LIFT 2024 Programme

Welcome to LIFT 2024 from Kris Nelson

Every two years, LIFT brings joyful, daring and unforgettable theatre from around the world to London, using the whole city as our stage. We are delighted to share LIFT 2024 with you!

Through a collection of eight unforgettable performances running from 5th June – 27th July, LIFT 2024 will take you on journeys that are deep and personal. It’s a line-up that will catch your breath, spark your mind and rev up your imagination. There’s adrenaline too. It’s international theatre for your gut.

In this year’s festival, two themes emerge: The Personal is Epic. Personal accounts of justice, exile and protest take on mythic proportions through barrier-breaking storytelling. LIFT artists will also… Play The Future, Play The Past. You’ll find shows that reframe our history and bring a wild imagination to what tomorrow might be by offering feasts for the mind and by plunging you into sensation.

We wish you a powerful festival experience full of discovery, dialogue and fun. Look forward to seeing you there!

Kris Nelson
LIFT Artistic Director/CEO

 

The Land Acknowledgement or As You Like It

5 – 9 Jun

Cliff Cardinal aims to surprise and provoke with his Land Acknowledgement or As you Like It. Cultural provocateur Cliff Cardinal revisits Shakespeare’s timeless tale of mistaken identities, gentle ruses and banishment in this show that exults in difficult subject matter. Dubbed "the Canadian arts surprise of the year" by The Globe and Mail, Cardinal's brilliant play, The Land Acknowledgement or As You Like It, offers you the unvarnished truth of the state of the reconciliation process between Indigenous communities and colonial settlers in Canada.  When the curtains rise, prepare for Shakespeare as you’ve never seen him before and likely never will again.

Democracy From Where I Stand

8 June (this event has now passed)

In 2024, half the world’s population will head to the polls in national elections. In the UK, people will be asked to vote in a General Election on 4 July. Democracy is being put to the test in an unprecedented way. LIFT would like us all to have a chat about it. Featuring Brenda Emmanus (London) Lola Shoneyin (Lagos), Aditi Mittal (Mumbai), Rosie Holt (London), Fetuma Hassan (London), Dr Michelle Johansen (London) , Baque Luar (London), Margaret Atwood (Toronto), Osheen Siva (Thiruvannamalai/Vellore).

Bat Night Market

10 – 12 & 14 – 15 Jun

A marketplace for the mind, an experience for the senses. Step outside your comfort zone and into a night market of the future. Bat Night Market tells the tales of the extraordinary bat species, examining their imperative nature in our global ecosystem and teaching us that conservation of the key species is more crucial now than ever before. Set in an imagined night market where bat species are extinct, Bat Night Market intersects performance, speculative design and science. We invite visitors to celebrate these enigmatic animals in an evening of discussions, games, tastings and sensory experiences. Bat Night Market is an international collaboration between designer UK artist Robert Charles Johnson and artist Kuang-Yi Ku, Taiwan/Netherlands.

L’Homme rare

12 – 13 Jun

The issue of gender has always featured in Nadia Beugré’s work, but in L’Homme rare she tackles it head-on, questioning the attention paid to bodies and the qualities attributed to their movements. With innovative choreography and staging, Nadia brings perceptions of gender, and how we view and objectify bodies, into stark relief.

The Trials and Passions of Unfamous Women

14 – 22 Jun

The Trials and Passions of Unfamous Women asks what is justice, and who has the power to decide? This bold and theatrical experience immerses us in the haze between the shared rituals of theatre and the halls of justice. A collaboration between LIFT, Brazilian theatremakers Janaina Leite and Lara Durarte, and Clean Break. This world premiere explores the theme that The Personal is Epic.

Bacchae: Prelude to a Purge

18 – 19 Jun

A raucous and absurd carnival processes onstage to the sounds of Brazilian funk, clown antics, pop, and Ravel’s Boléro. In this wildly delirious work, Cape Verdean-born, Lisbon-based choreographer and performance artist Marlene Monteiro Freitas dares you to traverse the order and wild chaos of Euripides—and ultimately, the depths of the human psyche.

L’Animale

22 – 23 Jun

Against the formidable backdrop of the Old Bailey's Grand Hall, Milan's Chiara Bersani transforms The Dying Swan into L'Animale. Pushing the boundaries of dance, L'Animale is an evocative exploration of the universal themes of loneliness and mortality, creating a unique, unrepeatable performance each time.

ECHO: Every Cold-Hearted Oxygen

13 – 27 Jul

Iranian playwright Nassim Soleimanpour (White Rabbit Red Rabbit, NASSIM) and Italian Palestinian director Omar Elerian (NASSIM, Misty, two Palestinians go dogging) push the boundaries of his signature unrehearsed cold reads to the next level. A new performer takes to the stage at every show without having a clue of what is going to be asked of them. Unrehearsed and unprepared, the script becomes their guide as they journey through the story of the playwright, connected live from his flat in Berlin? Or is he? Can we really know where or when we are? ECHO asks us to confront what it feels like to be an immigrant in time. Fusing technology with the oldest tricks in the book, ECHO is an experiment in concept touring for the age of climate crisis: an ambitious, magical and uncompromising production where no one travels yet everybody can be present.

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