The award-winning SICK! Festival returns to Manchester and Salford at venue partners The Lowry, HOME, the Whitworth, Contact and STUN.
The festival that runs until March 26th features some hard-hitting new theatre from around the world confronting the physical, mental and social challenges that we face in our individual and collective lives.
This year’s festival has a special focus on questions of identity and belonging as well as challenges we face are sometimes rooted in bodies and minds that fail us, sometimes in the complexities of living in a troubled society with others facing their own problems.
Since launching in 2013, the festival has presented over 200 events featuring over 300 artists at 25 locations in Manchester and Brighton attracting audiences totalling over 200,000. In 2015, SICK! Festival won the prestigious EFFE Award for excellence, which recognised 12 outstanding European festivals of the year, from a pool of 760 festivals across 31 countries.
This year the festival grow further across Manchester and Brighton in 26 venues with 82 speakers, 116 artists, 66 performances, 18 public installations, 14 UK premieres, 13 discussion events and 5 co-commissions!
Our friends at HOME have shared with us some of their theatre highlights:
Lolling and Rolling presented by Jaha Koo - Thu 16 Mar/ Fri 17 Mar 2017, 19:00
In South Korea, there was a big controversy surrounding tongue surgery for children in order to achieve better English pronunciation. Lolling and Rolling examines Korea’s tragic social phenomenon and obsession for English education.
https://homemcr.org/production/lolling-and-rolling
Fractured Memory presented by Ogutu Muraya - Thu 16 Mar/ Fri 17 Mar 2017, 21:00
Ogutu Muraya reimagines James Baldwin’s Princes and Powers, an essay which describes in great detail a congress of Afro-intellectuals, writers, artists, philosophers and theorists, at the Sorbonne in Paris in 1956.
https://homemcr.org/production/fractured-memory
De Man in Europe presented by Lucas De Man - Sat 18 Mar 2017, 21:00
For his project In Search Of Europe, Lucas De Man interviewed more than 20 young creative professionals in 17 cities in eight countries in 30 days who are trying to change the society they live in for the better. Inspired by this journey, Lucas created the lecture performance De Man in Europe.
https://homemcr.org/production/de-man-europe
If These Spasms Could Speak presented by Robert Softley - Wed 22/Thu 23 Mar 2017, 21:00
A solo performance based on a collection of funny, sad, touching and surprising stories about disabled people and their bodies, by actor Robert Softley, co-creator of National Theatre of Scotland’s Girl X. An engaging, highly humorous and interactive live art performance about disabled people that exposes a truth behind bodies that differ from the norm.
https://homemcr.org/production/if-these-spasms-could-speak
Help presented by Anoek Nuyens - Fri 24 Mar 2017, 21:00
For half a century, Anoek Nuyens’ great aunt ran the charity Auxilium (Latin for ‘help’). Her great aunt is now 97, and it’s time to hand over to a new generation. But how to proceed? To find answers, Anoek sets off for Africa where she finds tragic personal stories, but also new voices.
https://homemcr.org/production/help
Five Easy Pieces presented by Milo Rau, International Institute of Political Murder & CAMPO -Sat 25 March 2017, 19:30
Five Easy Pieces asks how children can understand the significance of narrative, empathy, loss, subjection, old age, and the horrors sometimes inflicted on them by adults. Swiss theatre director Milo Rau’s ground-breaking political theatre is based on reconstructions of true stories that shatter the taboos of our age.
https://homemcr.org/production/five-easy-pieces
To view the full SICK! Festival programme visit: www.sickfestival.com
