Who to see at the SPILL festival
As SPILL - Britain's first experimental performance showcase - returns to London for the third year running, we round-up the best of what's on offer
European festivals have been throwing themselves into the creative free-for-all longer than us Brits, but with the cult success of companies like Punchdrunk we're quickly catching up, with London's theatres opening their doors to ever-more immersive spectacles at this year's SPILL. So, where to start? We turned to the genre's finest to find out what's getting them excited.
Robert Pacitti, artist and founder of the festival, shares his tips for SPILL virgins:
'Mem Morrison's Turkish wedding piece 'Ringside' at Shoreditch Town hall is a reflective work about memory. There's a trilogy at Shunt that explores identity - we flooded one of the vaults in milk for 'The Modes of Al-Ikseer', Harminder Singh Judge's piece: at the end it's made into ceremonial cheese'
Tim Etchells, of Forced Entertainment
'I'm super excited about Romeo Castellucci (whose Inferno, Purgatorio, Paradiso is the extravagant centrepiece of the festival) - I've only seen one piece before buit it's enough to make you know he's a genius. It's work I don't fully understand and that's the best kind! Also Rajni Singh - I'd love to see her 'Dinner With America'''
Tim's company is behind the graphic-novel-meets-radio-play 'Void Story' and 'That Night Follows Day' - performed and partly conceived by children. Both are showing as part of SPILL.
Julia Bardsley, performance artist
'There's Robert Pacitti's own work - 'A Forest' - and Ron Athey's epic durational piece - the 12 hour 'Visions of Excess'. Jan Fabre hasn't been to the UK for such a long time that he's a real coup. And I'm fascinated to see what Kiera O'Reilly does as SPILL's thinker-in residence'
Julia presents 'Aftermaths', a Bacchanalian reading of Revelations, as part of the festival.
The SPILL festival takes place place across London from April 2-26 2009. Click here for more SPILL Festival performances
Win one of three hundred pairs of tickets to a selection of shows at SPILL.
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