Performance Art

Director: Daisy Evans Reviewer: Hannah Powell Disney and theatre fans alike have begun to flock to The Vaults to catch a glimpse of their latest immersive creation; Sounds & Sorcery: Celebrating Fantasia. An event that promises to be a “completely immersive sound and visual extravaganza” allowing you to create your own path through the underground tunnels. Using cutting-edge binaural sound, audio ...

Deviser: Duke Riley Reviewer: Scott Matthewman As the audience takes their seats in the open air beneath a near-cloudless summer sunset, several of the cast emerge to give a preview of the show ahead. Normally, this can be a fraught time: the threat of interaction, of enforced jollity, can ruin rather than enhance the show to come. Not in this case. ...

Reviewer: Peter Jacobs Natalie Inside Out is a collaboration between hand-balancer Natalie Reckert and digital artist – and former circus artist – Mark Morreau. The show builds on the circus skills of Reckert and investigates and illuminates them using digital technologies, examining the relationship between the body as performance and reality, teasing at the seams where live acrobatics, film and digital ...

Written and performed by Gary Winters and Gregg Whelan Reviewer: Julia Beasley Inclusivity has always been part of the process for performance company Lone Twin. The experimental duo, Gary Winters and Gregg Whelan, specialise in organising community theatre events and ensembles, bringing together other artists and, often, anyone who wants to join in. In past performance projects, they’ve cycled, walked, ...

Reviewer: Peter Jacobs Alexis Langevin-Tétrault is Montreal-based musician and digital artist presented as part of The Lowry’s digital programming strand. Montreal, we learn, has an unexpectedly rich and vibrant digital and visual arts scene, fuelled by the film and creative industries based there. Langevin-Tétrault has designed and built a new electroacoustic instrument that is best-described as a large deconstructed guitar ...

Choreographers: Emily Molnar, Crystal Pite, Sharon Eyal and Gai Behar Reviewer: Jo Beggs Ballet British Columbia isn’t a company on most British dance audience’s radar. In fact, despite the company being over 30 years old, this is their first time in the UK. In partnership with Dance Consortium, the Canadian company are undertaking an extensive UK tour, from Edinburgh to ...

Reviewer: Julia Beasley The fabulously floodlit church of St Paul in Portland Square is the perfect venue for this trio of top-drawer alternative theatre performances. Home to renowned circus skills academy Circomedia, it ably hosts the best acts from last year’s BE FESTIVAL, Birmingham’s international festival of performing arts (previously called Birmingham European Festival). First of the three performances is ...

Music: Ellen Maddow Writer: Ellen Maddow Director: Ellie Heyman Reviewer: Carrie Lee O’Dell Fusiform Gyrus—A Septet for Two Scientists and Five Horns, Talking Band’s musical meditation on the workings of the human brain, gets its title from the part of the brain that ”lights up with activity during brain imaging when people describe and give names to living things.” It’s ...