LIFT Festival - Editors' Recommendations

Next Day , Unicorn Theatre (26th – 28th June)

Ever wondered what children are really thinking? Belgian theatre company CAMPO have dedicated themselves to looking at the world from a child’s eye view, creating a trilogy of work that has explored different elements of youth. The parental generation is often shocked by the performers' revelations.

The company has worked closely with a group of 13 performers aged 8-11 to create the show, which shares disarmingly honest reflections on the children’s everyday routines. Continuing CAMPO’s practice of partnering with internationally renowned artists – the previous trilogy involved Josse De Pauw, Tim Etchells and Gob Squad – this production recruits Paris-based director Philippe Quesne.

CAMPO’s last show with children, which came to LIFT in 2012, offered a disconcerting fast-forward through life, inviting reflections on youth, ageing and mortality. We’re intrigued to experience another glimpse of the world through children’s eyes.

Performed in Dutch, with English subtitles. 

The Roof, Doon St Car Park, opp. National Theatre (30th May – 28th June)

Details about The Roof , a new collaborative performance project, are pretty sparse. But what we can work out is that it will involve the tantalising prospect of dizzying heights, spectacular free-running and immersive three-dimensional sound played straight into audiences’ headphones.

Director David Rosenberg is one of the co-founders of Shunt, whose immersive theatre has a reputation for doing surprising things with space, while his partnership with choreographer Frauke Requardt has already proved successful with previous shows Electric Hotel and Motor Show . By the looks of it, The Roof is one of their most ambitious collaborations yet.

Headphone theatre is increasingly becoming an art, including everything from audio tours to vast outdoor epics. Having a soundtrack pumped directly into your ears creates an unsettlingly intimate experience as an audience member, and one that we hope will be perfectly suited to this bold new piece. We can’t wait to find out.

Symphony of a Missing Room, Royal Academy of Arts (19th May – 8th June)

The Summer Exhibition is famous for opening up the Royal Academy of Arts, annually displaying over 1,000 works in an open-submission show. Now Swedish transdisciplinary performance artists Lundahl & Seitl are offering audiences the chance to see the building from a completely different angle, guiding visitors through its empty public and private spaces on a tour that is part real, part imagined.

Lundahl & Seitl’s genre-defying piece blends “multi-sensory technology, invisible dance and whispered illusion”, although it’s not yet quite clear how these will combine. Mystery is a key ingredient, so the finer details are being kept under wraps. But based on the duo’s previous work, which often distorts sight and hearing to prompt new perspectives on the world, you can expect sensory stimulation and a gentle assault of the imagination.

There is always something strangely magical about gaining access to a building’s secret spaces, so are fascinated to see how the Royal Academy will be transformed by Lundahl & Seitl’s imaginative intervention.