Complicite's THE ENCOUNTER Begins Tonight at HOME Manchester

HOME presents what is sure to be one of the highlights of Manchester's theatrical year, THE ENCOUNTER, Simon McBurney's spell-binding solo performance for Complicite. The production runs tonight 16 - Sat 19 March 2016.

In 1969, National Geographic photographer Loren McIntyre became lost in a remote part of the Brazilian rainforest while searching for the Mayoruna people. His encounter was to test his perception of the world, bringing the limits of human consciousness into startling focus. Threading scenes of his own life with details of McIntyre's journey, Simon McBurney incorporates objects and sound effects into this solo performance to evoke the depths of the Amazon rainforest.

The show's ground-breaking binaural sound (3D audio) design, by Olivier Award Winner Gareth Fry, is transmitted to the audience through provided headphones and plugs into the power of the imagination, questioning our perceptions of time and our own consciousness.

The captioned performance on Thu 17 March will trial Talking Birds' The Difference Engine, a discreet new tool for making events and performances accessible to deaf or hard of hearing audience members through captioning to a mobile device - smartphone or tablet.

Simon McBurney has created and acted in more than 30 productions for Complicite. His directing credits with the company include Beware of Pity, The Master and Margarita, Shun-kin, A Disappearing Number, Measure For Measure, A Minute Too Late, The Elephant Vanishes, Strange Poetry, and The Street of Crocodiles. Other directing credits include All My Sons on Broadway and The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui with Al Pacino in New York.

His opera credits include The Magic Flute and A Dog's Heart, both produced by De Nederlandse Opera and English National Opera in collaboration with Complicite.

As an actor, Simon has appeared in many films and TV including Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation, The Theory of Everything, Magic in the Moonlight, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, The Last King of Scotland, and JK Rowling's The Casual Vacancy. THE ENCOUNTER is a Complicite co-production with the Barbican; Edinburgh International Festival; Onassis Cultural Centre, Athens; Schaubu?hne Berlin; The?a?tre Vidy-Lausanne; and Warwick Arts Centre. The production is supported by Sennheiser and The Wellcome Trust.

Amazon Beaming, the book by Petru Popescu that inspired the show, is re-published by Pushkin Press in February 2016. The play text of THE ENCOUNTER is published by Nick Hern Books in February 2016, available from www.complicite.org/shop.

Tickets for THE ENCOUNTER at HOME are on sale now at homemcr.org/production/the-encounter.

HOME, Manchester's centre for international contemporary art, theatre, film and books, opened its doors over the 2015 May Bank Holiday weekend. Designed by Dutch architects Mecanoo and featuring a 500-seat theatre, a 150-seat flexible theatre, a 500m2, 4m high gallery space, five cinema screens, digital production and broadcast facilities, a cafe? bar and restaurant, HOME's theatres are a platform for questioning and ambitious artistic projects that involve audiences with new and extraordinary theatrical experiences. The international contemporary visual art programme is dedicated to presenting new commissions by emerging and established artists of regional, national and international significance, with a bold, proactive policy of visual, innovative storytelling with the ability to experiment and explore, probe and provoke, creating a distinct experience for both artists and audiences. HOME's five cinemas showcase the very best in contemporary and classic cinema, screening works by artists and filmmakers both established and new. HOME is a centre for co-production, talent development and artistic creation, dedicated to learning, for people of all ages. A place for new work and playful ideas; of festivals and commissions; of artists and of audience engagement. The patrons of HOME are Danny Boyle, National Theatre Artistic Director Nicholas Hytner, actress Suranne Jones, playwright and poet Jackie Kay MBE, artists Rosa Barba and Phil Collins, filmmaker Asif Kapadia, and actress and On Corporation Street, combining theatre, visual art and film in the second of a triptych of shows by ANU (with the other author Meera Syal CBE. The theatre programme for 2016 includes plays being performed in Dublin) marking the centenary of Ireland's Easter Rising and the 20th anniversary of the bombing of Manchester by the Provisional IRA; a new edition of ¡Viva! Spanish and Latin American Festival, with a cross-art programme for the first time ever featuring newly- commissioned theatre productions; a new HOME, Young Vic and Theatre de Ville production of The Emperor based on legendary journalist Ryszard Kapus?cin?ski's book, with the creative team behind critically acclaimed Kafka's Monkey including Kathryn Hunter, and directed by HOME Artistic Director: Theatre, Walter Meierjohann; A Pacifist's Guide to the War on Cancer, presented by HOME, Complicite Associates and the National Theatre, directed by Bryony Kimmings; HOME's 2016 International Guest Artist is Belgian dance collective Peeping Tom, who will introduce Olivier award-winning 32 rue Vandenbranden; Smoke and Mirrors by American company The Ricochet Project; a double bill from Manchester-based Eggs Collective and The Conker Group; Beyond Caring, presented by Alexander Zeldin and Company, a brutally honest, darkly humorous play exposing the stories of an invisible class; and ZooNation's newly revamped, family-friendly, award-winning production Into the Hoods: Remixed. www.homemcr.org | @HOME_mcr

COMPLICITE, founded in 1983, is an international theatre company based in London led by Artistic Director Simon McBurney OBE and Producer Judith Dimant MBE. The Company has won over 50 major theatre awards worldwide. The company's recent work includes Beware of Pity, The Master and Margarita, Shun-kin, and A Disappearing Number. Alongside its productions, Complicite runs an extensive Creative Learning programme with recent projects including Like Mother, Like Daughter, and Tea.

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