A to Z listing of all performers taking part in the 2011 Stockton International Riverside Festival:
The 5 Ring Circus summer show features young people from across the North East exploring their circus dreams. Five groups of young people, from five places, learning five circus disciplines; from acrobatics to trapeze, juggling to unicycling. Come and enjoy the next generation of North East circus performers share their skills and enthusiasm.
5 Ring Circus is part of NE Generation and is funded by Legacy Trust UK, an independent charity set up to create a cultural and sporting legacy from the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games across the UK.
Why not stop for a moment… Pause… Take a breath… Take a deep breath… Aren’t you feeling better already
Kent –based Accidental Collective offers a wide menu of entertaining treatments to help you escape from the everyday hustle and bustle of life… and all in only five minutes.
Presented as part of Gone in 20 Minutes.
Bad Taste Cru are a pioneering UK Hip Hop theatre company and over the years have become one of the UKs top bboy crus. Originally from Northern Ireland, but currently based in Newcastle upon Tyne, BTC came together as a graffiti/skate cru in urban Omagh, a town more famous for its turbulence and violent past than its hip-hop scene. They discovered B-boying in the late 1990s and have been dancing ever since. A self-confessed collective of ‘B-boys, skaters, writers, MCs, friends, film-makers, outcasts, geeks and weirdos’, their common bond is their love of hip-hop culture and the power of dance.
Tribal Assembly fuses physical theatre, dynamic b-boy moves and body contact work to tell the story of four very different characters and their part in society. It follows the choices and factors that have shaped their lives and led to the social hierarchy within which they exist.
Commissioned by Without Walls.
SIRF favourites Bängditos Theatre return to Stockton to premiere their brand new show. After touring the town centre to announce the thrills in store, our two heroes present a stunt show that would have Evel Knievel turning on his camshaft! You’ll be amazed at what they can get up to with their Volkswagen Beetle and mini-me motor bike.
Comedy the Bangditos way!
RantBox is an interactive outdoor performance exploring public opinion about climate change (and anything else you want to get off your chest). Three roving performers interview passers-by about the state of the world. They then ‘rant’ on your behalf, with your words interspersed with famous speeches and crazy dancing. It’s better out than in!
Presented as part of Gone in 20 Minutes.
A Tees Valley legend for more than 20 years, Brutus Gold’s Love Train is the original Disco Inferno, replete with an amazing cast of characters, hot moves and hotter grooves. This is your chance to dress up, get down, do the Hustle and win the prize for the night’s best dancer, and all in the name of D.I.S.C.O.
Tickets available from ARC box office on 01642 525199 or book online.
A quintessential Irish scene unfolds through giant puppetry and music. A typical tale of the Irish diaspora told through wit and humour as well as a tinge of sadness packed up in that suitcase.
Presented as part of Gone in 20 Minutes. With support from Culture Ireland.
Chris Lowe – storyteller extraordinaire from the West Midlands has been telling stories for 15 years.
He has appeared at festivals all over the country including Walsall Streets Alive, Grasmere Storytelling Festival and Festival at the Edge. Performances are often sprinkled with music hall ditties and he is the current holder of the title -”The Biggest Liar in Shropshire”
Storytelling for all the family!
Based in London, Cirque Nova is a totally integrated circus company offering free training and employment opportunities to young people with disabilities; either physical or learning. Searching Epiphany explores the liberating power of circus by showcasing character work, aerial and acrobalance performance by disabled artists.
Presented as part of Gone in 20 Minutes.
Spidora explores the mythologies surrounding life and death and the journey into the underworld. It takes the form of a traditional fairground sideshow, but once inside, audience members must pass through a coffin, and follow a pathway through a feast of distorting digital illusions and effects.
Presented as part of Gone in 20 Minutes.
We welcome the return of futuristic Italian percussionists Dadadang after more than 10 years. Join the “Dadadang machine”, as the glowing, masked drummers make their robotic way from Stockton High Street to the Riverside in time for the Festival Finale. Fantastic rhythms, precise choreography and raw energy make the Dadadang experience one to remember.
Choreographer Mark Smith uses a fusion of different styles of dance incorporated with sign language to create exciting and unique work for all-male dance company, Deaf Men Dancing, a collaboration of professional male dancers & choreographers who, like Mark, are deaf. Mark’s work as a choreographer includes the recent Sadler’s Wells’ production of Shoes & the Union Theatre’s Iolanthe. The essence of Deaf Men Dancing is to use sign language as an inherent part of the creative process and integrate it into the movement vocabulary, rather than use it as a commentary to the performance. The elements of the signing are teased out and drawn into something uniquely beautiful.
Alive! is a celebration of our need for connection and creativity in the hubbub of the city, in which dance, sign language, sound and live painting combine to turn the mundane reality of our current economic climate on its head and reach out to remind us that life is joyous and that we must still embrace and celebrate being Alive!
This innovative dance piece for four suited characters is choreographed by Mark Smith for his dance ensemble Deaf Men Dancing, featuring live painting from expressionist artist Rachel Gadsden.
Commissioned by Without Walls and Greenwich+Docklands International Festival and Dada South (in association with Up-Stream) . Alive! is supported by Accentuate.
The German company Fatalia bring a taste of Glastonbury to Stockton with their chamber of mysteries. Enter the world of Fatalia to experience a magical mirror on life’s mysteries, full of strange perspectives and marvellous metamorphoses.
After losing his latest assistant in an unfortunate accident, the Alchemist continues with his series of experiments to turn lead into gold. If he succeeds, he’ll be famous, and make a fortune too. But the risk of another catastrophic mistake is always close at hand! Delightful puppet theatre for all.
Presented as part of Gone in 20 Minutes.
Graeae is a disabled-led theatre company that profiles the skills of actors, writers and directors with physical and sensory impairments. The company’s aim is to redress the exclusion of people with physical and sensory impairments from performance and to create genuinely pioneering theatre in both its aesthetic and content. Graeae is the leading British company in its field and has been led by Jenny Sealey, Artistic Director, since 1997.
This year Graeae brings Ted Hughes’ classic modern fable, The Iron Man, adapted by Paul Sirett as a bold new outdoor theatre production to SIRF. The unexpected arrival of the Iron Man casts a shadow of fear across a small farm community. But when an enormous dragon from outer space threatens to annihilate the planet, it is the Iron Man who comes to the rescue in this beautiful tale of understanding and tolerance.
Performed in a wide semi-circle, the action happens in and around the audience. Set against a the backdrop of celestial soundscapes, a deaf and disabled ensemble spins stories with words, signs and audio descriptive narrative so that all families can watch and experience the delights of this colossal story that emerges from the shadows and takes to the air.
This performance incorporates audio description and BSL interpretation.
A Graeae production commissioned by Without Walls and Greenwich + Docklands International Festival, supported by Arts Council England.
Karl Stets is an illusion seller and strings charmer. He brings us into a parallel world where objects come to life, speak to us and tell us their hidden meanings. Using elements of circus, dance, object manipulation and puppets, Stets creates an experience that brings the tension of a horror movie to some innocent games.
Professor Smith is a typically English local historian, dedicated to the conservation and promotion of old stories, customs, legends and folklore. Join the Professor and his assistant at their horse-drawn mobile library archive to see re-enactments of curious local tales. Frisky the Horse is often called upon to help, and the audience can too.
Presented as part of Gone in 20 Minutes.
Keeping your feet on dry land
Set on a submerged house amidst rising flood waters Cascade is an enthralling look at one family’s scramble to keep their heads above water and their feet on dry land! A company of fabulous dancers balance, fall, slide and tumble their way upwards as they ascend through the levels of their domestic life and arrive adrift on an endlessly disappearing island.
Cascade combines the very best of dance and acrobatics in a physical and dramatic spectacle.
Nutkhut’s latest production sees a sari shop explode into a colourful night-time procession through the centre of town. A beautiful mannequin modelled on a Bollywood star is paraded through the streets, accompanied by tailors on bicycles, parasol dancers, Maharajahs on stilts and other exotic imagery, including a radiant lotus flower float and a ‘maypole’ of outstretched saris. Join the fun and witness a truly explosive ending!
Nutkhut use dance, film and theatre and music to celebrate contemporary British Asian culture, and Stockton audiences have enjoyed past productions like Bollywood Steps and Movieplex.
Commissioned by Derby Feste in 2010. Supported by Dance City Creative Partnerships.
Paramo Cero create a unique aesthetic and sound with musical instruments made from recycled materials; a bedside cabinet bass, a bottle xylophone, a briefcase guitar. Combining dance, contemporary circus and theatre with the music, Paramo Cero treat audiences to a dreamlike and surreal show.
Spread the love is the cheese on the toast, the cherry on the cake, and the warm fuzzy feeling inside! The love is spread by a portable love machine using all five senses. You can listen to love songs, taste love’s sweetness, smell love’s heady aroma and touch love’s softness. Then peep into the box and learn the truth about love!
Presented as part of Gone in 20 Minutes.
Ragroof Theatre and Cie. Vendeval
Bridges y Puentes uses a multiplicity of languages – spoken, sung, played, and danced – to explore the experience of migration. Interviews with migrants to Stockton, Brighton and Mulhouse (France) form an integral part of the soundscape, which also includes a beautiful mix of live and recorded music from all corners of the world. The audience experience the multi-layered lives of migrants from the painful leaving of home to the challenges of integration into new communities. It’s a show that evolves from, then disappears into, thin air….
Free ticketed event. Bridges is a trans-national collaboration between Ragroof Theatre (UK) and Compagnie Vendaval (France).
Red Herring is a performance company set up by Paschale Straiton in 2008 to create outdoor theatre performances and installations in collaboration with a broad range of designers, puppeteers, composers, stand up comedians, journalists and often with the participation of students and community groups.
The company aims to create visually arresting theatre that has a highly intimate and interactive quality which is experimental and provocative while remaining accessible and engaging. The company presents work in public spaces, sometimes unusual ones, and for free where possible in order to engage members of general public and not just regular theatre-goers in an immediate artistic experience.
Red Herring were last at SIRF in 2008 with The Seance.
What would happen if Punch and Judy broke free of their booth? Havoc on the high street? Social unrest? Mass rebellion? And the rest! Well, it happens at SIRF!
That’s The Way To Do It! is a raucous outdoor comedy – an alternative take on an age old institution that sees our lovable rogues run amok in these anxious, credit-crunched times. Brought to you by a dream team of performers and outdoor theatre makers this playful, knockabout satire is underpinned by timely concerns on ethical behaviour and censorship.
The design is heavily influenced by the traditional shows, with eye-catching costumes, glove puppets with built in sound systems for a modern twist and a tug of war of sausages for the public to get involved with!
A Red Herring show, commissioned by Without Walls and produced by Time Won’t Wait.
Reial Companyia de Teatre de Catalunya
This young company from Barcelona present a tongue in cheek parable for our times in Debenham’s shop window, no less!What if job creation opportunities for young people included dressing up as pets in the hope of attracting a kindly family? Bunny Me was first presented at the Edinburgh Festival in 2009.
An old-fashioned ice cream van becomes a haven for all things sugary and sweet, with pink smoke spilling from the exhaust pipe and fountains of popcorn spraying from under the bonnet. Will you be lucky enough to climb aboard and experience sweet wonders you have only dreamed until now?
Presented as part of Gone in 20 Minutes.
Accompanied by an ensemble of musicians/noisemakers playing on instruments made from household waste, old bikes and metal containers, six dancers from around Europe (Belgium, Hungary, Slovenia, Sweden) recall their childhood memories amid the traditions and customs of European villages. Against a background of birdsong, traffic noise, but also techno, electro and the music of the Balkans, the Scuba Club Collective crosses traditions and finds similarities to create its own story.
Taffy Thomas MBE has been telling stories since the 1970s and is the nation’s first Laureate for storytelling.
He has a repertoire of more than 300 stories, tales and elaborate lies collected mainly from traditional oral sources, which he is happy to share with one and all.
What appears to be a bird watching hide sits in an urban square. Inside, a long slit allows the audiences to gaze out across the natural habitat of us humans. All is not as it seems: there’s a real performance going on out there. But will you be able to tell the actors from the passers-by?
The Chipolatas need no introduction, but this year their music-making and inspired lunacy are specially enhanced on occasions by their Big Band and some very special guests!
Shep, Pat and Gordo, a.k.a The Dirty Brothers, are the kamikaze clown princes of sideshow, mixing silent comedy and sketches with some eye-watering stunts.
As well as sword-swallowing, razor blades, piercing and the like, they dance blindfolded and in bare feet across a maze of mousetraps, lift a car battery by their nipples and, being Australians, tuck into a plate of live maggots. And it’s all done for laughs! A hit at the Edinburgh and Sydney Festivals, The Dark Party is one invite you won’t want to turn down. “With swords, staple guns, singing saws and power tools, it’s like watching huge, tattooed toddlers play with very dangerous things.” Tickets available from ARC box office on 01642 525199 or book online.
This year’s SIRF Finale promises to be one of the most spectacular we’ve ever staged. It’s a stunning UK premiere featuring Argentine/Spanish aerial company Voala, with pyrotechnics from Alchemy Fireworks. Taking inspiration from the heady optimism of the 1960s, High! features a giant, psychedelic mobile suspended from a 120 tonne crane, 13 extraordinary acrobats performing below the mobile and uplifting rock music from Argentine-British band Duchamp Pilot. It’s a performance guaranteed to move your emotions as well as your hands and feet. Get High! and finish SIRF 11 in style!
Whalley Range All Stars and Babok
Imaginary Friends is a collaboration between British company Whalley Range All Stars and the Dutch company Babok. Both groups explore a variety of outdoor theatre forms and how these can interact with the public.
Imaginary Friends is a mobile outdoor performance, combining narrative with group improvisation, singing and theatrical set-pieces. Ten performers and ten life-size puppets lead the audience on a journey through the twisting and turning streets of group relationships. The troupe comes to life in a series of guises, continually remaking themselves into a gang of drunks, a group of ventriloquists, a dance troupe, nurses and patients, children and teddy-bears, rescuers and the rescued, the socially embarrassed and the socially embarrassing. Imaginary Friends fuses choreography, improvisation and singing to mould images of tenderness, humour, surprise and cartoon-style violence into a story of life on the move.
Commissioned by Without Walls. Supported by Lakes Alive.
As The World Tipped is a real life disaster movie performed live in the night sky!
It is an ambitious and extraordinary piece of aerial theatre that tells a powerful tale of ecological crisis. Combining dramatic film and visuals with breath-taking aerial performance, As The World Tipped confronts one of the most pressing issues for the planet with spectacle, humour and emotion.
As The World Tipped was written and directed by Nigel Jamieson, one of the worlds leading creators of outdoor spectacle (Sydney Olympics, Liverpool Capital of Culture) and created with the pioneering team from Wired Aerial Theatre who performed at SIRF last year with Rosa’s Bar and Straw Dogs.
A TippingPoint/Without Walls Co-commission
Commissioned by Brighton Festival, Norfolk & Norwich Festival
Made in Liverpool supported by Liverpool City Council
Co-commissioned by GDIF, Mintfest, Stockton International Riverside Festival and XTRAX
For the past four years SIRF has worked with seven other English festivals to bring out the best home grown talent as part of the Without Walls consortium. SIRF 2011 will welcome six exciting and diverse Without Walls shows.
SIRF is a founder member of Without Walls which is funded by Arts Council England. Other members are:
Lakes Alive, Cumbria
Norwich and Norfolk Festival
XTRAX, Manchester
Greenwich + Docklands International Festival, London
Winchester Hat Fair,
The Bristol Do.
