Out the Box Family Festival
ASSITEJ SOUTH AFRICA
February 24, 2010
This year the event takes place at the Baxter Theatre Centre, the UCT Hiddingh campus in Gardens and the Labia Cinema on Orange Street, Cape Town from 20-28 March 2010.
An extraordinary range of shows are on offer, some that will appeal to the sophisticated tastes of older children and teenagers, like Lennie and the Wasteland and Umsintsi, as well as shows that will cast a spell of wonder over the very young, like Just Enough from Canada. Take a journey through Africa with Tales from the Calabash, Indlovu People and Embo, or be inspired by stories from other parts of the world with productions like Oruk from Sweden, or Papelixo from Brazil.
Many items on the Adult festival are also suitable for youth audiences, and we particularly recommend Tranquila from the Avital Dvory Visual Theatre Company of Israel, a spectacular show featuring puppetry and circus arts. Other offerings include the acclaimed Mothertongue Project’s Tseleng, the Baggage of Bags as well as several new works by new and emerging theatre makers. One of these is FTH:K’s groundbreaking Quack!, for which Unima’s talented Janni Younge has picked up a 2009 Fleur du Cap nomination for her work on the masks, along with two other nominations in the category Best Prop and Puppetry Design, making her the only triple Fleur du Cap nominee this year. Younge is also this year’s Standard Bank Young Artist of the Year.
Several development programmes are happening within the auspices of the festival, including the Assitej SA Inspiring a Generation project, which mentors emerging theatre practitioners in making work for young audiences. The group will be guests of the festival, and will be participating in workshops by Ulrike Hautser from Germany. The Unima SA Active Puppets Proactive training and development programme sees selected groups performing short pieces as part of the Active Showcase with works created especially for the festival. The third development thread is Iqonga, Unima’s platform for experimentation in Visual Performance, which features short -form works by emergent theatre makers and performance art professionals.
The Moving Things Film Festival, co-coordinated by Jacqueline van Meygaarden, will showcase an exciting selection of stop motion and puppetry films at the Labia Cinema on Orange Street. Highlights include Robyn Yannoukos’ 2008 Student Academy Award (Oscar) winning film, Alice’s Attic, a collection of shorts with a dark, organic aesthetic by the Mexican collective DiezyMedia, and the documentary, Making War Horse which is about bringing the Handspring Puppet Company’s puppets to life in the groundbreaking National Theatre family production.
Out the Box offers engaging professional entertainment that will fire the imaginations of children and adults alike. For the full programme and more information, please visit www.outtheboxfestival.com or call 021 462 5811. You will find more information on facebook (Out the Box 2010) and follow the festival on twitter.