This festival finished on Friday 03 April 2009, and this page is being kept for archival purposes only.
Information about NSDF 2009. EUTC related shows and events have been bolded.
“We know these stories so so well but sometimes they let us down.” It’s a fairytale for people who’ve stopped reading fairytales. Stuff’s all sort of bruised up. There is a wardrobe with no snowy world to slip into. There is a man who finds he can’t fly. There is a boy who wishes he could and a woman who watches the washing washing away.
Vowel Play by Joe Richards from Dartington College of Arts
4 women. 4 lives. 4 stories. 1 vowel each?
‘Vowel’ Play employs the restriction of each character speaking with only one vowel. The technical aspects of this for the writer - and the actor - are considerable. However, taking this route uncovers qualities inherent in the nature of language building, alongside the particular resonances that individual vowels exude. The restriction can offer more than it inhibits. However, this should not suggest that the intention has been to be experimental for its own sake.
It is September, 1916. Spark’s World Famous shows arrives in Erwin, Tennessee, the town that couldn’t remember its own name. As the Circus parade makes its way down the main street on the first day, a series of unexpected events leads to a tragic accident. Suddenly small town life becomes more circus-like than the Circus itself.
Elephant’s Graveyard combines historical fact and legend, exposing the deep-seated American craving for spectacle, violence and revenge.
The effects of a tragic event are unravelled in a dark portrayal of modern teenage life.
Did you ever get a feeling that you weren’t allowed to be a child?
Never Enough follows three people thrown together by chance who have one thing in common. They are never enough.
Happiness is perfection. Perfection is having it all. Having it all means happiness lies in the next purchase, the next mouthful the next one night stand.
Tangled bodies form this web of the human condition, where colliding relationships make tensions run high.
Me and My Friend tells the story of Robin and Julia who have recently been released from a psychiatric hospital into the ‘Care in the Community’ scheme - an early-release program for mental health patients. They are housed by the social welfare system into a small Council flat and are encouraged to find jobs and make their way back into the civil and social structures that had earlier judged them mentally unfit. In this story we observe the often poignant, sometimes hilarious struggles of the protagonists as they try to adjust to life after their confinement in psychiatric institutions.
Alec always plays all the parts. He’s been doing it for so long he doesn’t know if he knows who he is anymore. His charismatic brother, embittered uncle, flirtatious aunt and domineering father Sir James, never helped. Now, they are the characters Alec must play in order to find himself, save his marriage and finally tell the truth about what really happened at his father’s Wake…
At least that’s his plan. A one man play about family, identity, and secrets.
It’s not there. Is it?
In the warm sanctuary of her bathtub a woman is confronted by a man who persists in repeatedly washing her hair. Is he the key to unlocking the memories of all that was once good, or merely a trick of the mind threatening to bind her to the past?
When the Jungle was young it had no leader. Until they found the Yak. Yaks live high up, really high up, so they must be god? So thought a tiger and so thinks the whole Jungle, except the bears. Damn bears.
Lucinda returns to the mountainside village where her brother Raymond nursed their dying father. The monsoon brings them a strange child, Dharla. Trapped by the downpour, they learn to live with her, and slowly understand the importance of Yaks.
Dealing with the case of serial killer, arsonist and rapist Peter Kurten, also known as the ‘Düsseldorf Ripper’, Normal is a dark, twisted and exhilarating exploration of insanity.
Young, naïve lawyer Justus Wehner is charged with Kurten’s defence. Yet as he attempts to plead the case for insanity, he is led ever deeper into Kurten’s own psychology with the help of his disturbingly seductive wife, forcing him to question his own strict moral values and the true meaning of madness.
An adult human brain contains more than 100 billion neurons; and just one anomaly can change a person’s life. Embracing multimedia, dynamic movement and a live piano score, Return to the Silence celebrates the mysterious world of neurology. The audience are surrounded by the life and work of a young neurologist who, one morning, witnesses a life-affirming event. Follow the traces of the people behind the true stories of neurological phenomena. Let us give you a glimpse into unimaginable lands.
It began with a story:
A Baby. A Storm. A Letter. A tour guide descends.
“He’s an angel,” she told them. “He must have been coming for the child, but the poor fellow is so old that the rain knocked him down.” Marquez
In this devised show, three performers tumble through feathers. Characters immerse themselves in visual dynamic images, accompanied by a resonant live original soundtrack. A magical world is constructed in which a tale of collection, patience and affinity can be told.
Guardian Article source for dates
Flickr photo, confirming dates
