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Company number: 3724349
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Past programme
Showcases an eclectic range of fresh and interesting contemporary work, largely by emerging artists
The Fantastical Adventures of [Not] Being With You
"We are about to embark on ’Us’. From here on out, all we do, see, hear, taste, smell, and touch will be Us. Different parts of and points in Us. This will not be a direct flight."
Two men share their timeless love story via moments alternately charming, childish and churlish. Join A & B in a funny, quirky piece of physical theatre full of fantastical adventures.
Told using only playful storytelling and a suitcase of props...
"Our final destination is Final Destination Unknown. Estimated arrival time: we'll know when we get there".
Tweet Tuesday on the 26th of June: The one show when you won't have to put away your mobile! Join us for a special performance when you'll have the freedom to live-tweet your reactions to the play as it happens. This is a unique opportunity to engage with the performance and your fellow audience members.
You can keep you up to date with all the goings on direct from the rehearsal room on Justen’s blog:
The Fantastical Adventures of [Not] Being With You Blog
Reviews
Supported by
ID=Y?
The Fantastical Adventures of [Not] Being with You plays with ideas of established gender. Written so that A & B can be either gender, it is only in performance that gender is embodied. It will be accompanied by ID=Y?, a video installation by Jennifer Stokes, which suggests that it is within the performativity of everyday life that a person's gender identity and gender expression reveals itself.
ID=Y? aims to create a real representation of androgynous performativity of women in the UK; reminiscent of the punk DIY film-making of the Riot Grrrl movement. It features self-identified androgynous women that have represented and expressed their gender performativity for camera using a variety of art forms. It also prompts its viewers to question their own understanding and acceptance of the androgynous, gender identities that form part of our society today.
Machines for Living
Reviews
Press
Fringe Review
Spoonfed
Travels in Architecture
Travels in Architecture. Great or even modest buildings are like a string of jewels connecting the world, history and peoples.
Artist Suzie Balazs exhibits a selection of pastels and watercolours depicting buildings she has seen travelling around Britain and the world, providing a counterbalance to Machines for Living's bleaker exploration of architecture and its impact. It is a celebration of interesting and beautiful buildings and the feelings of community they can evoke.
There will be a private view of this work on Monday 28th of May from 6 to 8pm.
Wine Games: Music and Dance
What happens when certain laws are simulated and certain other laws are no longer simulated? For Wine Games: Music and Wine Games: Dance Joe Stevens has constructed sequences using a program that generates music and dance respectively as determined by the random arrangement of colours in packets of Wine Gums. Audience members are invited to interpret the sequences using the props available.
The practice of Joe Stevens concerns the language of new media. This could be described as being a new form of literacy encapsulating the areas of systems, play and design. A graduate of the Contemporary Arts BA course at Nottingham Trent University and the Interactive Media MA at Goldsmiths University of London, Stevens works in performance, sculpture and installation. Methods have been developed through several residencies, including a six-month stay at the National Art Studio in South Korea, in addition to group exhibitions and a solo show in 2010.
There will be a private view of this work on Friday 11th of May from 6 to 8pm.
For How Much? / Underfoot
For How Much
Faceless .... Distorted fingers reaching out to the skies... Spinning coins on the ground... Is this the cost of the goods we buy and consume? Is this the cost we do not have to pay?
Originally commissioned by the International Organisation for Migration U.K. (IOM) as part of their Buy Responsibly campaign, this dance theatre piece takes inspiration from the lives of the people who have worked under forced labour in India, Africa, South America and parts of Europe and from the sculptures by London-based artist May Ayres and her critique of consumerism and capitalism.
Underfoot
Underfoot is an intimate and sideways exploration of that which we share and stand on. Dwelling, shifting and zooming through structures and improvisation.
"The moment one gives up one's verticality, the first thing one discovers is that even the smoothest ground is not flat. The ground is grooved, cracked, cool, painful, hot, smelly, dirty." (Andre Lepecki)
Reviews
Annarita is misspelt and Lina Patterson is another dancer in For How Much (not Underfoot). Underfoot’s cast is just Katja Nyqvist
ConcertTheatre - Sonata Movements
Exemplifying the possibilities of cross art form collaboration, ‘ConcertTheatre’ combines classical music and theatre to create a new performance experience for audiences with enhanced opportunities to make meaning from what’s onstage.
Sonata Movements pairs up four short pieces of theatre with four pieces of classical music structured in the form of a sonata. The four plays are linked by a common character of alienated relationships between people. A coherent performance will be created through characters, music, costumes and the performance space and it tells the journey of a musical sonata.
Reviews
Review in London Festival Fringe
Programme
| Abortive | Caryl Churchill (1938-) | Franz Schubert (1797 - 1828) | Sonata D. 960 Mv. I (with adapted development) |
| Other People's Gardens | Kenneth Emson (1983-) | Frederic Chopin (1810 - 1849) | Nocturne Op.9 Nr.2 Ballade Op.38 Concerto Op.22, Mv.III |
| Portrait of a Lady | T.S. Eliot (1888 - 1965) | Sergei Prokofief (1891 - 1953) Frederic Chopin |
Sonata Op.28 Prelude in E Minor |
| Swan Song | Anton Chekhov (1860 - 1904) | Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 - 1827) | Sonatas (Last Movements) Op.81a Op.53, Op.57 Op.31 Nr.3 |
Recordings
Click to play
- Feature on BBC Radio 3 'In Tune'
The Women of Troy
A world at war, a world ablaze and all its men savagely murdered, Hecuba, Queen of Troy is forced to stare into a world in which women are the spoils of war, a world full of pain, disease and persecution.
She must learn how to survive and give security, encouragement and joy to the very people who look to her as mother of the nation. From despair, an all-female ensemble moves towards hope and fortitude, through means of a dramatic fusion of text, movement and music.
You can keep you up to date with all the goings on direct from the rehearsal room and stage on their blog:
Take a look at The Women of Troy in their rehearsals with these production shots by Adam Trigg
The Women of Troy Photo Gallery
Reviews
Press
WhatsOnStage on Hecuba
Kevin Quarmby, Big Q Reviews
The Fantasist
Alone in her room, Louise is desperate to fall asleep. A surprise visitor interrupts her and takes her on a strange journey - through excitement and creativity, horror and destruction - to the forbidden chamber of her own mind.
Theatre Témoin and Cie Traversière use an exciting blend of puppetry, object manipulation, physical theatre, and original music in this zany and sensitive exploration of bipolar disorder, shedding new light on a woman's internal struggle against the swirl of extreme moods.
Reviews
Review in London Festival Fringe
Trumpety Trump: Noah's Ark
All aboard! Escape the rain and join Captain Noah and his animals on the ark. Adventure awaits as they set sail. Will they reach land safely or will Vulture and his evil companions cry mutiny?
Join us for an imaginative and musical retelling of the Biblical story, never before seen on stage.
Don Carlos
Love, betrayal and revolution...
Often remarked upon as Schiller’s Hamlet, Lazarus Theatre Company visits one of the greatest of the classical European writers in this powerful, dramatic and rousing adaptation.
Betrayed by his own father, King Philip of Spain, Don Carlos is in love with Elizabeth, who through political advantage becomes his father’s wife and Queen. Their desperate love affair is played out against a Spain in the grasp of war, tangled in untruths, corruption and deceit. The revolution of the nation destroys the lovers and the very world they wish to create.
Through the use of text, movement and music, a large ensemble will create a world of passion, conflict and rebellion. Their love will change them, their lives and their kingdom forever.
Trunkated
A showcase of excerpts and short works-in-progress of new material from London's most exciting artists across the arts. Puppetry, physical theatre, performance art... A Blue Elephant season in one evening!
The Thinker
The story of how the wounded ego must hide everything we believe that is unacceptable about ourselves. To fulfil this task the ego builds a mask to prove to others that we don't have so many defects. The play is depicted very creatively mixing the use of masks, shadow and rod puppets, object animation, physical theatre and art installation to create a magical and unique atmosphere.
Outside Puppets is an exciting new puppet company that produces high quality contemporary theatre based puppetry shows.
What You Risk
London 1936. Tensions are running high. Europe is inching closer to war and the home front is fraught. In East London pressure mounts as Oswald Mosley prepares his Fascist 'Blackshirts' to march on the immigrant population and show them they are not welcome. On October 4th, 250,000 people come together to defend the East End.
Using verbatim and historical accounts, Scrawny Cat Theatre Company brings to life the story behind the Battle of Cable Street. The lives of three women, from very different walks of life, become intertwined as the dramatic events of that day unfold, with unforgettable consequences.
Chips
Chips delves into the friendship of two young women who live for booze and sequined pants. Through witty observations and discerning movement, Chips exposes the less attractive side of Saturday's nightlife. Through wit, backchat and some drunken dancing, the Mustdashios draw on their cheeky northern unabashedness to take you on a journey in which they laugh, dance and possibly cry their way through an intoxicated friendship.
Machines for Living
There is functional and efficient performance, he claims, between artist and the hi-tech faith.
But this is Architecture.
Machines For Living is –
he wishes his buildings to try to explain.
'Let Slip' are a Lecoq-trained duo.
Machines for living have been given a full production at the Blue Elephant Theatre from Tuesday 22 of May to Saturday 16th of June 2012.
Tonight, with COD
A lady emerges from the shadow of the street. Inexplicably, COD stumbles upon a night of extravaganza in a desolate nightclub.
A change has been forced upon COD’s body due to unfortunate circumstances. What is he going to do? How is he going to deal with it? Can the lady lead him to where he wants to be?
It’s all confusing time for a cod like him especially with an unfamiliar emotion beginning to sprout within. Should he choose 'I' or should he choose 'Ai'*?
(* Ai - "love" in Japanese)
RAW
Solo exhibition of painting and installation work by this Russian artist exploring the stigma of mental illness.
Writers at Work: The Fantastical Adventures of [Not] Being With You
Leaping between moments in time, from train cars to undersea exploits to low-tech laser tag, two people pull each other along an impulsive journey through memory, adventure, and a relationship on tenterhooks. These two men bend narrative to their whim, battling with lists, reconciling with biscuits, and running from a reality they can't decide to embrace or defy.
There are moments in life that everything is either before or after; The Fantastical Adventures of [Not] Being With You is about those.
Writers at Work: Flying Asparagus
Could you memorize a whole volume of the Britannica in an hour? Do you look people in the eyes? What’s the most unusual pet you would have? You hate green peas, don’t you? How do you react when people touch you?
Max has asparagus in his head. Or so he thinks. Trapped in a research programme, he is trying to resist, to find himself, to exceed his limits. Max is our alter-ego. In his case, it’s called Asperger's. It could also simply be called Different.