london international mime festival
LONDON 18 > 31 jan 2021
m m e
LONDON
LIMF 2021 ran from 18 - 31 January, entirely online and successful beyond our most optimistic expectations. Our nine workshops all sold out and there were more than 100,000 views for the festival’s talks, Five Short Films and Videotheque programme of landmark productions from previous years. The pandemic meant there could be no live performances, but specially curated for online presentation LIMF 2021 was seen by a global audience, and great feedback has come from every continent. We’ll continue with online initiatives next year and for the future. But first and foremost and together with our wonderful venue partners we’re planning to return to live performance for LIMF 2022. This year’s Festival would not have been possible without funding from Arts Council England.
We applaud all the featured artists for allowing us to show their work digitally - we truly hope that we can all sit in theatres soon to applaud in person.
Helen Lannaghan & Joseph Seelig
February 2021
“This week, from my attic, I’ve been watching short films commissioned by the London international mime festival’s ever resourceful directors, Helen Lannaghan and Joseph Seelig, reacting to current restrictions by moving events online. For the first time since its 1977 debut, people worldwide can experience the crazy diversity of work for which the festival is justly famous”
Clare Brennan The Observer
Photo: Compagnie 111 Sans Objet © Aglaé Bory
2/3
Cover photo: Jacqui Beckford © Jaco Van Dormael
5 SHORT FILMS
When it became clear that LIMF’21 couldn’t run as a live event, we invited five artists to create a series of short films for our online festival. The commissioning brief was to create a work lasting between 3-10 minutes that wasn’t driven by spoken text, but otherwise giving complete freedom over subject matter and style. Five Short Films is the result, featuring Jacqui Beckford, Andrew Dawson, Gavin Glover, Kristin & Davy McGuire and Toby Sedgwick.Whilst four artists were creating entirely new work, we asked BSL interpreter Jacqui Beckford to reprise her signing of Nothing Compares 2U from Kiss & Cry , a production staged at the Barbican as part of LIMF 2017. Happily its co-director, Belgian film-maker Jaco Van Dormael, offered us his beautiful, atmospheric, black and white footage, which we were delighted to accept.
https://mimelondon.com/5-short-films
Jacqui Beckford Nothing Compares 2U
Gavin Glover Bleak House
Kristin & Davy McGuire
Vertigo
Andrew Dawson
Proximity
“The annual LIMF offers an online bonanza. There are five short films, including an exquisite account of the Prince song Nothing Compares 2U, relayed in British Sign Language, a wondrous pole-dance by Kristin McGuire, and new work from multimedia artists Davy and Kristin McGuire. There’s also a video vault of past productions, drawn from France, Italy, Belgium and Russia, in happier times.”
4/5
Toby Sedgwick ...is Bernard Knowes
Dominic Cavendish Daily Telegraph
Photo: Gavin Glover Bleak House
WATCH NOW >
10 TALKS
LIMF’21 hosted a series of free online talks, featuring artists chatting about specific shows, or more generally about their work and inspiration. These talks will remain in our online archive for you to enjoy. .
https://mimelondon.com/talks-2021
Vamos Theatre Nothing About Us Without Us
Familie Flöz Creative Process and the Role of the Mask
Nola Rae in conversation with Joseph Seelig
Sean Gandini in conversation with Thomas Wilson
Jos Houben in conversation with Andrew Dawson
6/7
Eleanor Perry & Daniel Hay-Gordon in conversation with each other
Jacqui
Guillaume Pigé Who was Etienne Decroux?
Paul Hunter in conversation with himself
Beckford in conversation with Helen Lannaghan
“Nearly 1500 views for our lecture on Etienne Decroux!!!” Guillaume Pigé WATCH NOW >
Amit Lahav in conversation with Shôn Dale-Jones
VIDEOTHEQUE 1
In the course of its 44 year history, LIMF has presented 729 productions.
With the impossibility of staging live performances in January 2021 we took the opportunity to explore our back catalogue, looking for recordings of past productions that we felt would work online. We wanted to offer a chance to watch shows that you’d missed, or might want to see again, or perhaps experience the festival for the first time. Video technology was in its infancy when the festival started back in 1977. Very little footage exists from our first two decades and what there is, mostly of poor quality. Showing any of this work would not have done justice to those artists. Happily things improved greatly in later years. What we selected for the Videotheque was not intended to represent ‘the best of LIMF’, rather a choice to represent the breadth and richness of the visual theatre world that LIMF promotes and celebrates. The 28 videos in the Videotheque were free to access between 18-31 January 2021, and more than 100,000 people did! The Nola Rae and Philippe Genty videos are still available.
https://mimelondon.com/videotheque
Videotheque 1 Archive
1990 - 1999
Nola Rae Elizabeth’s Last Stand* LIMF 1991 Andrew Dawson & Gavin Robertson Space Panorama LIMF 1991, 1999 Compagnie Philippe Genty 3 Knocks on the Door* LIMF 1992, 2007, 2014
Andrew Dawson & Jos Houben Quatre Mains LIMF 1998 Paolo Nani The Letter LIMF 1999, 2000 Nola Rae Mozart Preposteroso!* LIMF 1999, 2008 Josef Nadj Company Woyzeck LIMF 1999 * still available Photo: Compagnie Philippe Genty Forget Me Not © Pascal François
8/9
VIDEOTHEQUE 2
Photo: Joseph Nadj & Miquel Barcelo Paso Doble © Christophe Raynaud de Lage
10/11 Videotheque 2 Archive 2000 - 2009 Andrew Dawson Absence & Presence LIMF 2002, 2006 Compagnie Mossoux-Bonté Light! LIMF 2003 Akhe Engineering Theatre White Cabin LIMF 2004 Fabrik, Potsdam Pandora 88 LIMF 2004 Nola Rae Exit Napoleon, Pursued by Rabbits* LIMF 2005 Ockham’s Razor Memento Mori LIMF 2007 Ockham’s Razor Arc LIMF 2007 Jos Houben The Art of Laughter LIMF 2007, 2008, 2011, 2016 Josef Nadj & Miquel Barcelo Paso Doble LIMF 2008 * still available
VIDEOTHEQUE 3
Photo: Peeping Tom Vader © Oleg Degtiarov
12/13 Videotheque 3 Archive 2010 - 2020 Collectif Petit Travers Pan Pot LIMF 2010 Compagnie 111 / Aurélien Bory Sans Objet LIMF 2011 Peeping Tom 32 Rue Vandenbranden LIMF 2015 Gandini Juggling Smashed: Special Edition LIMF 2017 Peeping Tom Mother (Moeder) LIMF 2018 Gecko The Wedding LIMF 2019 Olivier De Sagazan Transfiguration LIMF 2019 Thick & Tight Queen Have & Miss Haven’t LIMF 2019 Les Antliaclastes Waltz of the Hommelettes LIMF 2019 Gandini Juggling / Alexander Whitley Spring LIMF 2019 Peeping Tom Father (Vader) LIMF 2019 Thick & Tight Pink Narcissus LIMF 2020
WORKSHOPS
Led by top physical and visual theatre professionals, the LIMF’21 workshops catered for all levels of experience and ran throughout January. Due to the stricter lockdown, all courses had to be moved online, or, in the case of Angela De Castro, postponed until the summer. We were delighted that the teachers rose to the challenge and were joined by participants from across the world - from China to Canada, Reunion to Hungary. Everything was fully booked, with requests for repeat courses to accommodate even more people. We’ll be back next year with more online courses, alongside live ones we hope. https://mimelondon.com/ workshops-2021
Nola Rae Upgrade Your Clown
Avner Eisenberg An Introduction to Eccentric Performing
Mark Down/ Blind Summit How to do Puppetry Home Alone
Guillaume Pigé/ Theatre Re Falling Man
14/15
Playing with the InvisibleA Crash Course in Mime Mark Down/ Blind Summit What’s So Special About Zoom? Told By An Idiot Building the Chaos David Glass Ensemble Devised and Physical Object
The PappyShow How We Play and Move
week with David Glass: an incredible precious time, learning and rediscovering physical theatre fundamentals, deepening my practice and meeting some wonderful artists. What a great way to wrap up January. Thank you.” Tweet from Workshop participant
Les Bubb
Theatre
“A
FINLAND 485 SWEDEN 347 NORWAY 326 DENMARK 556 SOUTH AFRICA 42 ISRAEL 1158 LEBANON 94 CYPRUS 42 GREECE 1488 NETHERLANDS 893 UK 22955 IRELAND 361 BELGIUM 1874 FRANCE 3391 ITALY 7403 PORTUGAL 1340 SPAIN 5078 CANADA 1346 USA 3161 MEXICO 601 COLOMBIA 361 EQUADOR 48 PERU 170 BRAZIL 508 ARGENTINA 812 CHILE 152 OUR DIGITAL AUDIENCE LIMF was seen by a global audience. More than 100,000 people watched our videos
LITHUANIA 389 LATVIA 47 POLAND 572 GERMANY 2251 SWITZERLAND 677 AUSTRIA 283 CZECHIA 403 AUSTRALIA 679 NEW ZEALAND 41 ROMANIA 684 BULGARIA 32 SLOVENIA 172 CROATIA 97 HUNGARY 112 TURKEY 333 ISRAEL LEBANON RUSSIA 940 UKRAINE 159 SOUTH KOREA 485 JAPAN 1002 TAIWAN 4198 HONG KONG 573 INDIA 48 MALAYSIA 139 SINGAPORE 119
