The last time so many Francophiles descended on Britain they won the Battle of Hastings and made the Saxons learn to speak French. Fortunately, no such conquering shenanigans are on the agenda for the 29th Annual London International Mime Festival, although it will be the much anticipated French performers leading the charge.
Running from 13th to 28th January at venues throughout central London, the Festival bills itself as “Eye-popping visual theatre for the digital age.” The programme is crammed with exciting acts that consistently blur the boundaries between mime, theatre, puppetry, and acrobatics. Audiences can also expect all manner of audio-visual weirdness to help set the mood. Not that the Festival sets out to be deliberately odd, more that the offbeat, irregular nature of the media make strangeness seem almost inevitable.
Take Jean-Baptiste André’s solo performance, Comme En Plein Jour, to be given at the South Bank’s Purcell Room on 15th January. The energetic seventy minute show sets out to explore a brave new world of “shifting colour, startling landscapes and skewed perspectives” by combining “circus, dance and video art.” The show also features a specially commissioned electronic soundtrack that serves as an audio backdrop providing points of reference for the performance. Those who appreciates the work of London outfit Company FZ would be recommended to keep an eye out for André, who is scheduled to host an informal discussion about his show with the audience after the performance.
Another expected standout is likely to be Mathurin Bolze. The talented trampolinist is a graduate of the French National Circus School and, like André wowed the Festival crowds back in 2005. This year he is back with more have-to-see-it-to-believe-it feats of agility and strength with a 75 minute show that will probably have audiences gasping in disbelief, and not just at the bit where he gets his kit off.
From the energetic to the sublime, the most hotly anticipated performance is by Compagnie Philippe Genty. It will be the first time in fifteen years that the company has performed on British soil. Why so long? Because the Genty and company have been busy performing in just about every other country on the planet. Recently described as “among the most innovative and inspirational theatre makers working today”, Genty founded the Company, after a long stint as a solo performer, more than forty years ago.
Anyone who has attended a Genty production will understand there is something magical about the performance. Genty is not interested in creating literal landscapes but brazenly takes us on a journey through a new land that he creates within the artificial space of the stage. In his Working Process Notes about the celebrated production Vanishing Point, Genty states: “I often use the magic and illusion to crack open the rationality and glide towards the subconscious, allowing the audience to play with the given images and calling out for the individual’s own references.” He’s a tripper alright but the truth is that unless you’re prepared to travel across oceans like an hormonally imbalanced groupie, the chance to see one of his majestic productions is a rare treat and one not to be missed.
Of course the Festival is not all about the French and the organisers have worked hard to give the programme a truly international flavour.
Swiss professors of paradox Martin Zimmermann and Dimitri de Perrot will present their audio visual spectacular Gaff-Aff (“gaff” meaning to “look with German curiosity”) that has already been delighting Parisian audiences. American vaudeville duo Geoff Sobelle and Trey Lyford will be donning their hats in All Wear Bowlers, whilst fellow American Wolfe Bowart rescues the world from a nightmare in which the dark side of the moon threatens to become reality in LaLaLuna. Spain is represented by the Buchinger’s Boot Marionettes, whose anti-chronological opera went down a treat in Barcelona last year.
The well rounded programme also features plenty of British talent including the fantastically surreal puppet masters, Faulty Optic. The Faulty Optic crew make no bones about the fact they are weird (and honestly, they are peculiar) but one thing they can’t be accused of is using weirdness to cover up real depth of talent. Awarded the Newspaper Theatre Award for ‘Most Macabre Puppets’ by The Observer last month, Faulty Optic will present Soiled (described in the Irish Times as “Wallace and Gromit written by Samuel Beckett”) from14th to 18th January.
All in all the 29th Annual London International Mime Festival promises to catapault you into magical realms from which there is a very good chance you may not want to return.
