Camden People's Theatre's Sprint Festival will run this year from 29th
May to 29th June.
Now in its eleventh year, this annual festival of theatre and live
art never fails to surprise: People in Pieces create miniature weather
cycles live on stage in 15 Storms in a Teacup, and Michael Pinchbeck’s
The Long and Winding Road is delivered inside a parked car to
a total audience of one person at a time. Black Tonic is a detective
story performed in the corridors, lobby and bedrooms of a London hotel
and Nightfall is performed in and outside outside the theatre
on the summer solstice as the sun goes down. In all, seventeen companies
and performers will appear within and beyond the borders of the venue,
in shows five minutes in length to all night long…
29th May, 7pm
Republic of Freetania Comic Character Descriptions
Free
A welcome party to launch Sprint, here the good citizens of Comic
Character Creations, one of the most eccentric and innovative British
theatre companies, have decided to start their own country - the Republic
of Freetannia - where everything is free.
29th-30th May, 8pm
Petra's Pulse: Aegean Fatigue
£10/£8 - 70 mins
Petra’s Pulse create a misplaced landscape of lost encounters,
broken journeys and unfinished words drawn from the world that surrounds
us, based on movement practise that includes elements of Butoh, classic
European movement theatre, clown and mime. Developed with CPT.
31st May-1st June, 8pm
Rough Memory: A Kiss From the Last Red Squirrel
£10/£8 - 50 mins
Ripe strawberries, yiddish language lessons and attempts to hold on
to what you love. In this sharp and touching docu-performance Rough
Memory reports from the front line as a battle for survival erupts
between red and grey squirrels. Developed with CPT.
3rd-4th June, 8pm
Badac: The Forgotten
£10/£8 - 70 mins
A nameless man retells the story of his and his family’s humiliation
and degradation in Auschwitz at the hands of the Nazis.
5th- 6th June, 8pm
Peoples in Pieces: 15 Storms in a Teacup
£8/£5 - 35 mins
This intimate performance attempts to create weather in jar with some
low tech chemical reactions and kitchen sink science.
6th- 8th, 13th-15th, 20th-22nd June, 7pm, 8pm & 9pm
The Other Way Works: Black Tonic
Location: tbc
£10/£8 - 45 mins
An interactive site specific detective story taking place in a hotel,
incorporating video and installations, Black Tonic explores
the relationship between two women, one a guest and the other a Polish
room cleaner. Birmingham based The Other Way Works have a history
of creating site specific work. The audience are invited to check-in
at hotel reception, and journey along corridors and into bedrooms
to piece together the clues: a glass of expensive red wine; a housekeeper
gripped with inquisitive mania; a hotel receipt from New York; a couple
drunk on lust and jet-lag; a sliver of shattered glass; a sleek executive
waiting to be caught; a single spot of blood. Developed with CPT.
7th-8th June, 8pm
Chloe Déchery & Chris Eley: Useful Knowledge to Know
£10/£8 - 50 mins
French performer Chloé Déchery gives an extract from
her series of lectures about things British people should know. When
does a lecture turn into a performance? How does a performance turn
into an operatic disaster? This is a show about language and the challenging
task of imparting information (both random and crucially important).
This is a collaboration between performer Chloé Déchery,
Chris Eley, documentary film-maker, with assistance from choreographer
Pia Nordin.
9th -10th June, 8pm
Rouge 28 Theatre: Urashima Taro
£10/£8 - 50 mins
Combining Bunraku style puppetry, kamishibai (the art of performing
stories by use of picture scrolls), story telling and mask work, performer
Aya Nakamura performs a new devised version of one of the oldest tales
in Japan; of a fisherman released from the burden of his poor life
by a mysterious lady.
11th-14th June, 8pm
Tom Marshman: Finding My Inner Cowboy
£10/£8 - 50 mins
A personal, touching and very funny work exploring the connection
between the image of the Cowboy and queer culture, as Marshman engages
in traditional cowboy pursuits such as riding a mechanical bull, line
dancing and lasso practise to explore his sexuality.
12th-14th June, (see website for times)
Michael Pinchbeck, The Long & Winding Road
Free - 5 mins
With performances only five minutes in length, and for one person
only at a time, The Long and Winding Road is a moving tribute
to the artist’s brother, who died in an accident in Liverpool
six years ago. It drives around the country, filled with 365 mementoes
that belonged to him. Each audience member sits in the passenger seat
to hear of the car’s journey so far. The car tours to festivals
until 2008 when Michael will end the work by driving it into the River
Mersey.
17th-18th June, 8pm
Paper Birds: In a Thousand Pieces
£10/£8 - 1 hour
Paper Birds use movement, words and live music to trace a touching
and delicate depiction of a violent and isolated world that homes
thousands of women forced into the sex industry. Suitcases, jig-saws,
bus tickets and buttons tell the physically and visually breathtaking
tale of a young girl on her journey to England. Like Russian dolls
shedding skins; settings and worlds are packed and unpacked, lives
unfurl and the audience are led to back streets, back seats and bedrooms.
19th-20th June, 8pm
Lucy Foster: Oh My Green Soapbox
£10/£8 - 45 mins
With some items she found in her bedroom, Lucy Foster will attempt
to evoke the beautiful white world melting below our feet.
21st June, 9.10pm (sunset)
The Special Guests: Nightfall
£10/£8 - 1hr 15 mins
A summer solstice performance conducted in and outside the theatre
at sunset, Nightfall explores our relationship with the twilight
hour. A light meter measures the diminishing light levels; pseudo
goths explain how the earth orbits the sun, and a late-night radio
DJ accompanies the crowd into the small hours with tales of blackouts
and power cuts.
22nd June, 5.30pm & 8pm
Chi Chi Bunichi: Chi Chi Bunichi
£10/£8 - 1 hour
Part theatre, part dance, part gig, Chi Chi Bunichi is an intimate
performance of Ladino folksong, a dying Judea-Hispanic language that
survives only in song form for over 500 years, including dance with
harmonium, ukulele, recorded and live voices celebrating stories of
diaspora.
23rd-24th June, 8pm
Kieran and Fi Theatre Company: Fish
£10/£8 - 50 mins
A duet that sees contemporary dance blend with literal and abstract
movement styles, Fish sees two people realise for the first
time in ages who they really are. What is a fisherman without his
fish and who does wife become when she finally washes herself clean?
25th-26th June, 8pm
Giant Bird: Empire of Feathers
£10/£8 - 50 mins
A roaring industrial age of concrete oceans and steel-scraped skies
draws to a close and three men set off in search of the infamous Red
Sylvester, the rarest bird of all. Rifle Lancaster, a ruthless hunter
hopes to look death in the eye; Lucey Fair, a decadent painter seeks
to create a work of pure truth, and Ball Manhattan, a tycoon socialite,
strives to bring proof of magic back into the world. Giant Bird transforms
everyday objects into the extraordinary: a crumpled map becomes a
mountain range and a string of fairy lights an endless waterfall in
this vivid adventure.
27th-29th June, 8pm
Jenevieve Chang: On The Face Of It
£10/£8 - 1 hour
Performance artist Jenevieve Chang works in Beijing and London, where
her last piece, Chinese Takeaway, staged at the ICA and the
British Museum, saw her pole dance her way out of a giant takeaway
carton. On The Face Of It is set in a time capsule of buried
chronicles, using the historical and contemporary notion of “otherness”
as a point of departure. Created in Beijing during 2008, this montage
of physical and visual language performs the human condition in its
struggle to understand the unnameable, and the universal hope to be
understood. Developed with CPT.
