Kneehigh Return to HOME With the Award-Winning THE FLYING LOVERS OF VITEBSK

International touring theatre company Kneehigh return to Manchester with The Flying Lovers of Vitebsk, playing at HOME, Tue 3 - Sat 7 April 2018.

Marc and Bella Chagall were the flying lovers of Vitebsk. Partners in life and on canvas, they are immortalised as the picture of romance. But whilst on canvas they flew, in life they walked through some of the most devastating times in history.

Kneehigh previously visiting HOME with Dead Dog in a Suitcase (and other love songs) in September 2015, and 946: The Amazing Story of Adolphus Tips in October 2016, and have recently been at The Lowry in Salford with Brief Encounter.

Presented by Kneehigh and Bristol Old Vic, Emma Rice directs Marc Antolin as Chagall, and Daisy Maywood as Bella in Daniel Jamieson's critically acclaimed and dazzling play, vividly drawn from the early life of this iconic artist.

The Flying Lovers of Vitebsk ran to high acclaim at Bristol Old Vic in 2016 and has enjoyed sold-out runs at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse in London, the Traverse Theatre Edinburgh, where it won the prestigious Carol Tambor Best of Edinburgh Award, the highest honour at the Edinburgh festival fringe, and has recently played at the Wallis Annenberg Center for Performing Arts, Beverly Hills, California.

This revival traces the lives of the young couple as they navigate the Pogroms, the Russian Revolution, and each other, in a typically vigorous Kneehigh staging, woven throughout with live Klezmer music from Ian Ross and James Gow, inspired by the Russian Jewish folk tradition.

Marc Chagall was a leading pioneer of modern art whose vibrant, original style evolved against one of the most tumultuous and terrifying periods in history. Chagall and his young wife were swept up in the confusion and brutality of world wars, revolution, ethnic persecution, and the murder and exile of millions of people. He responded with a radical, original visual style which was both mythic and dreamlike, fusing everyday settings inspired from his home town in Vitebsk in an extraordinary mystical lament, conveying love, loss, exile and the miracle of survival.

Marc Antolin's credits include Romantics Anonymous (Sam Wanamaker Playhouse), Twelfth Night (Shakespeare's Globe), Peter Pan (National Theatre), The Trial (Young Vic), Taken At Midnight (Theatre Royal Haymarket, Chichester Minerva), Amadeus (Chichester Festival Theatre), From Here To Eternity (Shaftesbury Theatre), Matilda (RSC Courtyard Theatre, Cambridge Theatre). Film and Television credits include London Road, Coconut Shy, Love, Actually, and More Than Love.

Daisy Maywood's credits include Promises, Promises (Southwark Playhouse), Wonder.Land (National Theatre/Manchester International Festival), Medea (National Theatre), A Chorus Line (London Palladium), West Side Story (Sage Gateshead/RSC), 42nd Street (Leicester Curve), Phantom of the Opera (Royal Albert Hall), Les Miserables (02 Arena). Television and film credits include London Road and Doctors.

HOME, Manchester's centre for international contemporary art, theatre, film and books, officially 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 café 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, former 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 author Meera Syal CBE.

KNEEHIGH are a UK-based theatre company with a local, national and international profile. For 35 years Kneehigh have created vigorous, popular and challenging theatre, with a joyful anarchy. The company has performed everywhere from village halls to castles, disused quarries to conventional stages all over the world. From the company's breathtaking barns in Cornwall, they create theatre of humanity on an epic and tiny scale. Led by Mike Shepherd, Kneehigh work with an ever-changing bunch of talented and like-minded performers, artists, makers and musicians and are passionate about the creative process. The Asylum, a beautiful nomadic structure, pops up annually and is home to theatre, fun and Kneehigh knees-ups. Alongside major productions and tours we also run the Kneehigh Rambles - fun adventures and events with communities in Cornwall and beyond. "We have a commitment to the on-going spiritual health of ourselves, our community and the theatre. We want to collaborate with our fellow human beings, whether they are adults or children, professionals or outsiders and are hungry to meet and work with new and vivid people from different backgrounds. We want to create event and offer experiences that can profoundly change people's lives. We want to create relevant, innovative and emotionally charged work, to reach out in meaningful ways to the non-theatre going community, to build a non-elite audience and to celebrate our delicious time on the planet." www.kneehigh.co.uk | @WeAreKneehigh

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