London International Mime Festival

Last updated

London International Mime Festival (LIMF)
StatusEnded
Genre Arts festival
DatesJanuary (dates vary)
FrequencyAnnual
VenueMultiple across London
Location(s) London
CountryUnited Kingdom
Founded1977;48 years ago (1977)
Founders
Previous event16 January – 5 February 2023
AreaInternational
People
  • Helen Lannaghan
  • Joseph Seelig
Sponsor Arts Council England
Website mimelondon.com

The London International Mime Festival (LIMF) was a festival of contemporary visual theatre that operated from 1977 to 2023. The festival featured wordless and multi-disciplinary performances, including circus-theatre, puppetry/animation, object theatre, mime, live art and physical theatre.

LIMF began at the Cockpit Theatre, founded by mime performer Nola Rae MBE and producer Joseph Seelig OBE as a single event featuring British mimes, theatre clowns and other physical and visual theatre artists. The festival expanded to include international artists in 1978.

Helen Lannaghan became co-director alongside Seelig in 1987. Performances were held at various London venues, including Tate Modern, the Almeida, Barbican, Battersea Arts Centre, ICA, Jacksons Lane, Natural History Museum, Royal Opera House, Sadler's Wells, Shoreditch Town Hall, Shunt Vaults, Soho Theatre, and Southbank Centre.

During its 47-year history, the festival featured approximately 800 companies from multiple countries. LIMF was funded as an Arts Council England National Portfolio Organisation. Archive information about the festival's programs from 1977–2023 is available at www.mimelondon.com.

As of January 2024, the festival's former directors have established a program called 'MimeLondon' in partnership with London venues including the Barbican, Sadler's Wells and the Southbank Centre, to continue presenting international visual theatre in London.

Awards

The festival received the Total Theatre Award for Significant Contribution to the Field (2012) and the Peter Brook Empty Space Award (2017).

Productions presented at the festival received four Olivier Award nominations in the Best New Dance category: Peeping Tom's "32 rue Vandenbranden" (winner, 2015) Compagnie 111/Stephanie Fuster's "Questcequetudeviens" (2014) Yoann Bourgeois's "Celui Qui Tombe" (2016) Peeping Tom's "Triptych" (2023)

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">South Bank</span> Commercial and entertainment district in London

The South Bank is an entertainment and commercial area on the south bank of the River Thames, in the London Borough of Lambeth, central London, England.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Southbank Centre</span> Complex of artistic venues in London, England

Southbank Centre is a complex of artistic venues in London, England, on the South Bank of the River Thames.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Complicité</span> Theatre company

Complicité is a British theatre company founded in 1983 by Simon McBurney, Annabel Arden, Marcello Magni and Fiona Gordon. Its original name was Théâtre de Complicité. The company is based in London and uses extreme movement to represent their work, with surrealist imagery. Its work has been influenced by Jacques Lecoq. The company produced their first performance in 1983. In 1985 they won the Perrier Comedy Award at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Their productions often involve technology such as projection and cameras, and cover serious themes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lisa Dwan</span> Irish actress, director, and writer

Lisa Dwan is an Irish actress, director, and writer. She is best known for her work in theatre, performing in Samuel Beckett adaptations among other works. She began her career in the Fox Kids series Mystic Knights of Tir Na Nog (1998–1999). More recently, she starred in the Netflix series Top Boy (2019–2023). She also appeared in the RTÉ soap opera Fair City (2006–2007) and the ITV drama Rock Rivals (2008).

Gecko is a British based international touring physical theatre company, founded in 2001, led by Artistic Director Amit Lahav.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Culture of London</span> Overview of the culture in London

London has, alongside New York, been described as the cultural capital of the world. The culture of London concerns the music, museums, festivals, and lifestyle within London, the capital city of the United Kingdom. London is one of the world's leading business centres, renowned for its technological readiness and economic clout, as well as attracting the most foreign investment of any global city.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wolfe Bowart</span> Mime artist

Wolfe Bowart is a physical comedian, actor, director and playwright. He is the creator and performer of the physical theatre productions LaLaLuna, Letter's End and The Man the Sea Saw. Bowart is the son of writer Walter Bowart and Linda Dugmore, and grandson of the abstract expressionist artist Edward Dugmore.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Akram Khan (dancer)</span> English dancer and choreographer

Akram Hossain Khan, MBE is an English dancer and choreographer of Bangladeshi descent. His background is rooted in his classical kathak training and contemporary dance.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Helen McCarthy</span> British journalist and anime writer (born 1951)

Helen McCarthy is the British author of such anime reference books as 500 Manga Heroes and Villains, Anime!, The Anime Movie Guide and Hayao Miyazaki: Master of Japanese Animation. She is the co-author of The Erotic Anime Movie Guide and the exhaustive The Anime Encyclopedia with Jonathan Clements. She also designs needlework and textile art.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jacksons Lane</span> Arts venue in Highgate, London

Jacksons Lane Arts Centre (JLAC) is a multi-arts venue in Highgate, north London, located in a Grade II listed former Wesleyan Methodist church. The building is home to a 170 capacity theatre, a large scale dance and rehearsal studio, a cafe-bar and four other multi-purpose spaces. In 2022 it completed a large-scale £5 million refurbishment & redevelopment of the building with the majority of the funding coming from Arts Council England & Haringey Council. JLAC is now more accessible, has greater facilities, a larger front of house area and two new circus creation spaces.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Barbican Centre</span> Performing arts centre in London, England

The Barbican Centre is a performing arts centre in the Barbican Estate of the City of London, England, and the largest of its kind in Europe. The centre hosts classical and contemporary music concerts, theatre performances, film screenings and art exhibitions. It also houses a library, three restaurants, and a conservatory. The Barbican Centre is a member of the Global Cultural Districts Network.

The London Contemporary Orchestra (LCO), founded in 2008 by Hugh Brunt and Robert Ames, is an ensemble of young musicians whose stated aim is "to explore and promote new music to an increasingly wide audience". LCO staged its inaugural season at LSO St. Luke's and has since performed at venues and festivals both in the UK and internationally, including the Roundhouse, Latitude Festival, The Old Vic Tunnels, Snape Maltings, Southbank Centre, Barbican, Spitalfield's Music, Royal Opera House, Yota Space, and Unsound Festival. LCO has since provided its work on films including Theeb, Moonlight, Macbeth, Slow West,The Master, The Two Popes and American Animals.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sohini Alam</span> British singer of Bangladeshi descent

Sohini Alam is a British singer of Bangladeshi descent who sings in the bands Khiyo, Lokkhi Terra, and GRRRL. She has performed internationally on stage, radio, and television and worked on music for dance, theatre, and film. Alam is a founding member of the arts company Komola Collective and co-music director of the documentary film Rising Silence. After providing vocals for dancer/choreographer Akram Khan's DESH, she spent three years touring internationally with his show Until the Lions.

Davy McGuire and Kristin McGuire, co-directors of Studio McGuire, are British multimedia artists. They create experiential artworks within the mediums of projection mapping, theatre, fine art, animation, moving image, art installations, video games and immersive technologies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gandini Juggling</span> British contemporary circus company

Gandini Juggling is a London-based contemporary circus company. Originally called Gandini Juggling Project, the company was founded in 1992 by Sean Gandini and Kati Ylä-Hokkala. Their initial works focused on fusing juggling with principles from postmodern dance, and were created in close collaboration with choreographer Gill Clarke. Gandini Juggling were early-adopters of siteswap notation, guided by their collaborations with Mike Day, who performed in their first two works.

Unlimited is a commissioning programme that celebrates the work of deaf and disabled artists, originally conceived for by Arts Council England for the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad. Since its inception, the programme represents a multi-million pound investment which to date has commissioned more than 70 pieces of work across theatre, dance, visual art, music, literature, film, poetry and performance art. Several Unlimited-commissioned pieces have gone on to have a global reach, such as Sue Austin's Creating the Spectacle, which has reportedly been seen by more than 150 million people worldwide. Others have won critical and industry acclaim within their field, such as Touretteshero's Backstage in Biscuit Land, which earned the company the 2014 Total Theatre Award for Best Emerging Company. Unlimited is currently delivered in partnership between Shape Arts and Artsadmin with senior producer Jo Verrent.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nina Nawalowalo</span> New Zealand theatre director

Nina Nawalowalo is a New Zealand theatre director and co-founder of the contemporary Pacific theatre company The Conch. She is known for directing the stage plays Vula and The White Guitar. The first film she directed A Boy Called Piano - The Story of Fa'amoana John Luafutu (2021) won 2022 Montreal Independent Film Festival Best Feature Documentary.

Paul Clark is a composer based in London.

The Darbar Festival is an Indian classical music festival based in London that annually features Hindustani classical music and Carnatic music and featured Indian classical dance in 2017. The festival was founded in 2005 in Leicester as a tribute to tabla teacher Gurmit Singh Virdee by his son Sandeep Virdee. The Hindu described it as "probably the biggest festival of classical music outside India".

References

    [1] [2]

    The Last Show - documentary film chronicling the 47 year history of the festival== External links ==

    MimeLondon website

    1. Evans & Murray, Mark & Simon (2023). Mime into Physical Theatre: a UK Cultural History, 1970-2000 (1st ed.). UK: Routledge. ISBN   978-0367352486.
    2. Evans & Melville, Michael & Johnny (2020). Amsterdam's Compleat Fools (1st ed.). USA: Izaak Walton Montana Publications. ISBN   978-0692150108.