MEDIA RELEASE                                                                                

 I Guess if the Stage Exploded…

A performance by Sylvia Rimat

 
Saturday 28 April, 7.30pm
ICIA Arts Theatre, University of Bath
Tel: 01225 386777 www.bath.ac.uk/icia
Tickets £10, £8 Concs

 
ICIA (Institute of Contemporary Interdisciplinary Arts) at the University of Bath presents I Guess if the Stage Exploded… by German born performance-maker Sylvia Rimat, on Saturday 28 April, 7.30pm as part of its ‘internationalism’ themed season. In this highly inventive and often funny show, Sylvia sets herself the impossible goal of presenting a show that will never be forgotten by its audience – not a single one.

I Guess if the Stage Exploded... draws on what happens in our brain when we create memories, and the urge we have to feel special and be commemorated. Sylvia introduces memory techniques and applies them to the stage situation with the aim of training the audience to remember. Sylvia is joined live via Skype by several performers from around the world who are in support of her mission, and a living Eagle Owl called Ollie.

Sylvia conducts a space-time journey, to meet a woman who is both in the present and one hour in the future, on a derelict air field in Berlin, attempting to store a memory of the performance.
Then the audience travels nine hours into the future, directly into a kitchen in Sydney. Friends are waiting to celebrate with party hats and a cake.

And now it’s time for the last guest of the night, Ollie the owl, our messenger between the present, future and past…

For the development of the show, Sylvia approached several specialists in the field of memory, including a researcher from Bristol Neuroscience, a lecturer from Experimental Psychology, a hypnotherapist and a researcher from the Centre for Death and Society at the University of Bath.

Sylvia, who currently lives in Bristol, is inspired by the process of remembering, personal histories, ideas around lived places, risk and how we orientate ourselves.

Commissioned by SPILL Festival 2011 at the Barbican, London.  Supported by Arts Council England. A work-in-progress of I Guess if the Stage Exploded... was presented at ICIA’s new work event, Practice, in February 2011.

ENDS 

Press reviews

“A wonderfully inventive performance that not only questions the nature of performance spectating... theatrical joy”  A Younger Theatre

“There is such a strange menagerie of ideas brought into play in this show that it would be hard to forget” Total Theatre

2012 theme of ‘internationalism’

In response to the Olympic year, ICIA’s theme for 2012 is ‘internationalism’. The theme offers the opportunity for artists and performers to examine the relationship between national identity and internationalism in the cultures of sport and the arts, exploring where contradictions arise. ICIA is based at the University of Bath, one of the UK’s leading universities.

ICIA, University of Bath

ICIA’s professional programme includes visual arts, theatre, dance and music with an interdisciplinary emphasis, including exhibitions, films, discussions, practical workshops and classes. ICIA commissions and supports new arts projects, residencies, training opportunities, seminars and symposia exploring interdisciplinary arts practice.