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Traverse Autumn Festival 2010

Traverse Theatre celebrates live performance with its second annual Autumn Festival

The Traverse is set once again to become a hub for the very best in contemporary dance, music and puppetry for the Theatre’s second annual Autumn Festival. This six-day festival will see the Traverse welcome the best new work from Scotland and the UK, with shows to suit all ages. Read more …

While last years Autumn Festival established the Traverse as a home to new work of all kinds, this year goes one step further to celebrate the role of the audience. Even babies as young as six months old will get to be part of the show in Scottish Opera’s BabyO (16 & 17 Nov), a 30 minute aural adventure which encourages babies to reproduce sounds and words.

Traverse Theatre Company and Red Note Ensemble have teamed up to invite writers and composers of all levels of experience to submit work for a new experimental event, Noisy Words (18 Nov). This night of literary and musical matchmaking will follow two of the Theatre’s most successful participation events, Noisy Nights and Words, Words, Words.

Critic and performance writer Gareth K. Vile will host his Chat Show on 20 November. Gareth introduces the idea of ‘performance criticism’, where he will challenge the audience and his special guests to get past the conventions of the traditional post-show discussion.

There is contemporary opera with Philip Glass’s darkly unsettling, In the Penal Colony, a one night only performance conducted by Michael Rafferty and directed by Michael McCarthty, a co-production by Music Theatre Wales and Scottish Opera in Association with the Traverse Theatre (16 Nov).

Dance forms a strong strand of the Autumn Festival. Choreographer Fleur Darkin, who is part of a new underground movement in dance in the UK, brings her new interactive show Disgo to the Traverse (18 – 19 Nov). Dance Base combine uncompromising new work by Scottish dancers, theatre makers and artists to present a programme of physical responses to being alive (19 & 20 Nov). Scottish Dance Theatre are back after their huge success during last year’s Autumn Festival to present a powerful bill. Their sell-out The Life and Times of Girl A by Ben Duke is joined by four new works, all to be performed in one night.

Puppet Lab explore everything from cookery and couture to music and magic in their brand new puppet cabaret, Burst the Box (17 Nov).

Speaking about the Traverse Autumn Festival Dominic Hill, Artistic Director of the Traverse said: “One of the best things about the Autumn Festival is that for one week the Traverse becomes the focus and meeting place for a huge variety of dancers, musicians, singers and puppeteers, and for audiences who want to immerse themselves in non text-based performance. This year is a celebration, for all ages, of the power and exhilaration of live performance.”


The critical consensus


Features about Traverse Autumn Festival 2010

Dance show Disgo blurs between audience and performer

Kelly Apter, The List, 03/11/2010

Interview: Michael McCarthy, director, In The Penal Colony

Barry Gordon, The Scotsman, 12/11/2010

The critics strike back

Amy Taylor, The Journal, 13/11/2010

Where and when?

Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh from Tuesday November 16, 2010, until Sunday November 21, 2010. More info: www.traverse.co.uk

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