Southbank Centre Reveals First Names For UNLIMITED, Festival of Work By Deaf and Disabled Artists

The Southbank Centre has announced the first names of its biennial Unlimited festival, the largest UK festival celebrating the work of disabled artists, working in partnership with the Unlimited arts commissioning body that supports, funds and promotes new work by disabled artists for UK and international audiences. Featuring a diverse lineup of exciting performance, dance, literature, comedy, music, visual art and more, including free and participatory events, Unlimited festival runs Wednesday 4 September until Sunday 8 September in person and with some work available online.

Since its inception in 2012, Unlimited festival has been hosted at the Southbank Centre – the only UK venue to be awarded Platinum accessibility status by the disability advocacy charity Attitude is Everything – and showcases new commissions, bespoke one-off events and existing work. This year features UK and London firsts from well-known established names, alongside works in progress and brand new commissions by artists who identify as disabled, D/deaf, neurodivergent and those experiencing chronic illness and mental health conditions. The festival Will Close the Southbank Centre’s extensive summer programme, You Belong Here, which explores themes of belonging, identity and community.  

UK & LONDON PREMIERES

Unlimited festival brings together some of the UK’s most forward-thinking artists, exploring the rich tapestry of life from becoming a parent to our approach to disability. Opening the festival, poet Raymond Antrobus shares his new collection Signs, Music – two poetic sequences exploring masculinity, fatherhood, and love (4 Sept, PUR).

Building on the Southbank Centre’s world-class Performance and Dance programme, the festival features a dazzling array of companies and performers interrogating everything from relationships and death to mental illness and social justice. A culmination of Stopgap’s 20-year history, the London premiere of ‘Lived Fiction’ is a dramatic mix of dance and projection art featuring D/deaf, disabled, neurodivergent and non-disabled creatives championing the power of diversity and the human condition (4 Sept, QEH). In the UK premiere of ‘Precarious Moves’, Vienna-based artist and academic Michael Turinskyexplores ideas of mobility and mobilisation, from the personal to the collective. Earlier this year, In 2024 he was heralded as an “Outstanding Artist” by the Austrian Ministry of Arts and Culture (6 Sept, QEH). 

Reimagining how we choose to engage with music and club culture, Disco Neurotico makes its London debut in the Queen Elizabeth Foyer with a more inclusive clubbing experience that allows you to choose between Hard Dance, Groove and ambient music, alongside gaming and chill-out spaces when you need a break (7 Sept, QEH Foyer). 

Finally, Touretteshero, led by writer and activist Jess Thom and Matthew Poutney, present the London premiere of ‘Burnt Out In Biscuit Land’ which blends film, live performance, and conversation to create a funny, surreal and moving show on resistance and joy in the face of a crisis (7-8 Sept, RFH Level 5).

COMMISSIONS

An Unlimited UK Partner Award 2023 commission with the Southbank Centre, deaf performance artist and British Sign Language art guide Chisato Minamimura brings her new live work ‘Mark Of A Woman’ to the festival. Exploring the relationships between women and tattooing cultures, the performance uses Visual Vernacular, digital animation, kinetic projection and Woojer technology. This potent new work was developed in conjunction with the Southbank Centre’s residency programme Southbank Centre Studios (5 Sept, PUR). Following, there will be a free post show event with Deaf Rave featuring the Woojer vest haptic technology.

Midgitte Bardot, who featured as part of Christine and the Queens’ Meltdown last summer, delivers an early look at their Work In Progress commission Shooting From Below – an eclectic show looking at the intertwined history of performance and dwarfism through a energetic mix of musical theatre, movement, live art and drag (7 Sept, QEH). 

For those looking for a laugh, Simon Minty and Steve Best make their in-person debut at the Southbank Centre with the hilarious stand-up comedy night, ‘Abnormally Funny People’. Commissioned for 2024’s festival with support from the Southbank Centre, it originally premiered as part of the online edition of Unlimited festival in 2021 (8 Sept, QEH).

ENGAGING INSTALLATIONS

The festival also features an exciting array of non-traditional and reimagined experiences that all audiences can engage with, aligning with the Southbank Centre’s ethos of artistic excellence and accessibility.

In the free interactive art installation ‘Hope & Ponies’, Two Destination Language invites audiences to take time to think about where our hopes are nourished, and what you really hope for, by leaving postcards and designing banners to add to the installation (8 Sept, RFH Clore Ballroom). Meanwhile, throughout the festival, in the Queen Elizabeth Hall Foyer and outside the venue, artist Suzie Lark presents ‘Unseen’. This logic-defying collection of uncanny photos challenges our notion of belonging and its importance for our mental wellness. 

FREE PROGRAMME

Musician Elle Chante shares her new EP ‘Penumbra’ as part of a special free live show which combines learnings from access focus groups with her surreal and enchanting music, taking audiences on a tender, vulnerable journey of lived experience of complex physical and mental health conditions (7 Sept, RFH Clore Ballroom). Unlimited On-Screen will feature a range of Unlimited commissioned films shown on-site and available to stream online (4-8 Sept). 

Southbank Centre Head of Public Programming Ruth Hardie said: “At its heart, Unlimited festival is about showcasing world-class art. It is a great opportunity for audiences to encounter work by internationally renowned artists, alongside earlier career artists, in five days of events that challenge, excite, entertain and move, showcased together in an inclusive and accessible way. I'm so excited we're hosting the UK premiere of Michael Turinskey, and that we can platform the London performance of StopGap’s acclaimed work Lived Fiction. I also hope audiences will come and discover something and someone new because there is so much great work to be discovered!”

Southbank Centre Artistic Director Mark Ball added "As an estimated 23% of the UK population are disabled, our long-running Unlimited festival underlines our commitment to being the nation's most culturally democratic and expressive space for artists and audiences.  The festival shines a spotlight on powerful new work across multiple art forms created by leading D/deaf and disabled artists from the UK and around the world and is a fitting finale for our summer-wide programme You Belong Here, which focuses on the importance of belonging, welcome and community.”  

Tickets for Unlimited festival go on general sale on Friday 10 May at 10am via https://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/whats-on/festivals-series/unlimited 

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