LONDON INTERNATIONAL
MIME FESTIVAL 2001

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INDEX
BlackSKYwhite
Whalley Range All Stars
Ronaldo Brothers
Jacques Lecoq Films
La Ribot

Basil Twist
Fiat Lux
Derevo
Maybellene
John Paul Zaccarini
Shunt
Théâtre du Mouvement
Ariel Teatr

Sat 13 - Wed 17 January
Purcell Room 8pm
Box Office: 020 7960 4242
£10.50 (£8 concs)

blackSKYwhite

FROM RUSSIA

Bertrand’s Toys
Opening the 2001 London International Mime Festival, a gripping, dense and dream-like danse macabre from Moscow’s cutting edge BlackSkyWhite company. Inspired by Russian ancient ritual, commedia dell’arte, expressionist and horror films, this swirl of movement, colour, light and pounding industrial sound rushes you headlong to the edge of the abyss. As night falls, strange clockwork dolls and giant marionettes emerge into a place of beauty and terror...
A sell-out hit at the 2000 Edinburgh Festival, ‘Fringe First’ and ‘Total Theatre’ award winner. Unforgettable.

‘Disquieting and disturbing, it reflects your fears and holds you in a trance’
MOSCOW TRIBUNE

Runs approx. 65 mins
Presented in association with SBC

Also at Phoenix Arts, Leicester Fri 19-Sat 20 January 8pm, £8 (£6 concs)
Box Office: 0116 255 4854

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Sat 13 and Sat 20 January
Royal National Theatre
Lyttelton Stalls Foyer
12 noon - 2pm & 5pm - 7pm FREE

Whalley Range All Stars

FROM UK

Head Quarters
Guaranteed to separate your mind from your body in a unique, theatrical manner - Head Quarters is a cross between a fairground side-show, a bed-time story and a box of tricks. Manchester-based Whalley Range All Stars has taken its distinctive form of street theatre to the beaches of Rio, to a cage at Jersey Zoo, and to the hub of world finance - New York’s Wall Street. Now its latest and most ambitious project comes to The Royal National Theatre as part of the Mime Festival. Unforgettable short performance experiences for ten people at a time.

‘For a few minutes you leave the real world behind and journey into your own subconscious’. THE GUARDIAN

Each performance runs approx 10 mins.
www.good.co.uk/WR.ALLSTARS
Presented in association with The Royal National Theatre

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Sat 20 and Sun 21 January
Queen Elizabeth Hall Foyer
1pm FREE

David & Danny Ronaldo

FROM BELGIUM

Runs approx 50 mins.

Circus Ronaldo is a Cultural Ambassador of Flanders
Presented in association with SBC

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Sat 13 January 4pm
Ciné Lumière, Institut Français:
Box Office: 020 7838 2144/46
All seats £4

Les Deux Voyages de Jacques Lecoq

Double-bill: Part 1 Le corps, le mouvement
Part 2 Le jeu, la creation

Director: Jean Noel Roy, 1999

Jacques Lecoq’s innovative ideas and teaching made him one of the twentieth century’s most influential theatre personalities. Jean Noel Roy’s two forty-five minute documentary films (to be shown in one session) show Lecoq at work with students at his internationally renowned Paris theatre school, and include interviews with many now well-known former pupils.
Premiered in Britain at last year’s Festival, this fascinating cine hommage to Jacques Lecoq sold out very quickly. In response to great demand the Festival offers another chance to see the films, screened this time at the Ciné Lumière. Early booking recommended.

Runs approx 105 mins inc. interval.

Thanks to Marie Bonnel at the Division du Cinema, Ministere des Affaires Etrangeres, Paris, and to Dominique Hoff at the Institut Français, London.

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Mon 15 - Sun 21 January
South London Gallery
Bookings through First Call: 0870 840 1961
£10 (£8 concs) (plus £1.50p handling fee per transaction)

Mon 15 at 7pm.
Tue 16 - Wed 17 at 7pm & 9pm
Thu 18 at 8pm (followed by post-show discussion)
Fri 19 at 7pm & 9pm.
Sat 20 at 6pm & 8pm .
Sun 21at 4pm & 6pm

La Ribot

FROM SPAIN

Still Distinguished
La Ribot is the most charismatic representative of Spanish avant garde performance, and one of Europe’s leading live art personalities. Still Distinguished is the third part of her project, commenced in 1993, to create a hundred unique physical snapshots which aim to reach the essence of ideas. Presented in the form of short, concise solos, lasting anything from 30 seconds to 7 minutes, these latest pieces will be presented in a non-theatrical convention, with the audience free to circulate around the space, able to see the performance from different viewpoints. Somewhere between performance and visual art, between Marcel Duchamp and Pina Bausch, La Ribot’s tableaux vivants are shaped by clarity and wry humour. As with other works of art, each piece is available for sale to ‘distinguished proprietors'.

Runs approx 60 mins

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Tue 16 - Sun 21 January 8pm. Sat - Sun mats 4pm
ICA Theatre
Box Office: 020 7930 3647
£10.50 (£8 concs)
inc. ICA day membership

Basil Twist

FROM USA

Symphonie Fantastique
A unique and sensational abstract puppetry show, choreographed to the five movements of Hector Berlioz’s 1830 Symphonie Fantastique.
Inside a water-filled, five hundred gallon, glass-walled tank, American puppeteer Basil Twist and his company manipulate fabrics, feathers, glitter, mirrors, dyes, overhead projections, 8mm film, air bubbles and fishing lures. The effect is a mind-boggling kaleidoscope of colour and movement, an ever changing carousel of fabulous images. It’s like listening to music with your eyes.
Winner of a coveted ‘Obie Award’, Symphonie Fantastique opened at New York’s HERE Arts Centre in 1997 for a four week run, ultimately playing to sold out houses for a year and a half.

Runs approx 60 mins

‘In a seen-it-all-world, you’ve seen nothing quite like this’.
TIME OUT/New York
‘True magic. An uncanny experience that generates passion, daring and pure pleasure’.
NEW YORK TIMES
‘Spectacular’.
TIME MAGAZINE

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Fri 19 - Sun 21 January Fri & Sat 8pm. Sun 3pm
Purcell Room
Box Office: 020 7960 4242
£10.50 (£8 concs)

Fiat Lux

FROM FRANCE

Nouvelles Folies
On holiday in a remote Breton fishing village, a smart young city couple finds the fun-loving local trawlermen’s behaviour less than helpful. Directed by Didier Guyon, top French ensemble, Fiat Lux, makes its London debut with this uproarious visual theatre spectacle, a classic contemporary comedy packed with cod humour, red herrings and razor-sharp timing. If you’ve enjoyed the work of groups like The Right Size and Jerome Deschamps, you’ll appreciate this slice of wordless mischief-making down amongst the lobster pots.
Formed in 1990, Fiat Lux has toured around the world. Nouvelles Folies, its latest show, premiered at the 2000 Avignon Festival.

Runs approx 60 mins

‘Effortlessly, brutally funny... every detail observed to perfection’. L’EXPRESS

Presented in association with SBC
With the support of the French Embassy, Institut Français du Royaume Uni.

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Fri 19 - Sun 21 January Fri & Sat 7.45pm. Sun 6pm
Queen Elizabeth Hall
Box Office: 020 7960 4242
£10, £12, £14

Derevo

FROM RUSSIA

The Rider
After sold-out successes with The Red Zone, Once and Reflections, extraordinary Russian theatre troupe Derevo returns to the Mime Festival with another award winning production, The Rider.
A thrilling blend of dark and lyrical visual theatre, it tells the story of an actor searching to find his own, true identity. A crystal princess, a scary wizard, a fearless sailor, a whorehouse in a distant exotic land... As he conjures up tragic and comic moments from his life, images and visions begin to overlap as reality gradually fades into a kaleidoscope of dreams.
Founded in St.Petersburg in 1988, Derevo now tours the world from its new base in Dresden. Performers in The Rider include group founder members Tanya Khabarova, Lena Yarovaya, Alexey Merkuchev, and Anton Adassinski who comes to London direct from character role guest appearances with the Kirov Ballet.
Not suitable for young children.

‘Put Adassinski and Co down for an Olivier Award nomination. May they return soon’. DAILY TELEGRAPH (Once)

Runs approx 80 mins
Presented in association with SBC

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Sat 20 - Sun 21 January 6pm, 6.30pm, 7pm, 7.30pm, 8pm
Hoxton Hall
Box Office: 020 7739 5431
£4 (£3 concs)

Maybellene - The Living Fashion Doll

FROM UK

The Road to Shangri-La
Essential and unmissable glamour puppetry - in a colourless world, Maybellene brings joy and sparkle to the oppressed. Hard to believe so much truth, wisdom and glitter can be crammed into just one quarter of an hour.

‘Maybellene is a pre-shrunk, high-fashion, glamour goddess for the new millennium. Camp as a row of tents, her terrifically trivial fifteen minute MGM-style musicals are performed in a puppet booth. She lives in a world of sequins and spangles, love-hearts and flowers, lip-synching her way through a series of kitsch classics inside a miniature world where dreams really do come true’.
TOTAL THEATRE

‘Small but perfectly formed... the kind of sexy blond cuteness that would make Doris Day turn pale at the roots’.
THE HERALD

‘Barbie better watch her back: This girl is going to be big’.
THE GUARDIAN

Runs approx 15 mins
Presented in association with Martin Sutherland

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John Paul Zaccarini

FROM UK

Throat
Movement and circus theatre meet in this witty and dizzying solo display. Directed by Flick Ferdinando, Throat explores the delights and frustrations of masculine identity. Choreographer, dancer, physical theatre virtuoso and consummate rope artist, John Paul Zaccarini has worked with DV8 Physical Theatre (Enter Achilles), appeared in pop videos with Jamiroquai, The Rolling Stones and The Spice Girls and has choreographed for L’Oreal and Hermes fashion shows. He starred as SkyBoy in the Millennium Dome Show.

‘This is a fabulous piece of work, as passionately executed as it was
beautifully conceived’. THE TIMES

www.zaccarini.com

Runs approx 60 mins

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Shunt

FROM UK

The Ballad of Bobby François
On 12 October 1972 a Fairchild F-227 chartered by an amateur rugby team left Uruguay for Santiago in Chile. Shortly before Christmas two emaciated young men staggered down from a high plateau in the Andes to announce that they were survivors of a plane which had crashed seventy days before. Shunt puts the scrum on the grill to reconsider the etiquette of survival and
the awkward implications of cannibalism in polite society.
Performed in a railway arch beneath London Bridge station, this is a wild, imaginative, production that veers between outrageous humour and the macabre.
‘Critics’ Choice’ Time Out. Total Theatre and Herald Angel awards.

‘Shunt is playing with some of the more extreme possibilities of theatrical experience. Book your flight now’. THE SCOTSMAN

‘Hugely ambitious, highly effective’. GLASGOW HERALD

www.shunt.co.uk

Runs approx 60 mins

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Mon 22 - Tue 23 January 8pm
Purcell Room
Box Office: 020 7960 4242
£10.50 (£8 concs)

Théâtre du Mouvement

FROM FRANCE

Le Chant Perdu des Petits Riens
Established twenty five years ago by its present artistic directors, Claire Heggen and Yves Marc, Theatre du Mouvement has been seen in sixty countries. Expert and entertaining, its work has been a major influence in the development of contemporary mime and visual theatre. Its latest show displays all this influential company’s hallmark physical ingenuity and wit. A series of fleeting windows opening onto daily life, Le Chant Perdu Des Petits Riens focuses on all those unconscious gestures, signs and symbols which humans use automatically, when words are insufficient. With Claire Heggen, Claude Bokhobza and Dany Kashiro, original music by Michael Musseau, directed by Yves Marc.

Runs approx 65 mins

‘Exhilarating and consummate performers in a medium with practically limitless possibilities’. LE MONDE

Presented in association with SBC
With the support of the French Embassy, Institut Français du Royaume Uni

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Tue 23 - Thu 25 January 8pm
ICA Theatre
Box Office: 020 7930 3647
£10.50 (£8 concs) inc. ICA day membership

Ariel Teatr
with the Ariel String Quartet

FROM POLAND

A Little Requiem For Kantor
Original music by Bartosz Chajdecki

First seen in Britain in the early 1970’s, the work of Polish director Tadeusz Kantor and his Cricot 2 ensemble, in productions such as Dead Class, left an indelible impression on audiences all over Europe. In this remarkable evocation of Kantor’s world, two original Cricot 2 performers, Mira Rychlicka, and Zofia Kalinska who devised and directed the piece, join with British actors and Bartosz Chajdecki’s Ariel String Quartet from Cracow, to recreate the atmosphere and unforgettable imagery of some of his epoch-defining shows.
No-one who has experienced the power of Kantor’s work will want to miss this dramatic tribute, ten years on from the artist’s death. For a new generation of theatre-goers, too young to have seen the originals, A Little Requiem For Kantor provides a tantalizing glimpse through the mists of time.

Runs approx 55 mins

‘A miracle..a gem’. THE SCOTSMAN

‘Almost unbearably poignant. It brings youth and age together in a shared statement about the ongoing cycle of artistic creation’. THE HERALD

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Tue 23 - Thu 25 January 8pm
BAC
Box Office: 020 7223 2223
£7 (£5 concs))

Told by an Idiot

FROM UK

A Little Fantasy
Company founder, Hayley Carmichael, (Time Out Award/Best Actress for I Weep At My Piano 1999) and other members of Told by an Idiot present a selection of wordless works in progress, inspired by the works of Rodin, Zeus, gymnastic equipment and the human body.
With the help of music, design and light, the Company will explore stories of life and love; what could be gained from loss, new journeys born outof tragedy, and how some things never change. The Company’s previous work has been described as:

‘Theatre about as inventive, imaginative and fantastical as it gets’ TIME OUT

‘A dazzling blend of improvisation allied to an inventive theatricality,
held together with magnetic precision playing.’ THE INDEPENDENT

Runs approx. 70 mins

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Sun 21 Jan 8pm
Croydon Clocktower
Box Office: 020 8253 1030
£8 (£5 concs)

SpyMonkey

FROM UK

Stiff - Undertaking Undertaking
At last, Forbes Murdston, the great tragedian, in creative paralysis for so many years, has a tragedy of his own from which to draw inspiration. But as he sets out to bury his dear departed wife in fitting style, nothing quite goes to plan. Directed by physical comedy specialist Cal McCrystal (Peepolykus, Boosh, Mel & Sue), Spymonkey's hilarious black farce won a Total Theatre award in Edinburgh and has achieved cult status with audiences all over the UK. Lashings of melodrama, Gothic shlock-horror, and painfully funny.

Brighton-based, Spymonkey's performers come from Britain, Spain and Germany. They met whilst working with Swiss action-theatre Karl Kuhn's Gassenschau in Zurich in 1996

'Dead funny...this is a tragical tale and you'll weep, but only with laughter'. THE GUARDIAN

'Seriously, outrageously, cleverly funny'. THE HERALD

'A dead cert killer hit'. THE LIST

Runs approx 60 mins Presented in association with SBC and Martin Sutherland

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Fri 26 - Sun 28 January Fri-Sat 8pm, Sun 4pm
ICA Theatre
Box Office: 020 7930 3647
£10.50 (£8 concs) (inc ICA day membership)

Stephen Mottram's Animata

FROM UK

Organillo
Stephen Mottram's latest creation fuses animation with music and the visual arts. Puppets, automata and illusion are layered together to produce a haunting, sensual journey into primordial waters - a fertile, amniotic world where things wriggle and reproduce. As with his previous, acclaimed shows, In Suspension and The Seed Carriers, this new work features an original soundscore. Inspired by the sound of the organillo - a small South American mechanical street organ, the music by Argentine composer Sebastian Castagna was specially commissioned in collaboration with the Oxford Festival of Contemporary Music.

Runs approx 55 mins

'Mottram takes the art of puppetry to a level of sophistication which makes you gasp with the cleverness of it, yet he also has a feel for the potent simplicity of this ancient form of theatre that touches on the mystical'. INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY

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Fri 26 - Sun 28 January 8pm
Hoxton Hall
Box Office: 020 7739 5431
£8.50 (£6 concs)

Théâtre de L’Ange Fou

INTERNATIONAL

Entangled Lives
This latest work from corporeal mime specialists Theatre de l’Ange Fou is based on a poem by the twentieth century French writer, Jean Tardieu. Taking Tardieu’s powerful text as a starting point, Entangled Lives explores the duality present within each of us.
Theatre de l’Ange Fou was created in Paris in 1984 by Corinne Soum and Steven Wasson, the last assistants of celebrated mime teacher, Etienne Decroux. Now based in London, this international company has produced more than seventeen original theatre works, and also authentic reconstructions of Decroux’s most famous mime pieces. As well as directing Theatre de l’Ange Fou’s productions, Soum and Wasson lead courses at their own theatre school in London, Ecole de Mime Corporel Dramatique.

'A vision of theatre combined with an authentic sense of life' LÕUNITA (Italy)

www.angefou.co.uk

Runs approx 65 mins

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Fri 26 - Sun 28 January 8pm
BAC
Box Office: 020 7223 2223
£8.75 (£5.50 concs)

Kantor on Film

As part of its focus on the work of the great Polish theatre director, Tadeusz Kantor, the Festival in association with BAC presents a unique, three night season of previously unseen archive footage.

The films were all created by Duncan Ward, who met Kantor in the course of a visit to Poland in 1985, travelled with him for two years and returned frequently to continue filming until Kantor’s death in 1990. The season comprises two documentaries, made fifteen years apart, together with filmed stage productions of Kantor’s definitive trilogy, Dead Class (1972), Wielopole Wielopole (1982) and Let The Artist Die (1985).
Fri 26:
8pm Wielopole Wielopole
9pm To My Father: a homage to Kantor (2000)
Sat 27:
8pm A discussion of the work of Kantor. Invited panelists include Duncan Ward and former Kantor actress, Zofia Kalinska.
9pm Dead Class
Sun 28:
8pm Kantor: a short film by Duncan Ward & Gabriele Cardazzo (1986)
9pm Let The Artist Die
Each film runs approx 40 minutes

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Sat 27 - Sun 28 January 8pm
The Circus Space
Box Office: 020 7613 4141
£10.50 (£8.50 concs)

The Circus Space Cabaret

Just about a whole weekend’s entertainment in one evening! Come and visit Britain’s home of contemporary circus, formerly the Shoreditch Electricity Generating Station, take your seats in the Combustion Chamber, and experience a unique blend of funny, sensual, astounding and plain bizarre acts happening above and around you. Enjoy the aerial athleticism of John Paul Zaccarini, the ping-pong ball popping Erikssonlaver and many more of today’s top artists. The Circus Space presents an all-male International Contemporary Circus show, under the watchful eye of the all-female Flick Ferdinando.

Runs approx 80 mins

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Workshops and Critical Practice

Angela de Castro
How To Be A Stupid

The Why Not Institute at
The Arts Educational School
Sat 20 & Sun 21 January 10am - 6pm. £120

Further information and bookings: The Why Not Institute, Tel: 020 8987 6661
email: whynotinstitute@aol.com

An intensive, two day introduction to the art of clowning. The weekend is designed for those starting the search for their clown persona, as well as for more experienced artists in need of a burst of focus and inspiration.
Brazilian born Angela de Castro has performed and taught clowning in circuses and at festivals across the world. She is artistic director of The Why Not Institute, a new and unique organisation based at The Arts Educational School, dedicated to all aspects of contemporary clowning.

John Paul Zaccarini
Taking Physical Theatre into the Air

Sat 27 & Sun 28 January 10am - 5pm. £80

Bookings and further details from
The Circus Space: 020 7613 4141

Using theatre and dance improvisation, this workshop attempts to lift physical theatre off the ground. What stories should we tell in the air? How do we blend aerial technique and the actor’s craft without falling off? Should we fall off? Should we fail more often? A mix of vocal play, contact improvisation, clown and aerial technique, to open up new ways of telling stories, and to be in the air for a reason.
John Paul Zaccarini is one of Britain’s leading aerial performers, and has taught, choreographed and directed for many well known dance and circus-theatre ensembles. See above for details of John Paul’s solo show, Throat.

Critical Practice 10
The Role of the Director in Physical and Visual Performance
Voice Box, Royal Festival Hall
Sat 20 January, 3 - 5pm
£5 (£3 concs). Free for Total Theatre Network members

Does an ensemble theatre company need a director? What is the role of
the actor-director? What unique issues face directors of physical and visual theatre productions? Who are the directors who have inspired today’s practitioners?
An international panel of speakers including Didier Guyon (Fiat Lux), Anton Adassinski (Derevo) and Cal McCrystal (SpyMonkey) will lead what is bound to be a lively discussion, when these and other questions will be addressed by Critical Practice 10, hosted by the Total Theatre Network for physical and visual performance in association with the London International Mime Festival and SBC.
Limited capacity. Early booking recommended. To reserve a place and for further details call 020 7729 7944 or email: admin@totaltheatre.org.uk

Booking FOR ALL WORKSHOPS opens
Monday 11 December
N.B. Payment must be received before the day of the workshop.

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