BE FESTIVAL, Birmingham's annual summer festival of international performing arts, is to return to Birmingham REP.
The week-long celebration showcases new theatre and dance from Spain, Italy, Switzerland, France, Germany, Greece and beyond.
Miguel Oyarzun, co-director of BE FESTIVAL, said, “the festival has never had more relevance and a greater responsibility than right now, one year since the EU referendum.
“Here, in the inclusive city of Birmingham, the multi-faceted cultural identities and creativity of a continent will once again be celebrated through performance and art.
“In addition to the array of entertainment, there’ll be a healthy platform for debate and expression throughout the festival. We expect this year to be particularly lively and energetic with audiences and artists buzzing around the various nooks and crannies of The REP.”
Co-director Isla Aguilar added, “as we look further ahead to the eventuality of Brexit and beyond, we must focus on building bridges within our communities with the ultimate aim of breaking down borders that serve only to divide us.
“At BE FESTIVAL, we’re immensely thankful and proud to have Birmingham residents providing temporary homes for all our visiting artists. If ever there was an example of the kind of outward, inclusive community spirit and action needed, it’s here on our own doorstep in Birmingham where we can look for inspiration.”
Festival highlights include Asingleline from Germany, an outdoor project that seeks to reconstitute the meaning of “the red line”. It will stretch a single, two-kilometre line of red tape from the Ladywood district of Birmingham, over parks and roads into the REP.
British Enough? (Uzbekistan and the UK) is a new piece of immersive, site-specific theatre that plays with the idea of the British citizenship test, created by Kristina Cranfeld in collaboration with John and Lucy Harrigan of Foolish People.
Anatomia Publica (Spain / France) is a story of strange, fractured relationships in the aftermath of war told through movement. The company Man Drake Dance performed this piece at the International Mime Festival at the Barbican in 2014.
Politically minded Odc Ensemble’s show REVOLT ATHENΣ (Greece) is a city guide that “rejects the flat, washed-out image often painted of Greece’s capital and provides a multi-faceted window into the living and breathing reality of a place”.
The Early Ideas strand of the festival will support emerging companies’ works-in-progress, giving them the opportunity to trial new work and be in with a chance of performing at next year’s festival.
The festival runs from Tuesday 4 until Saturday 8 July.