Sprint Festival 2009 - Camden People's Theatre
Preview by Lizzie Guilfoyle
NOW in its twelfth year, the Sprint Festival returns to Camden People’s Theatre where it runs from June 4 to July 4, 2009.
Since its inception in 1997 as a showcase for physical, visual and unusual theatre, Sprint has played host to some of the most respected artists in contemporary work, with companies such as Cartoon de Salvo, Fevered Sleep and Shunt all finding early success with performances in the programme.
This year, the tradition continues with a whole range of pieces from emerging contemporary artists, many of whom use the festival as an opportunity to premiere brand-new performances across a wide range of mediums and styles.
2009 Programme
Little Wonder’s Vagabond Voyage – June 4 to 7, 11 to 14 and 17 to 20.
Accompanied by live music and including a boat ride, this promenade performance takes the audience on a journey across Regent’s Canal, discovering the hidden heritage and stories of London’s most historical back waters. The performance includes a 30 minute walk.
Harriet Poole’s visible exchange – June 9.
A one-to-one encounter that employs traditional photography to question the public face of social and cultural events, using personal stories and recounted memories to address how two strangers might go behind-the-scenes of site and self.
Tom Marshman’s The Invitation – June 9 and 10.
Developed from several workshops with groups of over 65-year-olds, this one man show recounts and re-examines memories of the abdication speech of the king, a childhood journey on the strawberry line, a debutante lying drunk on the floor of the Savoy and explores the possibility of what can happen when parachutes are remade into blouses.
Chloé Dechery’s Showing Up – June 9 to 12.
In a series of short stories echoing the formalities of a festival, the performance explores the theatrical event through non-theatrical presentations, including a launch party, a tour of the theatre, a press conference and a lecture about the art of bowing.
Natasha Davis’ Rupture – June 11 and 12.
Working across the disciplines of performance, poetry, music and film, this work explores the body as a permanent site of trauma in a tale of war, illness, fear and decay.
Strange Names Collective’s The Gathering Storm – June 13.
Inspired by a never-ending circular joke, this 12-hour durational performance centres on two pirates working to create, tell, and remember an increasingly gigantic story to explore the pleasure of invention, the work of memory, and the destruction of forgetting.
Tinned Fingers’ Our Fathers’ Ears – June 14 and 15.
Marking the 200th anniversary of Darwin’s death, this participatory performance asks you to raise a glass and join an exploration of extinction, inviting the audience to move through the space and help construct scenes, to navigate stories, and to choose their survivor.
Famous&Devine’s Last Night I Dreamt My House Was Leaking – June 16 and 17.
Taking inspiration from George Buchner’s Woyzeck, this darkly experimental performance sees the brutally murdered Marie return from the dead to retrace her earthly desires. In so doing she disturbs the living, rippling through their dreams and lurking at the terrifying fringe of their imaginations.
Sleepwalk Collective’s Y La Noche Es Un Océano – June 18 and 19.
Sleepwalk Collective are preparing to leave Earth forever. This performance asks the audience to share in their last moments, hear their swansong and witness their kiss goodbye to the world.
Helsinki Syndrome’s My Body Lies Over The Ocean – June 20 and 21.
Developed and performed on two continents, this intensely personal work looks at temporary and unreachable distances via the mediums of performance, experiments in new media, soft rock music and dance.
Complicite Education and South Camden Community School’s New or Re-Do – June 23.
This project between post-16 students and Complicite Education looks at how culture reconsiders and reassesses its context and content and explores what is really new in our society.
Sylvia Rimat’s Being Here While Not Being Here – June 24 and 25.
Performance artist Sylvia Rimat retraces her experience of fainting on stage in a performance in 2003 by employing chalk signs, video snippets and a microphone to examine how different modes of reality are composed.
Kings of England’s Where We Live & What We Live For – June 24 and 25.
Short narrations and performances by father-and-son Peter (74) and Simon (29), concerning love, loss, happiness and the passing of time.
Mamoru Iriguchi’s PREGNANT?! – June 26 to 28.
In this performance lecture, a psuedo-pregnant male traces his journey on overly intimate relationships with others that take place in and around his imaginary womb.
Song Theatre’s My Sisyphean Merry-Go-Round – June 30 and July 1.
This image-based performance incorporates the essence of visual and physical theatre to examine life as a merry-go-round, questioning what would happen if Sisyphus finally reached his rock or Orpheus had not looked behind.
Katherine Fry and Jung Eun Yoo’s The Time is 15:15 – July 2 and 3.
Devised with six performers using objects and gestures based on their memories, The Time Is 15.15 examines the relationship between memory and identity, asking questions such as: what is a human being without memory? What is it to recapture the past?
Freya Elliot & Co’s The Trip – July 4 and 5.
Packed lunches, toilet stops, note passing, vomit bags, terrible singing – all the pleasures of the school trip. The Trip is a journey of discovery and disaster, which asks: where are we going? And when will we get there? With surreal humour, video projections, and many surprises.
For more information and tickets call the box office on 08700 600 100 or visit the Website
Tickets are also available on the door.