Theatrical and Visual Arts Experiences at Summerhall, Edinburgh Art Festival 2014

Rapidly becoming not only a central part of the Edinburgh Festival’s programme but a vital creative hub for the city’s all-year-round cultural scene, Summerhall unveils its strongest line-up to date as international audiences prepare to descend on the Scottish capital for the 2014 Festival.

Mark Ravenhill, Steven Berkoff, Alison Jackson, Paines Plough, Northern Stage, Hibrow, Scottish Dance Theatre and Big In Belgium are just some of more than eighty companies, from as far afield as Taiwan and New Zealand, who will present work in August at this former veterinary college just off the famous Meadows, which only began its new incarnation as an arts venue three years ago. Summerhall describes itself as “a new kind of community: a cross-cultural village where arts and sciences talk to each other, where high-tech rubs shoulders with all the arts including film and television and a craft brewer has revived a three-hundred year old tradition of brewing on the site.”

The programme will include co-productions by Summerhall such as Songs of Orwell Farm, from a new opera in development by Wyckham Porteous, and Return To The Voice, developed with the support of Creative Scotland, and to be performed at St. Giles Cathedral by Song Of The Goat whose Songs of Lear was the highest rated show in the 2012 festival.

Avant-garde musicians and performance artists, Genesis and Lady Jaye Breyer P-Orridge, present Life As A Cheap Suitcase, their first solo show in Britain since 2003. It will include large collages and paintings from The Pandrogyne Project, shown here for the first time in Europe. Joining them in Summerhall’s galleries will be fellow internationally-renowned artists, Susan Hiller, Claude Closky, FAILE & Bast, Kennardphillipps, Tamsin Challenger, the sorely-missed Caroline McNairn, Wim Delvoye, Gary Baseman, Antonio O’Connell, August Rebetex, Birgir Andrésson, Peter Howson, Oliver Jennings & Devodama, and Ignaz Cassar, and Richard Demarco.

There will be a daily hour-long performance, the Hibrow Hour, that will be broadcast live and uninterrupted online, ranging from new drama presented by the next generation of theatre-makers to work from famous names including Steven Berkoff, Alison Jackson and Peter Howson.

The work, which will be streamed around the country and the world, will include MAKA – three brand new pieces for stage from the UK’s most promising writers, actors and directors; Hibrow In-Conversations with world-class names gathered from Fringe and further afield and Summerhall’s first ever comedy outing – the Hibrow Comedy Hour.

Summerhall, 1-24 August 2014, Edinburgh Festival Fringe Venue 26, www.summerhall.co.uk.

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Credit:
1.Virus by Antonio O’Connell.