manipulate #12

Festival #12

Visual Theatre

Animated 02 - 12 Film Feb 2019

Tickets: Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh 0131 228 1404 / www.traverse.co.uk Performances: Full Price Concession Rising Voices: Full Price Concession Screenings: Full Price Concession Snapshots & Testroom: Leading in Scotland Seminar:

£15 £11 / £9 £8 £6 £8 £6 £3 Free but ticketed

Multi-buy offer: Book multiple shows and save up to 25%. For all workshops bookings please visit: www.manipulatefestival.org For other manipulate venues’ tickets and box office information please contact: Dancebase, Edinburgh 0131 225 5525 / www.dancebase.co.uk Perth Theatre 01738 621 031 / www.horsecross.co.uk Paisley Arts Centre 0300 300 1210 / www.whatsonrenfewshire.co.uk Tron Theatre, Glasgow 0141 254 209 / www.tron.co.uk Norwich Puppet Theatre 01603 615 564 / www.puppettheatre.co.uk

manipulatefestival.org

Cover image: Void / F/DA & MHz in assocation with Feral. Photo credit / Jack Wrigley

Thank you to the following organisations who have supported the creation of the artists’ work presented during manipulate:

Puppet Animation Scotland would like to thank our festival partners, volunteers, board members and staff, both past and present, for providing their commitment, expertise and enthusiasm.

Anna Rogers / Festival Films Technician Stewart Armstrong / Brochure & Festival Trailer Design J Thomson Colour Printers / Printer

Welcome to Puppet Animation Scotland’s annual celebration of innovative visual theatre and animated film.

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This year leading theatre artists and film-makers from Canada, Colombia, Czech Republic, England, Finland, France, Germany, Holland, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Poland, Russia, Scotland, Spain and the USA present: 23 Productions 21 Works in progress 21 Films 3 Workshops 1 Industry-focused seminar Alongside Snapshots and Testroom - our popular series within which Scottish-based theatre makers present a flavour of their current explorations, we introduce Rising Voices. A new programming strand, this features four more-substantially finished pieces created by emerging practioners developing intriguing and exciting work.

Join us for a dynamic, eclectic and captivating programme of Scottish and international visual and physical theatre, puppetry, object manipulation and animated film. We look forward to seeing you.

Simon Hart / Artistic Director Heidi Gordon / Administrator Melanie Purdie / Festivals & Projects Manager Mayanne Soret / Digital Communications Assistant Nick Wong / Associate Producer

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Accessibility: Puppet Animation Scotland believes that every audience member should be able to experience the visual theatre, puppetry and animated film presented at manipulate as completely and powerfully as possible.

We aim to make our performances, workshops and animated film screenings as accessible as we can for our audiences.

We provide British Sign Language as often as circumstances permit and work closely with participating venues to ensure accessibility information is clear and easy to access.

The brochure entry for each Traverse Theatre event contains information about British Sign Language interpretation as well as the amount of dialogue spoken.

If you have specific accessibility questions, require more information, or have any thoughts about how we could improve our service to you further, please contact us: info@puppetanimation.org or visit our website: www.manipulatefestival.org How to book tickets for these events: Website: www.traverse.co.uk Email address: boxoffice@traverse.co.uk

Date & Time:

Monday 4 February 6.00pm – 6.50pm Show / Event: Testroom Description: Four groups of Scottish-based theatre artists share their creative projects, using puppetry, object manipation and performance skills.

Page: 22 Ticket price: £3 Access: BSL interpretation, Traverse 2 Date & Time:

Tuesday 5 February 10.00am – 4.00pm Show / Event: Leading in Scotland Seminar Description: A one-day industry-focused seminar about the further development of the puppetry, visual and physical theatre communities in Scotland.

Page: 25 Ticket price: Free Access: BSL interpretation, Traverse Bar Date & Time:

Tuesday 5 February 6.00pm – 6.50pm Show / Event: Snapshots 1 Description: Creative work in progress sharings by Alumdena Calvo, Elspeth Chapman / Borbala Mezo and Flawed Mandrake Theatre.

Page: 23 Ticket price: £3 Access: BSL interpretation, Traverse 2

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Date & Time:

Tuesday 5 February 9.00pm – 9.50pm Show / Event: Vu Description: A delicate, wordless show about the small obsessions of life.

Page: 08 Ticket price: £15 / £11 / £9 Access: No spoken dialogue, Traverse 2 Wednesday 6 February 5.00pm – 5.50pm & 8.00pm – 8.50pm Show / Event: Invisible Lands Description: A visceral exploration of the dangerous journeys’ refugees take when seeking a new life, using puppetry, physicality, choreography and video projections.

Page: 10 Ticket price: £15 / £11 / £9 Access: The language on the production’s soundscape is a gibberish representation of all languages not understood when travelling as a refugee, Traverse 2

Date & Time:

Thursday 7 February 6.00pm – 6.50pm Show / Event: Snapshots 2 Description: Creative work in progress sharings by Beth Godfrey, Jim Manganello and Freda O’Byrne.

Page: 24 Ticket price: £3 Access: BSL interpretation, Traverse 2

Date & Time:

Date & Time:

Wednesday 6 February 9.00pm – 9.50pm Show / Event: Void Description: JG Ballard’s cult novel Concrete Island reimagined through the lens of a black female protagonist and staged as a meshing of experimental dance and abstract glitch video landscapes.

Page: 09 Ticket price: £15 / £11 / £9 Access: No spoken dialogue but a loud soundscape, Traverse 1

Date & Time:

Friday 8 February 9.30pm – 10.00pm Show / Event: Transmographiles Description: Human hands move, morph and combine in unusual ways, becoming unexpected creatures and characters.

Page: 14 Ticket price: £8 / £6 Access: No spoken dialogue, Traverse 2 Date & Time:

Saturday 9 February 10.30am – 11.20am Show / Event: Snapshots 3 Description: Creative work in progress sharings by Lewis Sherlock, Selina Mallè and Iain McClure.

Page: 24 Ticket price: £3 Access: BSL interpretation, Traverse 2 Date & Time:

Saturday 9 February 9.00pm – 10.20pm Show / Event: Clown Cabaret Special Edition Description: A night of contemporary clown and physical comedy to end the festival.

Page: 21 Ticket price: £15 / £11 / £9 Access: BSL interpretation by Iain Hodgetts, Traverse 1

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Extremely Pedestrian Chorales

Karl Jay-Lewin & Matteo Fargion / Scotland

Wunderkammer

Figurentheater Tuebingen / Germany

Duration: 70’ / Ages: 12+ Monday 4 February, 9.00pm Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh

Step into this wunderkammer a cabinet of curiosities, an ancient and meditative place of wonder where rare artefacts and intriguing objects can transport you with their inimitable allure and unsettling beauty. A place where the mundane and the wonderful, where poetry and technology exist in equilibrium and thus can enable new perceptions of our world and the unity of all things.

Duration: 55’ / Ages: 12+ Monday 4 February, 7.30pm Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh A quartet of dancers, a beguiling mix of high and low art exploring the multifarious roles and movement language of the pedestrian, a prosaic and commonplace experience of the everyday as an act of beauty, meaning and gentle comedy.

A theatrical entertainment betwixt the visual and performing arts in which the complex, many-faceted medium of the marionette can release our senses and understanding to perceive gravity and magnetism. A world where mere mechanics can demonstrate marvellous mysticism and, through freedom of movement, we can experience a connection between physics and gracefulness. In this wunderkammer there is the universal connection between all things, a place where history, art, nature and science are fused as one.

Inspired in form and structure by the sublime harmonies of JS Bach’s famous chorales and pitched into our present-day lives with just a dash of punk-ish irreverence, subtle snatches of dance and movement combine with loud titles, live music, big shoes, 18th century powder wigs, and general joyful misbehaviour.

Choreographer, performer and presenter Karl Jay-Lewin and composer, musical director and performer Matteo Fargion have collaborated regularly since first working together in the 1990s.

Their working relationship is built in part on drinking too much coffee around the kitchen table and 25 years of comparing parenting worries.

Photography by Winfried Reinhardt

Saturday 2 February, 7.30pm Norwich Puppet Theatre

After the success of its productions Salto.lamento and Hotel De Rive at previous festivals, we are very pleased to welcome the return of this internationally acclaimed German puppetry company.

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Scottish premiere

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Vu

Compagnie Sacékripa / France

Duration: 60’ / Ages: 12+ Tuesday 5 February, 7.30pm Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh In a dystopian near future you’ll be able to buy personal cleaners called Intronauts - miniaturized human workers injected into your body to carry out essential maintenance. But what happens if the cleaner discovers your dirty laundry? And how much, actually, do you want to know about what goes on inside you?

Photography by Camille-Chalain

Photography by Mark Dawson Photography

Intronauts

Green Ginger / England

A madcap tale of rapidly advancing technology, very big syringes and a very small submarine, Green Ginger's new production propels audiences into a microscopic journey deep within the human body. Inspired by favourite graphic novels, classic sci-fi movies and fuelled by absurd visual comedy, take a bizarre wild trip that really gets under your skin, an intoxicating inner-body experience that is out of this world. After all, what could possibly go wrong?

For the past forty years Green Ginger has been fusing grotesque puppets, original music and innovative cinematic animated projections into highly visual and accessible productions celebrated by audiences around the world. We are very happy to welcome this acclaimed company to manipulate for the first time.

Duration: 50’ / Ages: 12+ Tuesday 5 February, 9.00pm Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh A manipulator of everyday objects with a meticulous character, with a delicate and outrageously neat and tidy nature - finds himself at the crossroads between object theatre, miniature circus and involuntary clowning.

Scottish premiere

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A delicate, wordless show about the small obsessions of life. Those seemingly trivial fixations which,

when fed by excessive attention to detail, can slowly but surely become unhealthy all-consuming manias which cause us to lose our minds completely. A man makes a cup of tea and eats a sweet. What can be more normal that that?

Founded in 2003, Compagnie Sacékripa has evolved from its early street theatre origins and success, integrating the skills and expertise of its artists in juggling, acrobatics and physicality into theatre productions of physical

humour, charm and occasional well-meaning pathos.

UK premiere

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Void

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F/DA & MHz in association with Feral / Scotland

Duration: 50’ / Ages: 12+ Wednesday 6 February, 9.00pm Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh

Photography by Jack Wrigley

JG Ballard’s cult novel Concrete Island reimagined through the lens of a black female protagonist and staged as a meshing of experimental dance and abstract glitch video landscapes.

Rising Voices:

Nino

Blending typically Ballardian themes of liminal spaces and urban paranoia with contemporary theories from radical identity studies, Mele Broomes (performer and choreographer) performs risk-taking virtuosic physicality to the brooding backdrop of a post-industrial soundscape.

Winner: Total Theatre Award for Dance 2018

Duration: 50’ / Ages: 12+ Wednesday 6 February 5.00 + 8.00pm Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh Thursday 7 February, 7.30pm Paisley Arts Centre Friday 8 February, 9.00pm Perth Theatre When war knocked on our door we left our home behind. We looked ahead and started walking, tiny TV screen figures wandering a large and unforgiving world…

Our bodies are our homes, the landscape of our lives. Private

vulnerable places, to be protected and cherished. By using bodies as visceral, organic performance platforms, geography and politics are physically extended and emotionally transformed. The familiar becomes unknown, the intimate an open space.

In a unique meeting between puppetry, physicality, choreography and video projections, lines of people struggle up the hill of a bent back, a make-shift boat and people in the water drift on a sea-blue painted belly. We look through binoculars across a border zone.

In a military helicopter we track the

Invisible Lands

homeless. We witness the chaosfilled journeys into exile of displaced people all trying to save their skins.

Since its premiere eighteen months ago this innovative production has been highly acclaimed by international audiences. It reminds us powerfully that our opinion of refugees is largely a matter of choosing our point of view. These people - anyone, anywhere, anytime - are not other. Under different circumstances they are us.

UK premiere

Livsmedlet Theatre / Finland

Tidy Carnage / Scotland

Duration: 50’ / Ages: 12+ Wednesday 6 February, 6.00pm Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh A work in progress presentation showcasing a new physical theatre piece which explores what it feels like to be a woman living in poverty in contemporary Britain. A collaboration between performer Melanie Jordan and Glasgow-based theatre company Tidy Carnage which highlights the stories of those who have no voice or power.

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Friday 8 February, 7.30pm Perth Theatre An epic tale of betrayal, regicide, madness, storms and battles set in Scotland’s rugged and unforgiving landscape, Shakespeare’s tragedy is brought vividly to life. Beautifully drawn puppets, evocative music, atmospheric foley sound and dynamic cinematic projection combine to create a captivating silent film before your eyes.

Macbeth

With a charming and witty DIY-aesthetic The Paper Cinema creates magical productions which combine and unify the languages of animation, live music, film and theatre in a unique way. Intricate pen and ink illustrations are skilfully manipulated and layered in real-time in front of a live video camera and projected onto the big screen, generating memorable images and narrative which have delighted audiences around the world.

Odyssey, presented at manipulate in 2013, this award-winning company returns to the festival with a powerful and inventive reimagining of Macbeth as a cautionary tale for our times.

Rising Voices:

Salt

Fiona Oliver-Larkin / Scotland

Duration: 45’ / Ages: 13+ Thursday 7 February, 9.00pm Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh When kitchen utensils, salt shakers, pots and pans start behaving in unexpected ways, ways I know they should not, am I losing my mind? Or am I imagining escape from the prison of an abusive and repressive home?

Scottish premiere

This new solo performance piece explores domestic violence and how everyday objects can be both tools of control and oppression, and of resistance, freedom and escape. A fairy tale of sorts, set in a kitchen, told through physical kinetic theatre and object manipulation.

Following its critically acclaimed production The Paper Cinema’s

The Paper Cinema England

Rising Voices:

99+

Kasia Zawadzka / Poland

Duration: 20’ / Ages: 18+ Thursday 7 February, 10.00pm Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh

Photography by Kyrstof Peterka

Duration: 75’ / Ages: 12+ Thursday 7 February, 7.30pm Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh

A journey of pain, intensity, failure and emotional manipulation.

A visceral and unblinking examination of the trauma of abuse – emotional, physical, sexual.

There is always a way out though.

There are always supportive people willing to help. That the closed blind circle of pain may end in a positive way. That then you can grow stronger and more beautiful than ever.

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A powerful journey from darkness towards hope, dramatized through physicality, slow-motion movement, Shibari rope work, ambient music and art installation.

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Sleeping Beauty

Beguiled

Compagnie Akselere / France

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Invisible Thread / England

Duration: 75’ / Ages: 12+ Friday 8 February, 5.45 + 7.45pm Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh Two intimate one-act table-top puppetry pieces from one of the UK’s leading experimental puppetry companies - Catmother (45’) an experimental, toy-theatre style re-telling of a scary Victorian children’s tale, set to a live-played double bass score. Bewitching and chilling, it also has an unusual performance feature.

Photography by p. Moulin

Les Hommes Vides (25’) is a charming and eerie performance of slapstick puppetry and object theatre, featuring scenes of death-defying plank action, existential angst, poetry and prizes.

Scottish premiere Duration: 30’ / Ages: 12+ Friday 8 February, 9.30pm Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh Saturday 9 February, 9.00pm Perth Theatre Duration: 55’ / Ages: 13+ Friday 8 February, 7.30pm Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh Saturday 9 February, 7.30pm Perth Theatre The kingdom of Liverpool is devastated by unemployment and famine. It’s safer to be a gang member than to be alone and needles have replaced spindles.

Not the best place for dreams about modern day princesses and very far away from the nearest,

happily-ever-after fairy tale castle.

A personal interpretation of the darker elements of the Briar Rose fairy tale, a story for grown-ups, created and performed by Compagnie Akselere’s Artistic Director, Colette Garrigan. Creating a unique and threatening realm of objects and imaginative lighting, Garrigan integrates her native Liverpudlian voice with her adopted French tongue to describe a dangerous world where the blackest of humour co-exists with poetic

stillness and insights.

Colette studied puppetry in France at the International Puppetry Centre in Charleville-Mézières, before settling on the island of Réunion where she founded Compagnie Akselere in 1999.

Now based in Normandy, Colette has created seven successful productions over the past fifteen years, becoming an important and distinctive theatrical voice in France.

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Human hands move, morph and combine in unusual ways, becoming unexpected creatures and characters.

Travel through water, earth and air as we follow the journey from basic life forms to complex beasts in a surreal evolutionary narrative of shape shifting and transformation.

Rising Voices:

Hopeful Monster / Scotland

Transmographiles

A new collaboration between three artists from different countries Scotland, England and Hungary brought together by a shared desire to create surprising new puppet shows.

The Fooligan & The Bridges Of Madness

Al Seed / Scotland

Animated Highlights: 2018

Edinburgh Short Film Festival / Scotland

Duration: 45’ / Ages: 18+ Friday 8 February, 10.15pm Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh A modular, musical cabaret act presented by grotesque 18th century characters who form a merry band, The Bridges of Madness. Through songs, poems, soundscape, movement, dance (in the broadest sense), and storytelling the audience is taken on a hilarious theatrical journey, playfully exploring themes of mortality, the supernatural and the nature of evil.

The show is a development of Al Seed’s Herald Angel Award winning solo show, The Fooligan (2008).

Duration: 65’ / Ages: 12+ Saturday 9 February, 12.00pm Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh Curated by The Edinburgh Short Film Festival, a programme of brilliant, dynamic shorts featuring:

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Coyote – Best European Short Animation Film 2018 Hybrids – Best Student Film at Annecy International Animated Film Festival Late Afternoon – Best Animated Short at Tribeca Film Festival 2018 Wicked Girl – Jury Prize at Annecy International Animated Film Festival

We will also screen the Puppet Animation Scotland / Edinburgh Short Film Festival Best Animated Film 2018 award winner.

Devoted to screening short films from Edinburgh, the rest of Scotland and around the world, the Edinburgh Short Film Festival evolved in 2011 from the Leith Short Film Festival. Each year it presents incredibly diverse programmes - from the first film made in Somalia in 20 years, to Oscar-nominated shorts from Australia, the USA and Ireland, and short films smuggled out of China and Iran – as well as the hosting of

celebrated film-makers from China, Russia, Italy, Spain, Germany, Holland and all over the UK.

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The Art of Stop-motion Animation

Life Journeys – Animating The World

Will Becher / England

Duration: 80’ / Ages: 12+ Saturday 9 February, 4.00pm Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh Duration: 80’ / Ages: 12+ Saturday 9 February, 2.00pm Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh An illustrated talk by animator and director Will Becher, from the team at Aardman (responsible for award-winning productions such as Wallace and Gromit and Shaun the Sheep). Using examples from his career, rarely seen behind-thescenes footage and puppets from Aardman’s latest feature film

Early Man, Will illustrates the varied crafts, skills and amazing processes involved in creating feature film animation.

Since his first paid job making plasticine wings for Chicken Run, Will has worked at Aardman Animations for over a decade as animator, director and creative on projects such as Creature Comforts, The Pirates! In An Adventure with Scientists! and

Wallace & Gromit. Will co-directed Shaun the Sheep Series 5 before becoming animation director for Nick Park's Early Man (2018).

He lives in South Gloucestershire with his wife (a children’s book illustrator) and their animationloving children.

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One artist's journey from a very poor Polish town to the glamour of Hollywood.

Balbina Bruszewska is a multi-award winning, internationally acclaimed animator, collage artist, film-maker, designer and philosopher. She studied at the Polish National Film School in Lodz, and screen writing at UCLA in Los Angeles.

Balbina Bruszewska / Poland

Throughout her work Bruszewska uses surprising combinations everyday sounds, pop-culture quotes, bits and pieces of the real world, combined and collaged with a wide variety of animated film techniques. From bitter-sweet travels to open-heart surgery, to a scabrous evocation of her home town - a unique, emotional, and honest story-telling style.

Bruszewska’s world is one of contrasts, where things are light and heavy, beautiful and ugly, hilarious and not at all funny, all at the same time.

Join us to experience Balbina’s work and then talk with her in a Q&A afterwards about an artist’s journey through the absurdity of life.

The Truth About Us 5’ The City Sails On 16’ The Wizard Of U.S. 25’

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Images & Words: A Double Bill

Contemporary Animation: South American Master

Duration: 35’ / Ages: 12+ Adjust 15’ Looking for Lucey 20’ Saturday 9 February, 6.00pm Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh

Duration: 80’ / Ages: 12+ Saturday 9 February, 7.15pm Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh

Adjust

Ainslie Henderson / Scotland

At four weeks your baby embryo is the size of a poppy seed, tiny, a tidal wave on the horizon. I feel the ground shaking. I’ve been so careful, as careful as a stop-motion animator, freakishly controlling every frame of every moment, a string of relationships in my wake, ending up almost 40, childless and careful, so very careful.

Four months into a new relationship with a girl I barely know. BANG. HELLO. ITS NICE TO MEET YOU. I THINK YOU’RE LOVELY. Sorry, what?

Pregnant? Yes… At 17 weeks your baby is the size of a sweet potato.

Before you know, it’ll be baby-sized, crying and shitting and full of love and looking at me for answers…

A story told by multi award-winning animator Ainslie Henderson.

Looking For Lucey

Femmes Film Curators Collective & Hail of Bright Stones / Scotland

Carlos Santa is an eminent awardwinning pioneer of experimental animation in South America and a mentor of many of today’s young Colombian artists. Prominent and active since the early 1990s as an artist, painter and sculptor, The Passenger Of The Night (1990), The Dark Forest (1994), and Fragments (2000) are some of his most acclaimed and important films.

Bursting with powerful metaphors, surreal landscapes, and haunting images, Carlos Santa’s imaginative animated films were created within a context of a country ravaged by bloody civil war. They unflinchingly portray the political context of both the philosophical and the day to day struggles of a people living through cruel and relentless conflict. Utilizing a wide range of animated film techniques, from rotoscoping to under-the-camera animation, these innovative films dynamically challenge the concepts and grammar of traditional cinema.

Carlos Santa / Colombia

Following his films, there will be an audience Q&A with Carlos.

As well as this programme, presented in partnership with Cinemaattic, there is an accompanying exhibition of Carlos’ animation artefacts, a collection of short-films from Colombia, a master class and a double bill of features with the director. For more information: www.cinemaattic.com

A unique collaboration inspired by the work of the University of Edinburgh’s own scientific film pioneer Eric Lucey (and with kind permission of the University of Edinburgh’s Centre for Research Collections) whose work has recently resurfaced, gaining attention in both the academic and art world.

This newly edited piece of montage, with accompanying words, music and sound scape created by Hail of Bright Stones, showcases some of Lucey’s mesmerizing films. His work enhances our understanding of the world through the manipulation of space and time using innovative film techniques such as time-lapse photography, animation, slow motion, stop motion and microphotography.

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Testroom Tuesday 12 February, 8.00pm Tron Theatre, Glasgow

Photography by Rich Dyson Photography

A fantasia of becoming an action hero?

Perhaps a champion will emerge if the fates allow?

Or will dark temptations vampirishly vacuum the dreams of a clown?

And scatter them sheepishly before an ominous telephonic tone?

What does it all mean...!?!

A mischievous melange of contemporary clowning and physical comedy with a dark delicious dash of bouffon to round off manipulate, a delightfully daft evening with some of Scotland’s finest clowns.

These hand-picked Clown Cabaret favourites are all looking for the place a clown loves best, to be in front of an audience. Allow them to test their funny upon your frown and unleash their wild and wonderful dreams and fantasies on you!

Elspeth Chapman & Sonia Gardes / Scotland We will explore ways of weaving puppetry and projections with micro-cinema, to create dynamic, textured three-dimensional spaces. Through this we aim to find creative, interactive and multisensory ways to tell stories vividly to young audiences.

Duration: 50’ / Ages: 12+ Monday 4 February, 6.00pm Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh

Duration: 80’ / Ages: 12+ Saturday 9 February, 9.00pm Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh

Can the show always go on, no matter how full one’s hands get?

Big Wee Bee

Puppet Animation Scotland / Scotland

Since the beginning of November last year four groups of selected Scottish-based theatre artists have been meeting on Monday evenings.

Using the knowledge and insights of the other practitioners in the room as a sounding board, they have nurtured and developed their initial creative ideas, presenting short excerpts of their work at manipulate.

Facilitated by leading puppeteer Gavin Glover (A Christmas Carol & The Tin Forest, National Theatre of Scotland) each group’s aim has been to develop those puppetmaking and performing skills and expertise most appropriate for their project, with the aspiration that after Testroom they will bring their ideas to full production.

Turning Tides

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Beth Hamilton-Cardus / Scotland Using Scottish folklore and the Fife coastline as inspiration allied with object manipulation techniques, I am developing a visual storytelling style and language to create meaningful sensory impact for audiences with autism spectrum disorder (ASD).

Photography by Katie Stephen

Clown Cabaret Special Edition

Plutôt la Vie, CLoWnStePPinG & Melanie Jordan /Scotland

Based on Metamorphosis Lewis Sherlock / Scotland Using puppetry, physical theatre techniques and object manipulation, a creative exploration which starts from the first line of Kafka’s story: ‘When Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect.’

Volcano Greg Sinclair / Scotland We will explore the visualisation and physicalisation of sound, experimenting with the role of objects and their effective manipulation to develop our multi-disciplinary practice to create a production which is fully accessible to D/deaf audiences.

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Snapshots 1

Snapshots 2

Duration: 50’ / Ages: 13+ Tuesday 5 February, 6.00pm Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh

Duration: 50’ / Ages: 13+ Thursday 7 February, 6.00pm Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh

Antibiotic Apocalypse

Soak

Almudena Calvo / Spain

Inside the body of a dying patient, and zoomed in X10,000 times, a staphylococcus tells her four million offspring her rags to riches story when surviving antibiotics.

The Heart Is Asleep

Elspeth Chapman / Scotland & Borbàla Mező / Hungary

The unpacking of a life - many years remembered through what has been left behind. A tribute to a man who wasn’t famous but whose life was significant. A story told through objects, drawing, music and micro-cinema.

Finding Shelter

Flawed Mandrake Theatre / England

In a harsh world, what is shelter? Where is safety when you don’t have a place to call your own? The journey of a man and a mouse, the dangers that lie before them and the joys that keep them alive.

Beth Godfrey / Scotland

Stand and be pummelled. Unravel and lay strewn.

Be honest and in that burning heat, mend. A woman caught in the act, of re-wilding.

Surge: Pitch Event

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Snapshots 3 Duration: 50’ / Ages: 13+ Saturday 9 February, 10.30am Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh

Confirm Your Humanity Lewis Sherlock /Scotland

Duration: 50’ / Ages: 13+ Thursday 7 February, 4.00pm Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh Pitch is an innovative physical theatre showcase featuring an impressive line-up of established and emerging performers presenting physical theatre, comedy, dance and high drama in development.

Artists perform new or in-development performance pieces using physicality, circus skills, comedy, clowning, drama and music. Pitch is a great opportunity for anyone interested in the physical performance community to explore and discuss new work.

The pieces presented are not finished and need the audience eye and responses to help the artists involved to develop their work and craft, as creators and performers. Surge is a leading developer of physical theatre, circus and street arts in Scotland.

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A visual theatre performance which tells a personal story of one man’s exploration into living like a cyborg in this age of smart technology.

Ferguson & Barton

Jim Manganello / USA

Facing imminent destruction, three lost souls create a bizarre society with its own rules, values and cruelties, banding together to face an apocalyptic present.

Rendition

Freda O’Byrne / Scotland

Based on research and testimonies, one man’s chilling and de-humanising experiences as the first suspect to be taken into CIA detention.

Lucid

Selina Mallè /Scotland

We regularly wake up with residual memories of our dreams. Looking more closely, perhaps there is more than meets the eye. Sometimes the most important tests are in our dreams.

Tulla

Iain McClure / Scotland

A piece about the artist Edvard Munch’s love affair with Tulla Larsen. Constructed as a play within a play, it takes Munch’s never-performed puppet theatre piece, The City of Free Love, as its core.

Thank you to the following organisations who have supported the creation of the artists’ work presented during manipulate:

Puppet Animation Scotland would like to thank our festival partners, volunteers, board members and staff, both past and present, for providing their commitment, expertise and enthusiasm.

Anna Rogers / Festival Films Technician Stewart Armstrong / Brochure & Festival Trailer Design J Thomson Colour Printers / Printer

Welcome to Puppet Animation Scotland’s annual celebration of innovative visual theatre and animated film.

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This year leading theatre artists and film-makers from Canada, Colombia, Czech Republic, England, Finland, France, Germany, Holland, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Poland, Russia, Scotland, Spain and the USA present: 23 Productions 21 Works in progress 21 Films 3 Workshops 1 Industry-focused seminar Alongside Snapshots and Testroom - our popular series within which Scottish-based theatre makers present a flavour of their current explorations, we introduce Rising Voices. A new programming strand, this features four more-substantially finished pieces created by emerging practioners developing intriguing and exciting work.

Join us for a dynamic, eclectic and captivating programme of Scottish and international visual and physical theatre, puppetry, object manipulation and animated film. We look forward to seeing you.

Simon Hart / Artistic Director Heidi Gordon / Administrator Melanie Purdie / Festivals & Projects Manager Mayanne Soret / Digital Communications Assistant Nick Wong / Associate Producer

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Tuesday 5 February 10.00am - 4.00pm Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh

Leading In Scotland: A Seminar

What are the current trends and challenges specific to the visual/physical/puppetry sectors in Scotland?

Enhancing our puppetry, visual and physical theatre communities

Photography by Andy Caitlin

What does it mean to be a Scottish-based theatre-maker working with ambitions to present work nationally and internationally?

What more can sector organisations do together to support Scottish-based artists?

As a community, what do we need to nurture and support

Phonotrope Animations

the emergence of creative marginalised voices?

A one-day industry-focused seminar of discussions, interrogations and visioning of practical initiatives, for all theatre-arts practitioners passionate about the future of their sector.

Organisations present for discussions through the day include: Buzzcut, Clown Cabaret Scratch Night, the Curious School of Puppetry, the Physical Theatre Course (Fife College), Puppet Animation Scotland, Starcatchers Surge and the Total Theatre Awards.

Stephen Moir / Scotland

Duration: Flexible / Ages: 12+ Saturday 9 February 11.00am - 6.00pm / Drop-in Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh Phonotropes provide a unique approach to creating animation utilising a record player and live action camera. This analogue/film hybrid offers endless spontaneous acts of animation limited only by the desire of the pen wielder. Come and try this easy to use and exciting technique, no experience necessary!

Stephen Moir is a Scottish based animator.

His work includes 2D animation for film and theatre, as well as experimental sculptural animation.

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Saturday 02 February

Sunday 03 February

Testroom 6pm / p.22

Monday 04 February

Tuesday 05 February

Intronauts 7.30pm / p.07

Snapshots 1 6pm / p.23

Leading In Scotland Seminar 10am / p.25

Extremely Pedestrian Chorales 7.30pm / p.05

Puppeteer and artist director of the Curious School of Puppetry Sarah Wright and writer Anna Maria Murphy will explore how words and narrative can work with puppetry to tell stories.

Vu 9pm / p.08

Things On Strings 10am / p.26

Thursday 07 February

Friday 08 February

Saturday 09 Febuary

Wednesday 06 February

Phonotrope Workshop 11am / p.25

Sleeping Beauty Snapshots 3 7.30pm / p.13 10.30am / p.24 Beguiled 5.45 & 7.45pm / p.14

Surge Pitch Event 4pm / p.23 Snapshots 2 6pm / p.24 Animated Highlights: 2018 12pm / p.16

Nino 6pm / p.09 Invisible Lands 5 & 8pm / p.10 Macbeth 7.30pm / p.11 Transmographiles 9.30pm / p.14

The Art Of Stop-motion Animation 2pm / p.17

Creating Your Universe Various / p.26

The Fooligan & The Bridges Of Madness 10.15pm / p.15

Life Journeys – Animating The World 4pm / p.18 Images & Words 6pm / p.19 Latin-American Contemporary Animation 7.15pm / p.20

Creating Your Universe Various / p.26

Clown Cabaret Special Edition 9pm / p.21

Things On Strings 10am / p.26

99+ 10pm / p.12

Salt 9pm / p.12

Void 9pm / p.09

Things On Strings 10am / p.26

Tuesday 5 – Thursday 7 February 10.00am – 5.00pm / Dance Base, Edinburgh

Wunder -kammer 9pm / p.06

To Speak Or Not To Speak?

Various / p.26

Tuesday 12 February

Glasgow: Tron Theatre Testroom 8pm / p.22

An intensive workshop for more experienced dancers exploring the different improvisatory and compositional tools and techniques Sabine Molenaar uses in her own creation process.

Paisley Arts Centre: Invisible Lands 7.30pm / p.10

Friday 8 & Saturday 9 February Various times / Dance Base, Edinburgh

Perth Theatre: Sleeping Beauty 7.30pm / p.13 Transmographiles 9pm / p.14

Creating Your Universe

Sabine Molenaar / Belgium

Perth Theatre: Macbeth 7.30pm / p.11 Invisible Lands 9pm / p.10

A practical introduction to the world of string puppets. Using Figurentheater Tuebingen’s cross-arts approach to the creation of new work as inspiration, participants will learn about and explore the symbiotic relationship between form, material and mechanics.

To Speak Or Not To Speak?

Various / p.26

Saturday 2 – Monday 4 February Various times / Dance Base, Edinburgh

To Speak Or Not To Speak?

Various / p.26

Frank Soehnle & Alice Therese Gottschalk / Germany

Things On Strings

Norwich Puppet Theatre: Wunderkammer 7.30pm / p.6

Wright To Speak Or Sarah & Anna Murphy Not To Speak / England Puppets & Words

Traverse Theatre manipulate Dance on tour Base

Workshops: