News

Article

Celebrating LIFT 2024

42 performances, 8 shows, 7 venues, 1 festival. After six weeks of bold, boundary-pushing, international theatre. LIFT 2024 has come to a close. Here, LIFT's Artistic Director and CEO Kris Nelson takes a look back across the festival and provides some insightful reflections on the event as a whole.

That’s a wrap on LIFT 2024!! 

It takes a city to make a festival, it takes the world to make LIFT. I want to say a huge thank you to everyone who’s made this edition of LIFT so special. This was a festival full of firsts – world premieres, new ways of working, new collaborations and more.  

LIFT 2024 connected London to the world in new ways. We had three world premieres which were all about pairing international artists with their local counterparts  to craft bold  performances. We celebrated our city, with presentations in five boroughs – in  flagship venues like Southbank Centre, brand new homes for live art like Brixton House and the historic Old Bailey. We broke new ground artistically and presented works that pushed into the realms of dance, spoken word, and immersive design. Sustainability was on our mind too – whether by looking at the future of food in Bat Night Market, or through mixing remote and live and using concept touring practices to minimise travel in ECHO. We had local actors  make their professional debuts, and LIFT was the catalyst for local companies to achieve their first international projects. We promised you theatre for your gut – and these brave and topical works delivered. With A Young(ish) Theatre calling The Land Acknowlegdement “an act of resistance that raises questions about the ethos of inclusivity and diversity” in their five-star review of our festival opener. 

To the artists who came from across the world to share their brave considerations of personal epics of justice, democracy, equality and migration, and playful new ways of imagining the future and upturning the past – THANK YOU. LIFT 2024 has held your visions as our guiding light. You’ve come from around the world to make London your stage, and we’re thankful for the new memories you’ve imprinted on us. Thanks to our mighty team worked with great pride and expert skill to bring you this edition.  Thanks to our co-presenting and co-commissioning partners who hosted us and went with us on this journey, to our funders, trustees and volunteers too – your support has meant the world to us.  

Dear audience, you’ll still have a chance to explore some digital highlights from LIFT 2024. We invited emerging filmmakers from Fully Focused Films to create snapshots of our LIFT the City work – you can get a taste of Democracy From Where I Stand, Chiara Bersani’s L’Animale or in the heart of the City itself at our Workplace Boosts. There’s a bonus of a new film commissioned from Argentinian artist Tiziano Cruz – a chance to encounter this phenomenal new artist. 

And it’s my last LIFT. No better edition to go out with than this incredible LIFT 2024. I’m immensely grateful for the collaboration with all the artists, team and partners – we have made so many memories and it’s been richly rewarding. I’m excited to pass the torch – LIFT has a magical future ahead. 

Make sure you keep in touch with us at LIFT, we’ll be offering you inspiring ideas, connections with artists from around the world, opportunities to think and consider the contemporary world and our place in it leading up to and in our next festival!   

Kris Nelson

— Artistic Director/CEO

Some highlights from LIFT 2024

ECHO, photographed by Manuel Harlan
The Trials and Passions of Unfamous Women, photographed by Ellie Kurttz
Democracy From Where I Stand, photographed by Matthew Johnson

LIFT 2024 shows

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.

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.

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.

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.

We use cookies to personalise content and ads, to provide social media features and to analyse our traffic. We also share information about your use of our site with our social media, advertising and analytics partners.

OK