The British Council’s biennial Edinburgh Showcase sprang to life again in August 2009 as the preeminent stage for innovative, contemporary UK performance during the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Over 200 invited international performing arts professionals (including more than 20 American presenters) from more than 50 countries attended the event, hosted alongside the largest arts festival in the world.
The Showcase features an array of new productions by both emerging and established British performers. From razor-sharp new writing to site-responsive performance art to explorations of Britain’s multi-cultural heritage, the British Council’s Showcase is a fresh and eclectic window on contemporary UK creativity.
A major festival of British theater from the Edinburgh Festival Fringe arrives in Washington DC in autumn 2010, presented by the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.Interactive Media | Live Performance | Digital Broadcasting
Blast Theory, Rider Spoke
Blast Theory's Rider Spoke combines theater with interactive game play and cutting edge technology to explore personal communication and surveillance in the digital age. As individuals cycle through the city with handheld, Wi-Fi-enabled computers, they search for hiding places to record short messages or reflections prompted by their virtual guide, or eavesdrop on the reflections of other audience members/players from the nooks and crannies of Edinburgh’s streets.
UK artist Bill Aitchison performs “2012.” Image credit: Peter Empl.Humor | New Writing | Street Theater
Bill Aitchison, 2012
Bill Aitchison brings new meaning to "apocalyptic wit" in 2012, a one-man outdoor show which blurs the lines between conspiracy theory, propaganda, science, art and politics. Aitchison challenges audiences on the nature of truth and belief by presenting a lecture on topics including the war on terror, dog cloning, and the end of the world.
UK artist Lemn Sissay performs “Why I Don’t Hate White People.” Image credit: Helen May Banks.Devised Theater | Text-based | Video/film | Storytelling | Comedy | Autobiographical Theater
Lemn Sissay, Why I Don’t Hate White People
In Why I Don’t Hate White People, the poet/performer/playwright/broadcaster Lemn Sissay explores what it means to be black in a white world. Sissay explores growing up as the only black man in an all-white Northern English town, lost in a world of social workers, foster parents and orphanages in a “wild anthropological experiment.”
Fire Exit / David Leddy’s “Susurrus.” Image credit: David Leddy.Site-responsive | Story-telling | Mixed Media
Fire Exit/David Leddy, Susurrus
Glasgow-based playwright and director David Leddy is a rising Scottish star and theatrical maverick known for staging experimental performances in unusual locations. His new site-responsive production Susurrus locks audience members into private plays as they walk around Edinburgh’s Botanical Gardens wearing headphones. Loosely based on A Midsummer Night’s Dream, opera, botany and relationships blend with moonlit plantscapes and a moving story of love and loss.
The Guardian describes the British Council Showcase as the "best" of UK theater as it highlights its top 2009 festival picks.The United Kingdom’s international organisation for cultural relations and educational opportunities.
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