Stockton International Riverside Festival 2010

Stockton International Riverside Festival, from Wednesday 28th July to Sunday 1st August 2010.

During the festival, the centre of Stockton will be transformed into an arena for outstanding shows, from very large scale spectacular events to intimate experiences.

Enjoy street theatre, circus, dance, music and pyrotechnics delivered by world class artists and performers.

SIRF – expect the unexpected!

Stockton International Riverside Festival is the UK's finest street arts festival, attracting over 250,000 visitors over five days and it's all free!

The festival programme includes a variety of commissioned new work including acts from a circus, comedy, music, dance and street theatre from across the globe.

STOCKTON International Riverside Festival (SIRF) is 23 years old this year and is set to be bigger and better than ever!

Supported by a 1,000 strong community carnival and a star-studded Fringe, SIRF 2010 promises its family-friendly entertainment will, once again, prove worthy of the title 'Best Cultural Event in the North East'.

What's On - HighlightsAkademi – Sufi Zen

‘Sufi:Zen’ is an intimate dance theatre experience that unites the stillness of Zen meditation with the rapturous motion of Sufi dervishes. Evoking a cultural landscape that extends from Persia to Japan, it exists in a world of contrasts – of ice and fire, entropy and energy, introspection and divine omniscience.

Sufi:Zen merges multiple dance styles, including kathak, bharata natyam, contemporary and ballet. Set to a score by Shrikanth Sriram, this performance reflects Akademi’s long-standing reputation for presenting modern perspectives on traditional South Asian dance forms in unusual and distinct spaces.

Atempo Circ – Atempo

Based in Catalonia, Spain Atempo Circ presents ‘Atempo’, an exciting and edgy mix of live music, dance and contemporary circus. Three spectacular circus disciplines are featured: Chinese Pole, Cyr Wheel and Cloudswing.

Atempo is a musical drawing on a blank page in the middle of the street. The stage is a no man’s land where four characters meet. Here they’ll share fragments of two realities one magic, one ordinary…. They know each other, but they don’t remember…. The music is the key to their communication.

Bad Taste Cru – Concilium Plebis

Bad Taste Cru, the UK’s premiere Breakdance Cru, present ‘Councilium Plebis’ (Council of the Ordinary). This thought provoking piece looks at how people interact due to their personal choices and societies conformist attitudes.

The piece is centred on a homeless person who as an ‘eye’ on the street will interact with very different people throughout his day. During his day he connects and in turn, forces other passersby to have ‘silent conversations’ with him and each other.

Bash Street Theatre – Cliffhanger!

With falling buildings, dare-devil escapology, silent comedy and live piano accompaniment, Cliffhanger! has proven to be Bash Street Theatre’s most successful and enduring street theatre show.

Cliffhanger! Inspired by Buster Keaton’s short film ‘Convict 13′ and is a 50 minute-long, silent-movie style production that follows the fortunes of a love-sick café waiter as he becomes innocently embroiled in a prison escape. When the heroine is abducted by a convict, there ensues a series of hair-raising episodes as our hero strives to rescue his new-found love.

Cie 1 Watt – Parfait etat de marche

‘Perfect Working Order’ is a solo street show created in 2003 by Pierre Pilatte, a Belgian clown. Once a week he goes out of his house and his mind. Somewhere. In a square. He walks, moves, floats, shouts and finally dares to do something. He lets go of himself, drops his burdens. He runs away from his usual, organised composure, and confronts his permanent anxiety. He feels inspired!

Circus of Horrors - Freaks and Feathers

Freaks & Feathers has been created exclusively for SIRF by Circus of Horrors so that they can celebrate their 15th anniversary with their loyal army of Tees Valley fans. It’s a show to match the opulent surroundings of the fabulous Salon Perdu Spiegel Tent. Undead Ringmaster Dr. Haze is supported as ever by his Royal Family of Freaks (including the return of the legendary Garry Stretch) while the circus elements of the show promise to reach new heights of seductive glamour. Aerial performers hang from silks, chains and their own hair, while at ground level there are acts of contortionism, blade walking and the shocks and surprises that are the trademarks of the Circus of Horrors. Enjoy it all from your ringside seat in our 350 capacity licensed venue.

Cirqu’lation Locale - Happy 4 Nothing

This Belgian due take audience interaction and entertainment to new levels guaranteed to leave everyone Happy 4 Nothing. Their show features nine clubs, three diabolos, an incredible pyramid, and a deadly finale. Above all they want to enjoy themselves with the crowd!

Commandos Percu – Bombs Per Minute

For 15 years the team has travelled the world with its innovative percussion work and pyrotechnics. The fusion of music and fireworks stands as its main mechanism. A third element is then added in: mobility, or the art of surprise!

The show B.P.M. Bombs Per Minute is about the violence held in the act of creation. Is destruction a creation? It is a topic fully expressed by the use of percussion associated with no holds barred visual effects. As an answer to the violence of the world, Bombs Per Minute attempts to immerse the audience in noise and rage with the intention of finally reaching peace and silence. A delightful performance with breath taking pyrotechnics!

Compagnie Albedo – Les Tonys

Compagnie Albedo’s Big Brozeurs brought the High Street to a stand-still several years ago – now Les Tonys are in town. It’s your change to be a celebrity for five minutes when Les Tonys are in town. They are bodyguards on a mission to protect you and yours – if you don’t see any danger, they will (if necessary they will invent it).

David Moreno - Floating Notes (Floten Tecles)

Floating Notes brings together music, theatre and film in a performance full of poetry and humour. David Moreno sings, plays the piano and percussion, all while floating six metres above the stage. The lid of his grand piano becomes a cinema screen, showing a 30 minute film. He performs the soundtrack to the film live, while at the same time interacting continuously with the characters and images that appear on screen.

Ex Nihilo – Calle Obrapia #4 & Assemblements

Ex Nihilo are four dancers from Marseille. They create choreographies in situ, developing specific projects in connection with a structure, public place or natural space. They improvise but are perfectly coordinated.

‘Calle Obrapia #4- a narrow street, pavements, walls of the houses: a space to discover, a venue to take over. Three women and two men take possession of it. They dance with the walls, the ground, and the pavements. Bodies cross over, interlace, bump into each other, embrace, and speak to one another. Are they passing by? In transit or in exile?

‘Assemblements’ is a duet to be performed in open-air markets, when the merchants leave and the square empties, when the business calms down at the time of the leftovers.

Fairly Famous Family - Anyone for Tennis?

Wimbledon comes to Stockton with a pristine court, posh umpire and highly strung player looking to take on all- comers. A hilarious but thrilling “one-setter” is played out with all the drama of the real thing including slow motion replays, heated line calls and live commentary.

Fidget Feet - Awakening

AWAKENING is a haunting and visual stunning piece of aerial dance, which also features a unique mix of many art forms including dance, circus, video art alongside original music. Specially adapted by Fidget Feet for the interior of Trinity Church, AWAKENING will fill the ruined nave with spectacular acrobatics and film projections as memories come alive.

AWAKENING an installation piece inspired by Fidget Feet’s successful theatre show Madam Silk. The show takes ideas from writers such as Anaïs Nin and Gustave Flaubert and evolves as a journey through time with each of the female performers representing an extraordinary woman from history. The piece rises and spirals through the past, the present and the future.

The show opens in an old church where the memories of Madam Silk lie forgotten under sheets of fabric.

Frenetic Engineering - Femmes Fatales

All the way from Las Vegas via Slough. The glamorous and professional Milly has to make do with the nervous and excited Janice, the stand-in assistant who lives next door, who is making her stage debut.

Hilarity ensues as warm-hearted Janice is led through a show of dangerous pursuits for which she is not quite prepared.

Fuel - Electric Hotel

Fuel presents ‘Electric Hotel’, a lonely, bizarre and beautiful outdoor spectacle; a uniquely designed, fly-by-night hotel brought to vivid life through dance and sound. Sitting on the outside looking in, the audience snatch glimpses of the do-not-disturb lives unfolding behind the floor to ceiling windows.

Wearing headphones to eavesdrop on the internal spaces of the building, they watch the residents in their private rooms: the natural habits, the unnatural fantasies and housekeeping of wildly varied quality. The privilege and thrill for the voyeur is seeing the bigger picture.

Gravity & Levity – Re-flex

Re-flex is a highly imaginative new outdoor work from aerial dance company, Gravity & Levity. Inspired by dancing bamboo forests and fishermen swaying on poles over a lagoon, a free-standing, circular structure of inter-locked, flexible poles forms a three-dimensional aerial performance arena, through which the dancers swoop, soar and glide, whilst the audience moves freely around enjoying a 360 degree view of the performance.

A Feather in the Sky

Fred and Ted are old friends. They love gardening and they love the wild birds that perch on top of their allotment shed. When one of their feathered friends has an unfortunate accident, they decide to give it a ‘right good send off’ with songs, stories, slap-stick, African-style drumming and community singing to the accompaniment of a musical saw!

A theatre show suitable for families with younger children.

Sound Sculptures

Bring your kids to enjoy an interactive sound experience set up in Parish Gardens outside the Spiegel Tent. Jack Drum Arts have built some large-scale sonic sculptures for all to play on – you’ll be amazed at the sounds that can be wrought from wood and aluminium.

Just Jam International

On Sunday 25^th July JAMMIN’ THE STREETS is a full day event featuring the UK’s finest extreme athletes running workshops and staging demos and performances in skateboarding, acrobatics, parkour and bboying (breakdancing). This event culminates in the Just Jam International under-18s Solo Bboy Competition. Bad Taste Cru have hand picked and invited the country’s top under-18s to compete for their own title and automatic qualification to the Just Jam International Finals, which will be held the following weekend as part of SIRF on Sunday 1^st August.

The event on Sunday 1^st August (1:00pm-6:00pm) features top international breakdancers including the former World Bboy Champion Bboy Roxrite from the USA. The event is an opportunity for new and existing audiences to enjoy a world-class experience of bboys battling and live percussionists jammin’ with DJs to funk, soul, hip hop, old skool electro and breaks. Top European and British bboys will fight it out for the opportunity to win the UK’s First Street Bboy Competition

Kuljit Bhamra – Chutney

Get the carnival spirit with ‘Chutney’, a specially-formed strolling street band. Drawing on ‘Chutney’ music, the popular musical style of the Indian community in Trinidad blending influences from Asia and the Caribbean, their repertoire cooks up a spicy mix of guitars, horns and percussion.

A virtuosic instrumentalist, highly-skilled improviser and composer, Kuljit Bhamra has written hit songs, film scores and West End musicals. He is also a pioneer of the worldwide Bhangra phenomenon. Combining traditional Indian rhythms, with western instruments and multi-track recording techniques.

Le Muscle – The Biggest Smallest Club in the World

Popstar Jean Louis 2000 disappeared mysteriously from the international scene in 1981, only to reappear at the dawn of the 21st century. His project is ambitious, his mission is charitable: to bring about universal happiness through Disco. His Trojan horse is his caravan:’ The Biggest Smallest Club of the World’, a shrine devoted to dance that welcomes you with an explosion of lights and special effects.

Jean Louis 2000, his turntables and his surprisingly adaptable bodyguards are also on hand at the Spiegel tent to meet and greet and get the whole place dancing.

Le Ratatouille Theatre - Marcel Poudre

‘Marcel Poudre’ is a close-up show like a local grocery shop, life trench warfare!

Marcel Powder presents us with the Affolante, which is a unique machine made by his grandfather which is used to create miniature fireworks displays. Before carrying out his first demonstration, Marcel speaks to us and allows us to navigate through his memories, because from fireworks powder to gun powder, there is only one step, which his grandfather once took.

Les Apostrophes – Passage Desemboite

Created in 1997, by the juggler Martin Schwietzke and the musician Jérôme Tchouhadjian, Les Apostrophes combine music, juggling and dance as well as incorporating the numerous bits and pieces found in towns.

Discreetly surprising, unusually disturbing, five very stylish guys play around with everyday items… a forgotten book on a public bench, a hat caught in the breeze, the market’s leftovers, all become their partners along the way.

Les Ateliers Denino – Le Grand Theatre Mecanique

Le Grand Théâtre Mécanique is a real machine, with machine noises in a big box. Created in 1900 by Atelier Denino, the Mechanical Theatre was presented at the 1900 Paris Exhibition. Later this fairground attraction was forgotten and ended up in a storeroom, full of dust. It was later re-discovered and fully restored by the inventor’s grandson, Alain Richet.

If you’re lucky, you can join the 700 miniature spectators already sitting comfortably in this authentic Italian-style theatre. A theatre with its own ushers, its audience who arrive late, its technicians at work, its shops, its public entertainers, its three knocks and curtain lift, its tiny actors and its applause. So come and dip your eyes into a marvellous miniature world full of poetry, and discover the unique, le Grand Théâtre Mécanique Denino.

Luci Gorell Barnes – The Tragic & Disturbing Tale of Little Lupin

‘The Tragic and Disturbing Tale of Little Lupin’ is a promenade performance that tells the tale of a girl who is not like others. With its roots in the dark, rich soil of fairy tales, the show is suitable for people who have strayed off the path and into the woods…

The audience is led through a series of encounters by three unusually hairy sisters who draw them deeper and deeper into their off-kilter world. They arrive at a curiously decorated tent which is one of the smallest cinemas in the world. The crimson curtains draw back to reveal a hand drawn animation film accompanied by an original score.

Match Theatre - Kaput!

Kaput! is an adaptation of Ernst Toller’s Hinkemann by award-winning playwright Torben Betts. Hinkemann is about a soldier’s return home from an ill-founded war to a society crippled by a recession.

Metro Boulot DoDo - Whispers from a Rickshaw

SIRF favourites Metro Boulot DoDo present their new show ‘Whispers from a Rickshaw’, an intimate experience that asks the essential question: Where are you going?

Play a game of choice and chance to create an experience unique to you, and take a ride in the “Whispers” rickshaw. As you spin through the city streets, don the headphones and immerse yourself in a world where secret pockets hide intriguing objects that contemplate the nature of journeys and destiny. Classical Chinese music, low-fi electronica, new technology and story telling all intermingle to create a philosophical ride.

Orkestra Del Sol – Top Trumps

Returning to Stockton with a brand-new show, Orkestra del Sol continue their explosive reinvention of the brass band format: soaring horn lines, mournful melodies, rolling middle-eastern rhythms, triumphant trumpet solos and New Orleans sass.

But who will emerge as Top Trump? What is the Orkestra’s collective lung capacity? Who has the maximum range? The top valve speed?

To find out, join the Orkestra in a frenzy of high-speed riffs, ridiculous musical challenges, one-upmanship and brass bravado - expertly woven into a performance bursting with anarchic humour, wildly skilful musical arrangements and a roguish sense of theatre.

Pen-Ultimate – A Day on the Tiles

Take a trip to a seedy underworld where gangsters, high rollers and con-men compete in a high-stakes Scrabble game to end them all. Meshing tightly woven wordplay with send-ups of heist, caper and kung fu films ‘A Day On The Tiles’ is a kinetic tale of violence, revenge and Devonshire cream teas.

Contact is a pioneering theatre venue for young people in Manchester, committed to creating new kinds of theatre and developing the artists of tomorrow. Pen-ultimate is a diverse collective of nationally and internationally recognised poets, actors MCs and playwrights all of whom have been nurtured by Contact.

Pif-Paf – Trunk

Pif-Paf was last seen at SIRF in 2008 with ‘Honey’ and TRUNK is their new touring show for 2010. A Ring-Master struggles with and is eventually overcome by a surprising cast of rebellious puppet animals, culminating in a beautiful water finale. The show is accompanied by live music from a specially composed score.

The Ring-Master is introduced to much fanfare, and aims to bring to us Trunk, his majestic Elephant, Trunk has other ideas, the Ring-Master must instead deal with a fierce lion and a small but impressive band of scene stealing acrobatic chickens, before he can finally reveal his pride and joy. Can he succeed in persuading Trunk to balance on an egg, and get him through the hoop?

Polish Dance Theatre – Between Carnival and Lent

The Polish Dance Theatre was established in 1973 in Poznan by the initiative of local artists. ‘Battle between Carnival & Lent’ is a choreographic-musical installation about the human condition and its many contradictions. It is about freedom and imprisonment, truth and delusion, beauty and ugliness and happiness and suffering. Though modern in its choreography, music and visuality, but it takes inspiration from the popular theatre of the Middle Ages. It invites you on a journey not entirely free from risk or unexpected situations; the solutions are entirely dependent on the audience’s decisions.

Prodigal Theatre– The Next Level

You’ve seen Parkour before. You’ve seen the stunts; the rooftop jumps, the dizzying leaps and rapid vaults – but that’s only half of the story…

Parkour’s essence is in the process of weaving through space – where the human body pours like water through obstacles, coalescing in new forms and new pathways, defying expectation and bending the rules of physics.

Following the success of Urban Playground in 1008, in the ‘Next Level’ Prodigal’s award winning performers bring their unique partner, contemporary and urban dance disciplines together with the astonishing skills of Parkour’s co-creators Gravity Style to present a series of spectacular new choreographies: Welcome to the art of movement; Welcome to The Next Level.

Ragroof Theatre Company – Gloves On

Gloves On is a night time, outdoor theatre show, set in and around a full size, floodlit boxing ring. The show explores boxing and its place in the British psyche, conveying the emotional and physical challenges a boxer experiences.

Gloves On investigates the intricacies of courage, masculinity and honour, ritual and spectatorship. The audience are invited to take the side of the champion or the challenger as the boxers display their pugilistic prowess. Whose side will you take?

StopGAP Dance Company - Tracking

StopGAP is an integrated professional contemporary dance company which has dancers with and without disabilities. StopGAP Dance Company presents ‘Tracking’, a vibrant and funky explosion of dance.

It is a relentless race through the City of London, observing our British eccentricity, sense of invention and support for the beloved underdog. Never fear StopGAP are here and despite the odds they will save the day!

Teatro KA - The Echo of Silence 

Written for four artists: an artist on stilts, a contortionist, an actor and a human statue.

Do we have a Monster inside of us? On that is hidden in our unconscious? A Monster that appears in our nightmares, in our thoughts and actions… But where is this Monster from?

The Chipolatas – Gentlemen of the Road

The legendary Chipolatas return to SIRF with their new show ‘Gentlemen of the Road’, a high energy performance presenting unparalleled physical feats with live squeezebox and breakbeats.

The three musical clowns reference worldwide folk culture and create a unique show suitable for those who embrace life…

The Strangelings – Tandem

Two men, two wheels and some unfeasibly long shoes. Strangelings have stripped it down to the bare essentials. Daredevil trick cycling, achingly beautiful acro-balance and a never before attempted escape finale.

Wet Picnic – The Dinner Party

A foodilicious extravaganza hosted by the divine Ursula Harrington Carrington Barrington Farrington Larrington and her posh friends. Together they’ll take you on a 20 minute crash course in how to behave at table. A fun show where all the guests learn a little something.

Wired Aerial Theatre – Rosa’s Bar & Straw Dog

At ‘Rosa’s Bar’ a wonderful selection of treats is on offer! To start, we tantalise your taste buds with magic tricks, tango beats and incredible illusions from the Master of Mystery Zac Zen! And follow it up with a dark and indulgent duet of sweet and sour tones. Prepare yourselves for fireworks as these two energies explode!

All are welcome at Rosa’s - There’s no such thing as strangers, just friends you haven’t met! Wired Aerial have teamed up with internationally-renowned dance innovator Henri Oguike in the creation of an exciting new commission ‘Straw Dog’; An unnamed Native American elder once told this story…

“Inside of me there are two dogs; one dog is bad, the other dog is good; the bad dog fights the good dog all the time”. When asked which dog wins he reflected for a moment and replied: “the one I feed the most.”

Wednesday 28th July to Sunday 1st August 2010.

Where
Stockton Riverside & highstreet.

Past Events

SIRF '06 highlights included a spectacular show by Brazilian company Cico de Madrugada and the brilliant Bollywood Steps by UK company Nutkhut, plus a cutting edge fringe music programme.

2007 events programme included world-class acrobatics with theatre and dance, extraordinary visual images and surreal narratives, a giant crane, a metallic sphere, live music and intense physicality from a group of Spanish and Argentine performers and much, much more!