Mayfest 2018
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The Nature of Why by Paraorchestra
The Nature of Why brings together dance and live music into an epic and beautiful performance. Featuring a cinematic live-score from Goldfrapp’s Will Gregory, four extraordinary dancers and an ensemble of musicians from the acclaimed British Paraorchestra, the world’s only large-scale ensemble for disabled musicians.
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Draw To Look by Hannah Sullivan
In this one-to-one participatory performance, Hannah invites you to join her in the simple and deliberate act of looking and noticing through drawing.
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Now Is The Time To Say Nothing by Caroline Williams and Reem Karssli
Now Is The Time To Say Nothing is an interactive video installation exploring the role of screens in observing global conflict.
It follows the real story of Syrian artist Reem Karssli as she captures her daily experience of the Syrian conflict on camera. We see what emerges when she is contacted by a group of teenagers from the UK who want to see beyond the footage they’ve watched on their TVs. Together they co-author an experience which attempts to connect a UK audience to the human story behind the news
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Undersong by Verity Standen
Undersong places you at the meeting point between threads of music. Voices weave amongst you and around the space, from a whispered duet to a screaming mob.
Nine singers build a vibrant language of a cappella music and movement as they bring to life a series of brand new compositions, which move between tender and expansive.
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Contact Gonzo vs Bristol
Imagine a kind of dance that’s also a martial art, that’s also a bit like a game that reminds you of something you’ve seen on the internet, or in a slapstick film, or on the streets.
It’s violent and tender, very funny and very serious. The show involves performers from Contact Gonzo and Bristol working together to create a once-in-a-lifetime encounter.
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Doug Hream Blunt & The Cube Workforce
A fun...k show dedicated to dabbling, living for it and loved up music making. Cult San Francisco music maker Doug Hream Blunt flies in to collaborate with a wonderful group of Cube musicians to create a live show for your enjoyment.
Produced by Qu Junktions in Collaboration with the Cube for Mayfest.
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Town Choir by Theatre Replacement
In a fixed location, writers type out observations of the world unfolding around them. In that same moment, a town choir receives these observations via a large screen and sings them out to the public.
Drawing on patterns of relaying information that mirror Twitter or Facebook, Town Choir treats everyday considerations as the news.
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Autobitch
Autobitch at the Cube Cinema
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Snigel & Friends by Caroline Bowditch
Join Snigel (leading UK disabled dancer Caroline Bowditch, Falling in Love with Frida), the inquisitive snail, in their cozy home underneath the leafy canopy; a colourful and sensory world where Snigel’s insect friends – brought to life by dancers Welly O’Brien and Alex McCabe and performer and musician Zac Scott – come to visit.
They dance, play, sing and make music in the undergrowth while uncovering secret treasures. An inviting new work for children aged 0 – 12 months.
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Drag Queen Story Time with Alyssa Van Delle
Inspired by the forever-fabulous Drag Queen Story Hour (US), Drag Queen Story Time was created for Bristol Pride 2017 and has continued delighting young audiences in the libraries, schools and hospitals of the South West and beyond ever since. Fairy tales come to life and dress up is real...
DQST is exactly as it sounds. Drag Queens read stories to children, capturing the imagination and fun of the gender fluidity of childhood, while giving children glamorous, positive, and unabashedly queer role models.
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The Killers by Richard Allen
The Killers is a live binaural sound work. The audience wear headphones and watch as the audio is constructed; eavesdropping on conversations; tracking the flight of a wayward fly; hearing in real time the countdown to an assassination.
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Bravado by Scottee
Scottee grew up around strong, brave and violent men and boys. Bravado is his memoir of working class masculinity from 1991 to 1999 as seen by a sheep in wolf’s clothing.
Bravado explores the graphic nature of maleness and the extent it will go to succeed. Blood, spit and tears are set against the drunken backdrop of aggressive sensitivity and Oasis songs.
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Live Before You Die by Byron Vincent and Dave Mcginn
What do you do when you have a best mate who is so sad he might die? Especially considering up until now your friendship has mostly consisted of a mutual appreciation of 90s hip hop, borderline alcoholism and finding creative ways to call each other dickhead.
Byron is a bipolar performance artist, Dave only communicates in insults. Together they must find a way to fix Byron’s broken soul before it’s too late. Funny, tragic and shockingly honest, this is a true story of hopelessness and friendship told by two men on a desperate quest for happiness.
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Bravado by Scottee
Scottee grew up around strong, brave and violent men and boys. Bravado is his memoir of working class masculinity from 1991 to 1999 as seen by a sheep in wolf’s clothing.
Bravado explores the graphic nature of maleness and the extent it will go to succeed. Blood, spit and tears are set against the drunken backdrop of aggressive sensitivity and Oasis songs.
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PALMYRA by Bertrand Lesca and Nasi Voutsas
PALMYRA is an exploration of revenge, the politics of destruction and what we consider to be barbaric, inviting people to step back from the news and look at what lies beneath, and beyond, civilisation.
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Let’s Not Beat Each Other to Death by The Accidental Mechanics Group
Let’s Not Beat Each Other To Death is a genre-defying play/memorial/electro-pop dance party. Inspired in part by the brutal killing of a Halifax queer activist and an attack against an outspoken gay musician, its scope expands outward and becomes a search for explanation, compassion and catharsis on a global scale.
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Mental Health Trilogy: Dialogue as the Embodiment of Love by Ridiculusmus
Since 2014 Ridiculusmus have been forging a reputation for transforming complex mental health issues into warm, witty and accessible performance. Engaging with some of our last taboos, this deeply human trilogy depicts the collision between psychiatry, psychology and the pharmaceutical industry, exploring the healing potential of altered states of consciousness. A clarion call for social inclusion.
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Complicated Grief by Ridiculusmus
Indie theatre legends David Woods and Jon Haynes of Ridiculusmus play two crustaceous elders putting off death in a snail-paced farce. A slapstick comedy 45 about hanging on, dying and grieving, played at 33rpm by two ancient insect types.
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The Eradication of Schizophrenia in Western Lapland by Ridiculusmus
The Eradication of Schizophrenia in Western Lapland is a dual family drama about recovery from schizophrenia. It simultaneously stages the first psychotic episodes of a mother and son as they navigate stress and change with fantastical results involving Finnish Folk, Margaret Drabble, Adolf Hitler and the knitted cover for a toilet roll.
Their two interconnected stories are performed to separate but adjoining auditoria in the same theatre space, audible but unseen to each other. At half time they switch seats and the action is replayed, mapping a pathway to recovery through dialogical understanding of their situation.
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Give Me Your Love by Ridiculusmus
A funny, fragile and profound fable based on ground breaking medical research and real-life war testimonies.
Ex-soldier and budding rock star Zach has withdrawn into a cardboard box in a kitchen in West Wales. His friend Ieuan arrives offering recovery – in the form of a capsule containing methylenedioxymethamphetamine, with which he claims to have successfully treated his own post-traumatic stress.
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Old Stock: A Refugee Love Story by 2b Theatre Company
2b is a Halifax-based, internationally-acclaimed theatre company creating works for the regional, national, and international stages. Direct from Off-Broadway, Old Stock: A Refugee Love Story is a humourously dark folktale woven together with a high-energy concert.
This Klezmer-folk music-theatre hybrid starring genre-bending sensation Ben Caplan is inspired by the true stories of two Jewish Romanian refugees coming to Canada in 1908. It’s about how to love after being broken by the horrors of war. It’s about refugees who get out before it’s too late, and those who get out after it’s too late.
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Velvet Petal by Scottish Dance Theatre and Fleur Darkin
Tough girls and pretty boys living life in the margins, dreaming about being at the centre. Velvet Petal explores the transformative power of beauty, created out of whatever is on the bedroom floor. The dancers experiment, seduce and philosophise through their bodies, clothing and ideas.
This fresh new work from Scottish Dance Theatre’s Artistic Director Fleur Darkin is inspired by the life-cycle of the monarch butterfly and Robert Mapplethorpe’s polaroids. Set to a fresh dance-punk score arranged by Torben Lars Sylvest, including music by LCD Soundsystem, Spoek Mathambo and Four Tet.
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WE ARE LIGHTNING! by Sam Halmarack & Joseph O’Farrell (Jof)
A darkly comical work combining theatre with the fist-pumping euphoria and power ballads of a stadium gig. WE ARE LIGHTNING! reflects on the importance of communal spaces where people can come together and express themselves.
Trinity Downstairs is transformed into a music venue on the brink of closure. A teen band, brass band and community choir join JOF’s drums and Sam’s guitar to mark and protest its demise, leading audiences through a strange ceremony and heartfelt celebration of how music shapes the lives of the people who play it.