criticism are intricately woven. Above all, the company aims to create a powerful subconscious conversation between composition and choreography. One result of this dialogue is that the haunting soundtracks written by electronic composer Thierry Zaboitzeff have now become an acclaimed part of Editta Braun’s work.
S
PERFORMANCE
SCATHINGLY FUNNY ...FIVE STARS.
12
THE RETURN OF THE GREAT PUPPET HORN
SUNDAY TIMES
PANGOLIN’S TEATIME / ENGLAND, 60’ SATURDAY 4 FEBRUARY, 9.15PM TRAVERSE TWO
AN IRREVERENTLY FUNNY PIECE OF SHADOW PUPPET THEATRE...ANARCHIC AND SHARP WITTED.
Cutting edge comedy from the UK’s leading satirical shadow puppet show, The Great Puppet Horn provides a trenchant cultural critique as only bits of cardboard stuck to a stick can.
BRITISH THEATRE GUIDE
In a mere 60 minutes hundreds of puppets are animated at frenetic speed to tell tales bizarre and comic through the monochrome glory of the shadow screen. As discarded politicians fly by your ears, delight in the shadowy characters who speak, beat-box and pole-dance for your entertainment. With a constantly changing collection of sketches and short stories The Great Puppet Horn provides up-to-the-minute commentary on everything from the global financial crisis to Take That, often at the same time. Following sell out shows across the country The Great Puppet Horn (aka Jeremy Bidgood and Lewis Young) returns to manipulate with an entirely new line up of cardboard characters to amuse you. From English syntax to budget cuts nothing is safe from two guys with a stack of puppets. This is South Park meets Newsnight with a whole load of cardboard.
MANIPULATE VISUAL THEATRE FESTIVAL 2012
MASTERCLASS
PUPPETRY & MOVEMENT: A MASTERCLASS FIGURENTHEATER TÜBINGEN / GERMANY MONDAY 30 JANUARY – SATURDAY 4 FEBRUARY 10.00AM – 5.00PM
After Figurentheater Tübingen’s stunning debut, salto. lamento, at manipulate in 2010, Artistic Director Frank Soehnle returns to Edinburgh – with dancer Karin Ould Chih - to lead this masterclass. Frank and Karin offer puppeteers, dancers and other creative practitioners an opportunity to use dance techniques to create a common language of movement and expression between performer and puppet. The masterclass will focus on the relationship and impulses between puppet and puppeteer, material and dance, object and subject, opening up intriguing possibilities of transformation. After a daily training session in Girokinesis – a programme that works on the entire body through natural elements of spinal movement and joint articulation – different manipulation techniques and materials will be explored. These techniques will be used to transform creative impulses into life and vivid theatrical expression.
MATERIAL & MOVEMENT: A PUPPETRY AND DANCE MASTERCLASS Cost: £210 for six days Email emma@puppetanimation.org for further details or an application form.
SEMINAR
14
SCOTTISH ARTISTS – SUCCESSFUL INTERNATIONAL TOURING WEDNESDAY 1 FEBRUARY, 4.00PM, 90’ OLD SAINT PAUL’S, 39 JEFFREY STREET EDINBURGH, EH1 1DH. FREE
For this seminar chaired by Richard Medrington (Artistic Director, Puppet State Theatre), our guest speakers; · · ·
Dr Anna Ivanova-Brashinskaya (Director, producer and educator, Turku Arts Academy, Finland) Vahur Keller (Artistic Director, Treff Festival, Estonia) Ilan Savir (Artistic & General Director, Israel Puppet Center)
will use their extensive knowledge and expertise as leading international creators and bookers of work of the highest quality to offer provocations designed to stimulate discussion and debate about what type of work makes for successful touring to audiences beyond the UK.
E
Each year manipulate provides significant development opportunities for Scottish practitioners to nurture their artistic and technical working practices. Join us and our guests for this special event that aims to provide meaningful practical advice and encouragement for all Scottish theatre artists with a desire to present their work internationally.
Image – Big Man Walking: Vision Mechanics (Scotland) Photo: Murdo McLeod
MANIPULATE VISUAL THEATRE FESTIVAL 2012
is dedicated to the advocacy for, and the development and celebration of the art forms of visual theatre, puppetry and animation in Scotland. Through manipulate Scottish theatre practitioners and animators have the opportunity to engage meaningfully with creativity of the highest quality from around the world. In the five years since our first festival in Dundee manipulate has presented the theatre and films of leading artists from: Armenia, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Croatia, Denmark, England, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Israel, Latvia, the Netherlands, Portugal, Scotland, Spain Sweden, and the USA. Over the next five years we plan, through e-Mix - a fast growing international network for the promotion of exciting new visual theatre companies - to develop strong partnerships with major festivals in Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Greece, Italy, Poland and Spain. We will also be working closely with the newly founded Northern & Eastern European Centre for Puppetry Arts, based in Estonia, initiating further opportunities for Scottish artists to develop their creativity through exchange and collaboration. www.puppetanimation.org
manipulate Visual Theatre Festival and our visiting companies gratefully acknowledge the support of our partners: