London International Mime Festival Opens in January 2023

London International Mime Festival (LIMF), the UK's annual festival of contemporary visual theatre, opens on Monday 16 January and runs until Sunday 5 February 2023 with 15 productions including 8 international works in 8 London venues: Barbican Theatre & The Pit, Jacksons Lane, Little AngelTheatre, Shoreditch Town Hall, Peacock Theatre, The Place and Wilton's Music Hall.

From wedding party plans going hilariously wrong to famous puppet death scenes, from tales of the flesh to the secret life of polystyrene and a museum coming spookily alive at night, LIMF 2023 brings premieres of contemporary circus-theatre, puppetry, live art, extreme dance and non text-based drama from near and far. Belgium's current stunning creativity in physical and visual theatre is marked in four separate productions.

The festival opens at The Place with Alexander Vantournhout'scompany Not Standing (Belgium). THROUGH THE GRAPEVINEis Vantournhout's third collaboration with fellow acrobat/dancer Axel Guerin creating a quirky, pas de deux; two extraordinary circus-dance artists play with their physical differences in a stream of endlessly surprising movement.

The Place also hosts two companies long associated with the Festival. Belgium's Mossoux-Bonté presents the UK premiere of THE GREAT HE-GOAT. Inspired by the famous Pinturas Negras of Spanish artist Francisco Goya, Mossoux-Bonté has created a powerful, award-winning work for eleven dancers and their life size puppet doubles, bringing a museum at night to life. Festival favourites Gandini Juggling has devised a lecture-demonstration especially for LIMF. THE GAMES WE PLAY sees founder-directors Sean Gandini and Kati Ylä-Hokkala providing a witty insight into the world of patterns and rhythms that inspires their work.

At Shoreditch Town Hall, leading UK visual theatre company,Theatre Re, returns with THE NATURE OF FORGETTING, a LIMF co-commission that has been performed around the world since its premiere at the Festival in 2017. Developed with neuroscience professor Kate Jeffery and the Alzheimer's Society, the show is a life-affirming journey into a weakening mind, where broken does not have to mean defeated.

Thick & Tight (UK) returns to LIMF for the fifth year in successionwith TITS & TEETH: A Retrospective of a Dazzling Career, a collection of best bits from their back catalogue. Some all-time favourites return to the stage including Miss Havisham & Queen Victoria, Winston Churchill, Marlene Dietrich, Edith Sitwell, Rasputin and, of course, John Cage & Elaine Paige. They will be joined by new band member Dame Margot Fonteyn. Combining mime, dance, drag and lip syncing, artistic directors Daniel Hay-Gordon and Eleanor Perry celebrate high and low art in all its variety, splendour and stupidity.

Told by an Idiot (UK) returns to Wilton's Music Hall with CHARLIE AND STAN, a LIMF co-commission first seen as part of LIMF'20. Inspired by real life events, Told by an Idiot's smash hit production is an hilarious and moving homage to Charlie Chaplin and Stan Laurel, two men who changed the world of comedy forever.

At Jacksons Lane MATERIA, performed by Andrea Salustri(Italy/Germany), is remarkable visual theatre that proved a popular hit at the 2022 Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Salustri explores the possibilities of polystyrene to the point it comes alive and is a protagonist of events.

David Glass Ensemble (UK) and Topi Dalmata (Italy) bring an international cast of performers to LIMF for the UK premiere of THE BRIDES, a riotous celebration of misbehaviour, tenderness and power, of love, greed, death and rebirth. Its influences include Pina Bausch, Mamma Mia, the Marx Brothers, Garcia Lorca and Frida Kahlo. Directed by David Glass, a major figure in physical theatre for four decades and co-created with Margherita Fusi and Silvia Bruni, founders of The Brides movement.

Scarabeus Aerial Theatre (UK) explores themes of transgender identity in the London premiere of EMERGING. This powerful new show centres on the relationship between a mother and her transgender son who has questioned his gender identity for as long as he can remember. A poignant journey into the unknown.

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