33rd London International Mime Festival Held January 13-31 2010

33rd London International Mime Festival Wednesday 13th - Sunday 31st January 2010 

‘The festival never fails to throw up an intoxicating mixture of the beautiful and the strange, the wondrous and the baffling.' The Daily Telegraph
London's celebrated annual showcase for contemporary visual theatre presents 19 days of boundary-breaking performances featuring 15 companies from 10 different countries and no fewer than 13 UK premieres.

Highlights of the 2010 festival announced by artistic directors Joseph Seelig and Helen Lannaghan include world class circus-theatre from Switzerland's Zimmermann & de Perrot with Öper Öpis, opening the season at the Barbican on Wednesday 13 January; Britain's acclaimed young aerial theatre group Ockham's Razor with The Mill, performing inside and around a specially created giant wooden wheel suspended seven metres high over the stage of the Royal Opera House's Linbury Studio Theatre, directed by Olivier Award-winning War Horse choreographer, Toby Sedgwick, and Until Now, a beautifully improbable acrobatic adventure from the UK's Mimbre, at Southbank Centre. All three productions are LIMF co-commissions.
Other standout shows at Southbank Centre are Spain's Circus Klezmer, returning with the uproariously entertaining village wedding that was the sold out hit of last year's festival, and Israel's Etgar Theatre with Eshet, a story based on a dramatic Old Testament tale of forced marriage told with the use of life-size puppets. At the Barbican, Eloge du Poil is a remarkable solo in praise of bearded women by young French acrobat, puppeteer and ventriloquist, Jeanne Mordoj, with assistance from singing badger skulls and a mountain goat.

Also at Southbank Centre:
France's Collectif Petit Travers returns with a brand new show, Pan-Pot, atmospherically lit and staged, it features a firework display of incredible juggling and dark comedy to live accompaniment of piano music by Mozart, Liszt, Wagner and others.
Belgium's brilliant physical comedy duo, Okidok present two shows, HaHaHa and Slips Inside, representing two very different but equally hilarious styles of clown performance.
Also from France, Compagnie Ieto brings the show with which it won the prestigious Jeunes Talents Cirque competition, an impressive, entertaining battle of wits between two multi-talented acrobats - using just a couple of wooden benches and a few lengths of rope.
Also at the Barbican:
Belgian sorceress-puppeteer Nicole Mossoux of Compagnie Mossoux-Bonté creates theatre of startling, unforgettable images with her show Kefar Nahum. It's the story of Creation - a great project gone badly wrong and where even the puppeteer herself cannot escape.
At the ICA:
Using movement, shadow, sound and light, Russia's BlackSkyWhite presents a chilling vision of disintegration in USSR Was Here. In 1989 their country disappeared overnight. Moscow's cult experimental theatre icons give their response to those apocalyptic events.
Italy's PathosFormel perform The Timidity of Bones, a powerful, short and highly unusual show that reveals unexpected ways of using the body to create haunting images and sensations.
From Denmark, Rankefod is an astonishing solo performance from Kitt Johnson X-Act, exploring the origin of the species. Reptilian, insect-like, animalistic, human - Kitt Johnson's body metamorphoses in front of your eyes.

From France's renowned Ateliers du Spectacle, A Distances is an award-winning, animation theatre micro-epic for two performers, shadows, puppets, objects, sounds and wonderful, clanking, Heath-Robinson machinery.

Also at the Royal Opera House, Linbury Studio Theatre:

Acclaimed Portuguese acrobat Joao Paulo dos Santos (O Ultimo Momento) presents Contigo, a heart-stopping story about anger and loneliness, directed by well-known contemporary dance choreographer, Rui Horta.

LIMF Extra
LIMF 2010 also features a range of workshops, post-show discussions and, at the ICA on Saturday 23 January, a talk by Tom Morris, newly appointed artistic director of Bristol Old Vic and associate director of the National Theatre.

Booking details for events:

Barbican 0845 121 6839 on sale from Fri 27 Nov
www.barbican.org.uk

ICA 020 7930 3647 on sale from Thu 12 Nov
www.ica.org.uk

Royal Opera House 020 7304 4000 on sale from Mon 26 Oct
www.roh.org.uk

Southbank Centre 0844 847 9928 on sale from Fri 13 Nov
www.southbankcentre.co.uk

Post-show discussion dates are:

Thu 14 Jan: Zimmermann & de Perrot, Barbican Theatre

Mon 18 Jan: Eshet, Southbank Centre's Purcell Room

Tue 19 Jan: BlackSkyWhite, ICA Theatre

Wed 20 Jan: Ockham's Razor, Linbury Studio Theatre, Royal Opera House

Thu 21 Jan: Mossoux-Bonté, The Pit, Barbican Centre

Fri 22 Jan: Collectif Petit Travers, Southbank Centre's Queen Elizabeth Hall

Fri 22 Jan: Kitt Johnson, ICA Theatre

Sat 23 Jan: Joao Paulo dos Santos, Royal Opera House, Linbury Studio Theatre

Sat 23 Jan: Okidok, Southbank Centre's Purcell Room

Sun 24 Jan: Circus Klezmer, Southbank Centre

Mon 25 Jan: PathosFormel, ICA Theatre
Tue 26 Jan: Mimbre, Southbank Centre's Purcell Room

Thu 28 Jan: Jeanne Mordoj, The Pit, Barbican Centre

Fri 29 Jan: Ateliers de Spectacle, ICA Theatre

Sat 30 Jan: Cie IETO, Southbank Centre's Purcell Room

Full programme online from 30 October at www.mimefest.co.uk and free festival brochure available from 1 December at 020 7637 5661 (also downloadable as a pdf).

All three LIMF productions at the Barbican are presented in association with bite10
The 2010 London International Mime Festival gratefully acknowledges financial assistance from Arts Council England.

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