LIFT 2010 LIFT 2010 (19 June-17 July) was a presentation of theatre from the Middle East and North Africa, such as
Aftermath in
The Old Vic Tunnels and
Hobb Story. Also, with seven UK premieres and five shows new to London, LIFT 2010 included new work from Dutch theatre-maker
Dries Verhoeven, who linked audiences at the
National Theatre live to performers in Sri Lanka, Israel's
Nalaga'at Theatre, the world's only professional company of deaf blind performers, a weekend of social game playing on an international theme from Hide&Seek, and a new symphony for ice cream vans by the composer and theatre-maker Dan Jones.
2011 LIFT’s 30th Birthday LIFT took part in Shubbak with two productions from Egypt and Lebanon. It also hosted 20 young festival producers from across Europe in a three-day training academy as part of the Festlab initiative. Luke Jerram's Sky Orchestra sent seven hot air balloons that took off at dawn and flew over London with a melody specially created by composer Dan Jones. In addition, LIFT spent 2011 working with seven schools across London exploring the possibilities of theatre through the LIFT Living Archive and using the Olympic Games as a catalyst to create their own special event. And also joined forces with Homo Novus in Riga, Latvia and Newcastle's Wunderbar to create Distance, a roaming performance festival that explored the relationship with distance.
LIFT 2012 LIFT 2012 (12 June-15 July) included 21 productions from 15 different countries in a five-week festival of international theatre, seen by over 43,000 audience members. The festival went to the West End for the first time in its history with
Elevator Repair Service's
Gatz, that "beautifully captures the elegiac tone of the book with its sense of the dissolving, essentially agrarian American Dream". It also established a partnership with the
Royal Shakespeare Company's
World Shakespeare Festival, co-commissioning three new international productions from
Dreamthinkspeak, Iraqi Theatre Company and Artistes, Producteurs, Associés. LIFT 2012 continued to feature artists from the Middle East and the Arab world, as well as artists from Iran, with
Unfinished Dream by Hamid Pourazari; Belarus, with
Minsk 2011 by
Belarus Free Theatre; and Brazil, with
The Dark Side of Love by Renato Rocha.
LIFT 2013 While working on the LIFT 2014 festival, the organisation maintained its cultural programme as producer, commissioner and partnership of networks such as House on Fire, Imagine 2020 and Festival in Transition or Live art UK. The main activity during those months was to focus on giving support to small or medium size companies which LIFT had worked with before like the
Belarus Free Theatre that presented its new project
Trash Cuisine. Also, LIFT worked in close collaboration with Derry-Londonderry, 2013 City of the Culture
Political Mother: Derry-Londonderry Uncut, a re-working of
Hofesh Shechter Company's work Political Mother: Choreographer's cut supporting 12 Derry musicians to join the band for the performance. Working with dancers from Hofesh Shechter Company and 5 local dance groups LIFT producer Political Mother: Shortcuts, a series of sigh specific dance pieces performed in the city of Derry created in response to the themes and dance vocabulary of Political Mother. Whilst in Derry LIFT also worked with Boat Magazine to produce a limited edition newspaper version of their nomadic magazine about the people, culture and life of the city. Finally, LIFT organised a conference on how artists respond to archives ‘Past Is The Prologue’, and a festival hack where developers, programmers, coders and artists came together to create prototype digital projects responding to the themes of LIFT.
LIFT 2014 LIFT 2014 was the 20th edition of LIFT. In the brochure for the 2014 Festival, Artistic Director Mark Ball wrote: 'LIFT 2014 platforms a gorgeous diversity of work that wouldn't otherwise be seen in London. Without sounding overzealous, we believe that much of this work is political and engages with the big ideas of our times: freedom, justice, and environmental and technological change. Whether it's thinking about the history of censorship in the Soviet Union, the impact of global warming or the distribution of water, the work is eye-opening, witty and entertaining, with dollops of music, visual culture and animated debate thrown into the mix.' The festival, which began on 2 June, hosted 30 productions from 13 countries that played in 14 venues across London. The programme included
The Roof a three-dimensional free-running performance and
A Journey on Foot at Dusk which invited audiences to participate in a Haitian-inspired funeral procession. The 2014 festival saw the beginning of a collaboration with artists from South-America with productions from Brazilian choreographer
Bruno Beltrao, Brazilian director Renato Rocha and Argentinian Lola Arias whose
The Year I was Born was based around the stories of people who grew up under the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile.
LIFT 2016 LIFT 2016 ran from 1 June until 2 July with a debut performance from
Taylor Mac. The festival programme included 25 productions, 6 of which were commissions or co-commissions. One of these was Depart, a Circa production involving circus artists, choral singers, designers and musicians and took place in Tower Hamlets cemetery park. British playwright and director
Neil Bartlett was commissioned to write Stella, which takes one half on the Victorian cross-dressing duo Fanny and Stella as its subject and saw Hoxton Hall become a LIFT venue for the very first time. The festival events also included talks with
The Wooster Group and
Peter Brook and for the first time involved the UpLIFTers from LIFT Tottenham who became an official festival Jury as part of The Children's Choice Awards. == LIFT Tottenham ==