The Barbican today announces its full January to June 2019 Theatre and Dance programme. Tickets for the season go on sale to Barbican Members Plus on Wednesday 17 October, to Barbican Members on Friday 19 October and on general sale on Friday 26 October 2018.

Toni Racklin, Head of Theatre, said:

“We are proud to announce today our complete January to June 2019 Theatre and Dance season. As we enter the 21st year of our international Theatre and Dance programme we welcome a stunning array of directors, choreographers, writers, composers, film-makers and visual artists to our three stages - the Theatre, The Pit and Silk Street Theatre. Artists and companies hail from Ireland, France, The Netherlands, Australia, the USA, Spain, the UK, South Africa, Italy, Burkina Faso, Belgium and Russia. The subjects of families, parenthood and ageing are recurrent themes through the work as the domestic breaks out into the public domain. Elsewhere we see how historical events continue to resonate in our unsettled times. During this period of change, the Barbican continues to be truly international in its outlook by crossing borders and continents to bring our audiences arts without boundaries.”

Cillian Murphy stars in Enda Walsh’s theatrical adaptation of Max Porter’s multi-award winning novel Grief is the Thing with Feathers, which makes its UK premiere in the Barbican Theatre. This deeply moving meditation on love, loss and living is produced by Wayward Productions in association with Complicité and co-produced by the Barbican.

Also from Irish playwright and director Enda Walsh is an immersive theatre installation - five meticulously detailed rooms housing clues to the characters once confined within their walls. Narrated by a number of Ireland’s finest actors, this is the first time that all five rooms can be seen together. Rooms is produced by Galway International Arts Festival and this UK premiere is presented in Silk Street Theatre.

We bring the world-renowned Comédie-Française to the Barbican Theatre, their first appearance in the UK for nearly twenty years. Ivo van Hove, with whom we have a long-standing relationship, directs this stage adaptation of film-maker Luchino Visconti’s screenplay The Damned (Les Damnés) in this UK premiere. Performed in French, this intense spectacle about a corrupt family of industrialists who collude with the Nazis, finds unsettling parallels in today’s world.

Barbican regulars, Internationaal Theater Amsterdam (formerly known as Toneelgroep Amsterdam) return to the Barbican Theatre, this time with the UK premiere of Medea, adapted and directed by award-winning Australian film and theatre director, writer and actor, Simon Stone. This contemporary retelling of Euripides’ tragedy, performed in Dutch, sees Marieke Heebink (last seen at the Barbican in Persona in 2017) take the lead role, for which she won the Dutch acting award, the Theo d’Or.

As part of the official celebration of the Merce Cunningham Centennial, on the day that the giant of US choreography, Merce Cunningham, would have turned 100, we stage the world premiere and Barbican co-production of Night of 100 Solos, the largest Cunningham Event ever conceived. 75 dancers across three venues - the Barbican Theatre, BAM in New York City and UCLA’s Center for the Art of Performance in Los Angeles - perform a unique collection of 100 solos choreographed by Cunningham over the course of his career, with live music and bespoke set design. Nearly half of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company's former members, led at the Barbican by Londoner Daniel Squire, participate in the creation of this Event. To complement the performance, we screen If the Dancer Dances (directed by Maia Wechsler, 2018) in Cinema 2. This documentary film shows Stephen Petronio Company and former members of Merce Cunningham Dance Company rehearsing Cunningham’s RainForest (1968), revealing what it takes to keep a dance alive.

Also from the USA and from Spain, and part of the official celebration of the Merce Cunningham Centennial, we bring the UK premiere and Barbican co-production of Ferran Carvajal and Trevor Carlson’s Not a moment too soon to Silk Street Theatre. This solo performance by Carlson, Executive Director to Merce Cunningham, reflects on the years spent as companion and close friend to the choreographer, offering a rare insight into the final days of a master.

As announced on 27 September 2018, as part of the Barbican Centre’s 2019 annual season Life Rewired, which explores what it means to be human when technology is changing everything, we present the European premiere of Tesseract. Former Merce Cunningham Dance Company dancers, Rashaun Mitchell and Silas Riener, together with pioneering video artist Charles Atlas - a long term collaborator of Cunningham - choreograph this ambitious exploration of the relationship between the human form and technology. Two distinct acts, the first an astonishing 3D film, the second a live performance captured by multiple onstage cameras, form this European premiere from the USA.

Never-before seen in the UK, US-choreographer Pam Tanowitz comes to the Barbican Theatre with the European premiere and Barbican co-commission of TS Eliot’s Four Quartets, the first time that the work has been given a theatrical adaptation authorised by the TS Eliot Estate. Published 75 years ago, Four Quartets is considered the crowning achievement of TS Eliot’s career. Tanowitz collaborates with Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho and American visual artist Brice Marden in this ravishing union of dance, music and art as American actor Kathleen Chalfant narrates the dynamic and kinetic language of the four-part poem.

UK-based Ballet Black, led by Artistic Director Cassa Pancho, return to the Barbican Theatre for the fourth consecutive year following their previous sell-out seasons, this time with two world premieres. The first is a Barbican co-commission, Ingoma (Song), created by company dancer and choreographer Mthuthuzeli November. It portrays a milestone moment in South African history when 60,000 black miners took courageous strike action. The second is another original work, a light-hearted and engaging narrative ballet by Italian choreographer Luca Silvestrini.

We bring Burkina Faso-born choreographer Serge Aimé Coulibaly to the Barbican Theatre for the first time with the UK premiere of Kalakuta Republik – an intoxicating dance piece about modern-day Africa examining the life of Nigeria’s activist, musical legend and political maverick, Fela Kuti.

We bring our Artistic Associate, Cheek by Jowl, together with Moscow Pushkin Drama Theatre, led by Artistic Director Evgeny Pisarev, to the Barbican Theatre with the UK premiere and Barbican co-production of Francis Beaumont’s subversive comedy The Knight of the Burning Pestle. Director Declan Donnellan and designer Nick Ormerod collaborate with Moscow’s eminent Russian theatre company on this outrageous farce, which is performed in Russian.

Also from the Moscow Pushkin Drama Theatre, announced on 10 September 2018, we present a season of three UK premieres in the Barbican Theatre and The Pit. In the Theatre, Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard embodies the spirit of Russia at the turn of the 20th century, and under the direction of Vladimir Mirzoyev, his version conveys societal collapse recognisable in more recent events.

This is followed by The Good Person of Szechwan - a punchy and vigorous modern-dress version of Brecht’s parable play with its focus on survival and the duality of human nature. Directed by Yury Butusov, the no-holds-barred performance by Alexandra Ursulyak won her a Golden Mask Theatre Award. Both The Cherry Orchard and The Good Person of Szechwan are performed in Russian and the songs in The Good Person of Szechwan are performed in the original German.

Completing the season is Mother’s Field, a potent, non-verbal adaptation of Russian writer, Chingiz Aitmatov’s outspoken novella published eighteen years after the Second World War as a plea for peace. Sergei Zemlyansky directs the company of young, skilled artists with boundless choreographic freedom.

London International Mime Festival return with four shows, two in the Barbican Theatre and two in The Pit plus screenings of Buster Keaton’s The General (1926) and Victor Sjostrom’s He Who Gets Slapped (1924), both in Cinema 1. The Olivier award-winning Peeping Tom from Belgium return to the Barbican Theatre for the third time, this time with Father (Vader) directed by Franck Chartier. Part of the company’s surreal trilogy about families, it echoes the artists’ own reminiscences, mysteries and hopes.

UK-based physical theatre company Gecko make their Barbican Theatre debut as they reprise their earlier hit The Wedding. Performed by a nine-strong ensemble and directed by Amit Lahav, the piece calls into question the union between state and individual.

We bring Le Théâtre de L’Entrouvert from France to The Pit. Featuring a wondrous, luminous ice puppet made anew for each performance, Anywhere is freely adapted from the book Oedipus on the Road by Belgian author Henry Bauchau.

Also from France, Patrick Sims returns to the Barbican with his new company Les Antliaclastes. Waltz of the Hommelettes is a magical cabinet of curiosities, with hints of Alice in Wonderland and Brothers Grimm, where events are controlled by a giant cuckoo clock, supernatural in its keeping of time.

Father (Vader), Anywhere and Waltz of the Hommelettes are all UK premieres.

Other Life Rewired performances and events are A Family Outing: 20 Years On; I is a strange loop; Avalanche: A Love Story; Fertility Fest and Collisions.

Ursula Martinez returns to The Pit with the world premiere and Barbican co-commission of A Family Outing: 20 Years On. In this wryly honest and frank conversation, a mother and daughter expose their relationship, contrasting past and present in an endearingly ad hoc and uplifting performance. Ursula Martinez also leads a Weekend Lab about making autobiographical theatre.

Marcus du Sautoy and Victoria Gould, the creative research ensemble behind Complicité’s sensational A Disappearing Number, perform I is a strange loop, directed by Dermot Keaney. This two-hander is an intriguing take on mortality, consciousness and artificial life.

The world premiere of Avalanche: A Love Story, a stage dramatisation of Australian author Julie Leigh’s memoir, Avalanche, is a Barbican Theatre Productions, Fertility Fest and Sydney Theatre Company co-production. Directed by Australian director Anne-Louise Sarks, the story focuses on one woman and her desire to create life.

We present Fertility Fest for the first time in the Barbican Centre across multiple venues. Founded by Jessica Hepburn, influential activist and author of The Pursuit of Motherhood, in partnership with theatre producer Gabby Vautier, Fertility Fest is the only arts festival devoted entirely to the subjects of modern families and the science of making babies. Performances and panel discussions with medical experts, artists and audiences draw on female and male experiences, look at new models of family making and seek to break taboos around IVF.

The immersive, Emmy award-winning virtual reality documentary film Collisions is a startling, real-life account of the moment when indigenous elder Nyarri Nyarri Morgan’s world was turned upside down. Amid the endless horizon of the remote Western Australian desert, this is a rare insight into the hidden history of Britain’s nuclear testing. Directed by Australian film director Lynette Wallworth, pioneer of interactive digital technologies, it reveals one man’s first and fateful encounter with Western science.



London International Mime Festival 2019
Les Antliaclastes – Waltz of the Hommelettes
Tuesday 15–Saturday 19 January 2019, The Pit
Press night: Tuesday 15 January, 7.45pm

In this magical cabinet of curiosities, with hints of Alice in Wonderland and Brothers Grimm, events are controlled by a giant, Black Forest cuckoo clock, supernatural in its keeping of time.

A shoemaker, a mother bird who spins wool and a menacing, musket-toting rabbit are the protagonists in three interwoven tales filled with striking imagery, surprises, twists and turns. When the clock strikes thirteen, elves and goblins appear from its mechanical gears and wheels. They manipulate time and rearrange the notion of natural order so that humans are no longer in charge. Then the fun begins.

Artistic Director Patrick Sims, co-founder of both Buchinger’s Boot Marionettes and Les Antliaclastes, uses masked performers, extraordinary music and sound, automatons and sculptural puppets to achieve his fantastical universe. An eerily delightful folklorish adventure, Waltz of the Hommelettes is faithful to the child logic, adult hypocrisy, cruelty and humour of traditional fairytales.


London International Mime Festival 2019
Le Théâtre de L’Entrouvert – Anywhere
Tuesday 22–Saturday 26 January 2019, The Pit
Press night: Tuesday 22 January 2019, 7.45pm

King Oedipus, a marionette made almost entirely of ice, sets out on a redemptive voyage accompanied by his daughter Antigone, their long passage punctuated by poetic visions of water and fire, shadow and light.

Rejected, hurt and alone, the blind king abandons his throne and takes to the road with his guide Antigone - a puppeteer in human form dressed in a protective felt cloak. As they walk across misty landscapes, his metamorphosis is conveyed by his melting physical state until they reach the crossroads of the world and he disappears from sight.

Featuring a wondrous, luminous ice puppet made anew for each performance, Anywhere is freely adapted from the book, Oedipus on the Road, by Belgian author Henry Bauchau. Combining animated elements with ephemeral materials, Le Théâtre de L’Entrouvert have devised a captivating show that contrasts delicacy and strength, silence and sound.


London International Mime Festival 2019
Gecko – The Wedding
Thursday 24–Saturday 26 January 2019, Barbican Theatre
Press night: Thursday 24 January 2019, 7.45pm

Seducing audiences with intricate choreography, provocative narratives and vivid symbolism, The Wedding brings the union between state and individual into question amid a flurry of white dresses.

From a chute the performers emerge giddy as newborns, expectantly clutching teddy bears. But things soon turn business-like. Doubt, regret and a creeping sense of dislocation enter the physically emotive language of the faultless nine-strong ensemble, their thrillingly tribal and rhythmic finale suggesting revolution and hope.

Led by Artistic Director Amit Lahav, physical theatre company Gecko meld heightened movement with spectacular staging and minimal dialogue to confront big themes.


London International Mime Festival 2019
Peeping Tom – Father (Vader)
Wednesday 30 January–Saturday 2 February 2019, Barbican Theatre
Press night: Wednesday 30 January 2019, 7.45pm

The phenomenal choreography and enigmatic visual imagery of Peeping Tom see fantasy and reality collide in this empathetic and surprising portrait of ageing.

Towering walls surround the visiting room of a care home where an elderly father counts his final days. Shifting scenes speak of isolation, divinity, ridicule and melancholia as his complex identity and lived experiences are revealed. People and objects move around him whilst memories make way for hallucinatory, less lucid moments.

Astonishing dance, song and live music are interwoven in this incisive and compassionate piece. Father, directed by Franck Chartier, is part of the company’s surreal trilogy about families, echoing the artists’ own reminiscences, mysteries and hopes. Another part of the trilogy, Mother, was critically acclaimed here in January 2018, whilst an earlier show, 32 rue Vandenbranden, presented here in 2015, won an Olivier Award.


Moscow Pushkin Drama Theatre – The Cherry Orchard
Tuesday 5 & Wednesday 6 February, Barbican Theatre
Press night: Tuesday 5 February 2019, 7pm

Russian screen and stage star, Victoria Isakova, plays Lyubov Ranevskaya in Vladimir Mirzoyev's enigmatic, soulful production of Chekhov’s prophetic masterpiece, The Cherry Orchard.

The epitome of measured elegance, Ranevskaya, returns to her estate when she learns her beloved orchard is to be sold off to repay debts. Beautiful, romantic, sensual and irresponsible, Ranevskaya is haunted by the ghost of her drowned son, Misha, who is given a physical presence on stage. He haunts the drama as the impending sale and destruction of the cherry orchard become inevitable. Ranevskaya and her family entourage fail to recognise their plight, living in denial, while the world they know succumbs to the tide of transformation led by the upwardly mobile Lopakhin, played by screen and stage star, Alexander Petrov. The Cherry Orchard embodies the spirit of Russia at the turn of the 20th century and Vladimir Mirzoyev's ghostly, contemporary version conveys societal collapse recognisable in more recent events.

The Cherry Orchard is performed in Russian with English surtitles.

Journalists please note: there is an opportunity to see The Cherry Orchard in Russia in November prior to the Barbican performances. Please contact the Barbican’s Communications Office for more details.

Tickets for The Cherry Orchard are on sale.


Moscow Pushkin Drama Theatre – The Good Person of Szechwan
Friday 8 & Saturday 9 February 2019, Barbican Theatre
Press night: Friday 8 February 2019, 7pm

Yuriy Butusov directs a bold, vigorous production of Brecht’s parable, The Good Person of Szechwan. The gods come to Earth in search of a good person and find Shen Te, a sex worker, who puts them up for the night. The gods reward her good deed, enabling her to buy a tobacco shop and try to turn her life around. But being good and poor is not easy and soon various freeloaders take advantage of her generosity leading Shen Te to invent a non-existent cousin, Shui Ta, who is ruthless and pragmatic enough to thwart everyone’s exploitative schemes.

Alexandra Ursulyak gives a bold, compelling performance of the opposing cousins, painting a vivid picture of an individual trapped by circumstance and the unfairness of humans and gods alike. The problem of how to remain good and survive in a cruel world remains unsolved. Ursulyak's performance won her a Golden Mask Theatre Award in Russia and she heads up an ensemble of actors and musicians who perform Paul Dessau's songs in the original German. With its focus on the duality of human nature and the odds of survival in unstable circumstances this production is uncompromising and politically potent.

The Good Person of Szechwan is performed in Russian with English surtitles.

Journalists please note: there is an opportunity to see The Good Person of Szechwan in Russia in November prior to the Barbican performances. Please contact the Barbican’s Communications Office for more details.

Tickets for The Good Person of Szechwan are on sale.


Moscow Pushkin Drama Theatre – Mother’s Field
Saturday 9 February 2019, 2.30pm & 7.45pm, The Pit
Press performances: Saturday 9 February 2019, 2.30pm & 7.45pm

Mother’s Field is based on an enduring story by Soviet-Kyrgyz writer, Chingiz Aitmatov. Revered as a giant of 20th century Russian literature, Aitmatov published his story eighteen years after the Second World War, ushering in mythical folklorish elements to his realistic fiction.

Tolgani, a strong Kyrgyz woman, has a special connection with Mother Earth, a companion in whom she confides and seeks commiseration. Granted a healthy family, her bounty is lost to misfortune when war intervenes. Back in her beloved fields, her heart is torn apart by grief.

Striking physicality and gesture convey the narrative in this potent performance without words – a brave plea for peace and humanity directed and choreographed by Sergei Zemlyansky. Set to a haunting musical score characterised by the sounds of the cello, the young artists of the Pushkin company convey thoughts and emotions via movement rather than speech in this expressive performance. Mother's Field explores timeless themes of family relationships, nationhood, war and survival.

Tickets for Mother’s Field are on sale.


Charles Atlas/Rashaun Mitchell/Silas Riener – Tesseract
Thursday 28 February–Saturday 2 March 2019, Barbican Theatre
Press night: Thursday 28 February 2019, 7.45pm

An inventive exploration of the relationship between the human form and technology, presented in two distinct acts.

To open the show, an astonishing 3D film with vividly contrasting chapters in which movement and setting fuse seamlessly. Space is transformed in imagined and hybrid worlds through manipulating the size and shape of the dancers’ bodies and the audience’s proximity to them.

For the second part, a live performance is captured by multiple cameras onstage; the footage mixed and projected onto a translucent screen, offering various perspectives of the crisp, intricate and innovative choreography.

Tesseract is an ambitious work by choreographic duo Rashaun Mitchell and Silas Riener (former Merce Cunningham Dance Company dancers), together with pioneering video artist Charles Atlas (who was a long term collaborator of Merce Cunningham). Inspired by science fiction and time travel, and experimental in form and technique, it is rich in psychedelic, potent, disorientating and hypnotic images.

Journalists please note: there is an opportunity to see Tesseract in the US in November prior to the Barbican performances. Please contact the Barbican’s Communications Office for more details.

Tesseract is part of Life Rewired: a season exploring what it means to be human when technology is changing everything.

Tickets for Tesseract are on sale.


Internationaal Theater Amsterdam (Toneelgroep Amsterdam) – Medea
Wednesday 6–Saturday 9 March 2019, Barbican Theatre
Press night: Wednesday 6 March 2019, 7.45pm

Simon Stone finds a contemporary reality for this masterful retelling of Euripides’ Medea.

After involuntary confinement in a psychiatric hospital, Anna, once a successful doctor, is determined to put things right. Willing to forgive her husband’s affair with a younger woman, she wants a fresh start with him and their children. But he has different plans. Sidelined and in danger of losing everything, she is driven into a corner and sees only one way out.

Marieke Heebink, seen at the Barbican in Toneelgroep’s astonishing Persona last year, won the Dutch acting award, the Theo d’Or, for her role as Medea. Coupled with incomparable performances by the ensemble, magnified at times by live video, audiences are turned into complicit witnesses.

An Australian director who reinvents classics, Stone gained five-star reviews at the Barbican for The Wild Duck in 2014 whilst his recent production of Yerma won multiple Olivier Awards.

Medea is performed in Dutch with English surtitles.

Journalists please note: there is an opportunity to see Medea in Madrid in November prior to the Barbican performances. Please contact the Barbican’s Communications Office for more details.


Ballet Black – Double Bill
Thursday 14–Sunday 17 March 2019, Barbican Theatre
Press night: Friday 15 March, 7.45pm

Ballet Black return to the Barbican for the fourth consecutive year following their previous sell-out seasons.

Led by Artistic Director Cassa Pancho, recent recipient of the Freedom of the City of London for her contribution to diversity in ballet, the company celebrates dancers of black and Asian descent.

This year, forming the first half of the Double Bill, is Ingoma (Song), created by company dancer and choreographer Mthuthuzeli November. Through a fusion of ballet, African dance and singing, the piece portrays a milestone moment in South African history and imagines the struggles of black miners in 1946, when 60,000 of them took courageous strike action.

Completing the Double Bill is another original work, a light-hearted and engaging narrative ballet by Italian choreographer and Co-founder of Protein Dance, Luca Silvestrini.


Marcus du Sautoy and Victoria Gould – I is a strange loop
Thursday 21–Saturday 23 March 2019, The Pit
Press night: Thursday 21 March 2019, 7.45pm

From the creative ensemble behind Complicité’s sensational A Disappearing Number, this two-hander is an intriguing take on mortality, consciousness and artificial life.

Alone in a cube that glows in the darkness, X is content with his infinite universe and abstract thought. But then Y appears, insisting they interact, exposing him to her sensory and physical existence. Each begins to hanker after what the other has until a remarkable thing happens…involving a strange loop.

Featuring mathematicians Marcus du Sautoy and Victoria Gould - both contributors to recent Complicité hits - I is a strange loop is part of a Barbican series, Strange Loops, investigating consciousness through music, machines and the mind. Led by du Sautoy, who takes inspiration from the 40th anniversary of Douglas Hofstadter’s seminal book, Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, the series reveals links between systems and creativity, and technology and humanity, using theatre, music and art.

I is a strange loop is directed by Dermot Keaney and is part of Life Rewired: a season exploring what it means to be human when technology is changing everything.

Tickets for I is a strange loop are on sale.


Ursula Martinez – A Family Outing: 20 Years On
Wednesday 27–Saturday 30 March 2019, The Pit
Press night: Wednesday 27 March 2019, 7.45pm

Twenty years after bringing her parents onstage in the sublime A Family Outing, Ursula Martinez attempts to recreate the show, without her dad, and with a mother who can no longer remember her lines.

Absorbed in wryly honest and frank conversation, a mother and daughter expose the banalities, hilarity, foibles and frustrations of their relationship. Contrasting past and present, they bicker, cajole and encourage each other through this endearingly ad hoc, entertaining and ultimately uplifting performance.

Since A Family Outing original premiered in 1998, Martinez has turned 50, her father Arthur has passed away and her mother Mila has been diagnosed with early stage dementia. Through a canny interplay with the first production, this bracingly funny new show blurs the lines between artifice and reality while grappling with identity and the march of time.

A Family Outing: 20 Years On is part of Life Rewired: a season exploring what it means to be human when technology is changing everything.

Tickets for A Family Outing: 20 Years On are on sale.


Wayward Productions in association with Complicité
Grief is the Thing with Feathers
Monday 25 March–Saturday 13 April 2019, Barbican Theatre
Press night: Thursday 28 March 2019, 7.45pm

Cillian Murphy (Peaky Blinders) gives a riveting, shape-shifting performance in Enda Walsh’s adaptation of Max Porter’s multi-award winning novel, a heart-wrenching meditation on love, loss and living.

In a London flat, two young boys face the unbearable sadness of their mother’s sudden death. Their father, a scruffy romantic, imagines a future of well-meaning visitors and emptiness. In this moment of despair, they are visited by Crow – antagonist, babysitter, trickster and healer. This sentimental bird is drawn to the grieving family and threatens to stay until they no longer need him.

Grief is the Thing with Feathers is the second piece by Enda Walsh in our programme. September 2018 saw the UK premiere of his modern opera The Second Violinist, and in April 2019 Rooms also makes its UK premiere.

Wayward Productions is a new company led by Judith Dimant who was Executive Producer at Complicité for 25 years, producing all of the work of Simon McBurney. Grief is the Thing with Feathers is the inaugural production from Wayward Productions.


Ferran Carvajal/Trevor Carlson – Not a moment too soon
Thursday 4–Saturday 6 April, Silk Street Theatre
Press night: Thursday 4 April 2019, 7.45pm

Trevor Carlson, Executive Director to Merce Cunningham, reflects on the 12 years he spent as companion and close friend to the choreographer, offering a rare insight into the final days of a master.

In 2001, in a dressing room in Australia, Cunningham stared at his reflection while filming himself on his newly acquired camcorder, a device he went on to use prolifically. Interested in the fleeting nature of things, he uttered the words: ‘not a moment too soon’.

Taking this recording as a starting point, Carlson’s performance is a tapestry of video, text, music and movement layered with previously unseen footage of Cunningham. As Carlson weaves in and around projection panels hung onstage, he presents a visual and oral history of their adventures through recollections of precious moments spent together. A pilgrimage into memory, the dream-like solo shifts between monologues, readings and intimate clips of the iconic artist at work and at play. Tapping into key periods of Cunningham’s later life this is a touching farewell to a loved one.

Not a moment too soon is part of the official celebration of the Merce Cunningham Centennial.


Galway International Arts Festival – Rooms
Thursday 11–Friday 19 April 2019, Silk Street Theatre
Press performances: Thursday 11 April 2019. Times vary, please contact the Communications Office to book your place

Five meticulously detailed rooms house clues to the characters once confined within their walls in this immersive theatre installation. Together, six audience members enter one of the five rooms, exploring the scene for a few moments. Then the recorded audio begins – an absorbing and haunting aural account of solitude, before audiences are ushered into the next room for another story. Contemplative and atmospheric, this event brings Enda Walsh’s five poetic short narratives together for the first time. In each room the highly intimate lives of an individual are heard, narrated by some of Ireland’s finest actors: Niall Buggy, Charlie Murphy, Donal O’Kelly, Paul Reid and Eileen Walsh.

Rooms is the third piece by Enda Walsh in our programme. September 2018 saw the UK premiere of his modern opera The Second Violinist, and in March/April 2019 Grief is the Thing with Feathers also makes its UK premiere.


Lynette Wallworth – Collisions
Wednesday 10–Saturday 20 April 2019, The Pit
Journalists are invited to attend on Thursday 11 April 2019. Times vary, please contact the Communications Office to book your place

This immersive Emmy Award-winning documentary is a startling collision between cultures, encompassing 360-degree vision, CGI animation and enveloping sound.

Provided with VR headsets, audiences embark on a journey together to the ancient homeland of indigenous elder Nyarri Nyarri Morgan, as he recounts the moment his world was turned upside down. Amid the endless horizon of the remote Western Australian desert, this is a rare insight into the hidden history of Britain’s nuclear testing.

Pioneer of interactive digital technologies, Lynette Wallworth combines masterful storytelling and virtual reality to share the profound truth of one man’s first and fateful encounter with Western science. The short, powerful piece, seen at Sundance, Davos and screened at UN meetings, shows how events can reverberate through generations, and how to care for the planet from the perspective of one of its oldest peoples – the Martu tribe to which Morgan belongs.

Collisions is part of Life Rewired: a season exploring what it means to be human when technology is changing everything.

Tickets for Collisions are on sale.


Merce Cunningham Trust – Night of 100 Solos: A Centennial Event
Tuesday 16 April 2019, 7.45pm, Barbican Theatre

As part of the Merce Cunningham Centennial, a global celebration of the vastly influential American choreographer, the Barbican presents Night of 100 Solos on 16 April 2019, which would have been Cunningham’s 100th birthday.

In Night of 100 Solos, the largest Cunningham Event ever conceived, 75 dancers will be distributed across three venues: the Barbican; BAM in New York City and UCLA’s Center for the Art of Performance in Los Angeles. On each of these stages, dancers perform a unique collection of 100 solos Cunningham choreographed over the course of his career, with live music and a bespoke set design. Nearly half of Cunningham’s former company members participate in the creation of this Event, led at the Barbican by Londoner Daniel Squire.

This exceptional programme honours the vibrant legacy of an artist whose unparalleled body of work helped to drive the evolution of the American avant-garde and expanded the frontiers of contemporary visual and performance arts.

Night of 100 Solos is part of the official celebration of the Merce Cunningham Centennial.


Fertility Fest 2019
Tuesday 23 April–Saturday 18 May 2019, times and Barbican venues vary

Fertility Fest, the only arts festival devoted entirely to the subjects of modern families and the science of making babies, arrives at the Barbican for the first time.

Fertility and infertility take centre stage in this four-week programme of performances and panel discussions that brings together medical experts, artists and audiences. Offering a multitude of views and voices, the festival draws on female and male experiences, looks at new models of family making, and seeks to break taboos around IVF.

Fertility Fest is founded by Jessica Hepburn, influential activist and author of The Pursuit of Motherhood, in partnership with theatre producer Gabby Vautier. A rare, open and collaborative platform, it aims to drive social change. This third edition features the first theatre production based on Julia Leigh’s memoir Avalanche.

Fertility Fest 2019 is part of Life Rewired: a season exploring what it means to be human when technology is changing everything.

Tickets for Fertility Fest 2019 go on sale in January 2019.



Barbican/Fertility Fest – Avalanche: A Love Story by Julia Leigh
Saturday 27 April–Saturday 18 May 2019, Barbican Theatre
Press night: Wednesday 1 May, 7.45pm

Julia and her new husband long for a child together. Enough to gather their courage and explore IVF treatment. As she navigates a successful career as an artist with the demands of her relationship and hopes of motherhood, this real-life account follows the making and breaking of her dreams.

Love in all its manifestations, from unfailing hope and optimism to obsession and loss is at the heart of this stage dramatisation of Leigh’s memoir, directed by Anne-Louise Sarks, with its focus on one woman and her desire to create life.

Avalanche: A Love Story is produced by Barbican Theatre Productions and Fertility Fest and co-produced by Sydney Theatre Company, and is part of Life Rewired: a season exploring what it means to be human when technology is changing everything.

Tickets for Avalanche: A Love Story are on sale.


Pam Tanowitz/Kaija Saariaho/Brice Marden – Four Quartets
Wednesday 22–Saturday 25 May 2019, Barbican Theatre
Press night: Wednesday 22 May 2019, 7.45pm

Published 75 years ago, Four Quartets is considered the crowning achievement of TS Eliot’s career as a poet. Now three visionaries, Pam Tanowitz, Kaija Saariaho and Brice Marden respond to the four-part poem in a ravishing union of dance, music and art.

Four Quartets is a mysterious meditation on past and present, time and space, movement and stillness, replete with images of dance. Celebrated New York-based choreographer Pam Tanowitz moves her ten-strong ensemble lavishly through glorious solos and duets to a beguiling score by Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho which is played live, while American actor Kathleen Chalfant narrates the dynamic and kinetic language of Four Quartets from the stage.

The exquisite stage design centres on paintings by major American artist Brice Marden, their colours and strokes making connections to the geographical locations evoked in Four Quartets. Containing piercing and unforgettable literary passages, this collaborative performance of the work is the first to be authorised by the TS Eliot Estate.


Faso Danse Théâtre & Halles de Schaerbeek/Serge Aimé Coulibaly –
Kalakuta Republik
Thursday 30 May–Saturday 1 June 2019, Barbican Theatre
Press night: Thursday 30 May 2019, 7.45pm

The spirit of Fela Kuti is ever-present in this intoxicating dance piece by Burkina Faso-born choreographer Serge Aimé Coulibaly, which speaks of modern-day Africa and the musical artist as freedom-loving figurehead.

In the first half all is monochrome. Dancers pulsate, whirl, plunge and vibrate, their relentless movement exploding with virtuoso energy. Projections depicting scenes of conflict serve as a backdrop for the performers, their perpetual march an urgent metaphor for the desire to keep living.

Bursts of colour propel the second half, a place reminiscent of Kuti’s Shrine nightclub, where discord was confronted just as hope blossomed from solidarity and social consciousness. While provocative messages illuminate the stage, to a score echoing jazz-infused Afrobeat, decadent dance depicts the struggles of an individual.

In honouring Nigeria’s activist, musical legend and political maverick, Fela Kuti, Kalakuta Republik reflects on the role of anti-establishment artists today.


Cheek by Jowl/Moscow Pushkin Drama Theatre
The Knight of the Burning Pestle
Wednesday 5–Saturday 8 June 2019, Barbican Theatre
Wednesday 5 June 2019, 7.45pm

Cheek by Jowl reunite with Moscow Pushkin Drama Theatre following Measure for Measure in 2015.

The London Merchant, a drama about dysfunctional families, begins. Suddenly, from the audience, a grocer and his wife clamber onto the stage, explaining to the astonished actors that while they quite like the play, it could be a bit better – more exciting. Exotic locations, singing and dancing, and the appearance of a Knight are just what is needed to cheer the evening up. And, luckily, their apprentice Rafe is the man for the job.

Bursting onto the scene at a critical moment when the existence of theatre was threatened by a popular movement increasingly hostile to art and culture, Francis Beaumont’s subversive comedy written in 1607 subtly raises questions that are still relevant today. Director Declan Donnellan and designer Nick Ormerod collaborate with Moscow’s eminent Russian theatre company on this outrageous farce.

The Knight of the Burning Pestle is performed in Russian with English surtitles.

Journalists please note: there is an opportunity to see The Knight of the Burning Pestle on tour, prior to the Barbican performances. Please contact the Barbican’s Communications Office for more details.


Comédie-Française – The Damned (Les Damnés)
Wednesday 19–Tuesday 25 June 2019, Barbican Theatre
Press night: Wednesday 19 June 2019, 7.45pm

Crackling with intensity, this triumphant spectacle directed by Ivo van Hove depicts the disintegration of a society, undone through a venomous alliance, the drama finding unsettling parallels today.

Luchino Visconti’s screenplay is the springboard for a ceaselessly creative production, which follows a family of German industrialists – the corrupt and debauched Essenbeck clan. With echoes of Greek and Shakespearean tragedy, their deepening collusion with the nascent Nazi regime puts them on a perilous path to destruction.

Invited to direct the illustrious troupe of the Comédie-Française for the first time, Van Hove and his long-time collaborator Jan Versweyveld populate the Barbican stage with a company of 30 actors and technicians. Archival footage and live recordings projected onto a screen form a counterpoint to the immense and involving action, the roving camera at times turned towards the audience.

The Damned (Les Damnés) is performed in French with English surtitles.


Ends

Notes to Editors

Life Rewired is the Barbican’s year-long arts and learning season exploring what it means to be human when technology is changing everything. Running throughout 2019, the season investigates the impact of the pace and extent of technological change on our culture and society, looking at how we can grasp and respond to the seismic shifts these advances will bring about.

Life Rewired demonstrates how artists are finding imaginative ways to communicate the human impact of unprecedented technological shifts and scientific advances, as well as finding creative new uses for Artificial Intelligence, big data, algorithms and virtual reality.

Press information
For further information please contact:

Angela Dias, Senior Communications Manager for Theatre and Dance, 020 7382 7168 or angela.dias@barbican.org.uk

Freddie Todd Fordham, Communications Officer for Theatre and Dance, 020 7382 7399 or freddie.todd-fordham@barbican.org.uk

For Moscow Pushkin Drama Theatre, Rooms, and I is a strange loop – Bridget Thornborrow, 07802 166594 or bridget.thornborrow@barbican.org.uk

For general enquiries relating to the London International Mime Festival – Anna Arthur, 07973 264373 or anna@annaarthurpr.com

For enquiries relating to Gecko – Magda Paduch, 07583 164070 or magda@thecornershoppr.com

For Ballet Black – John Cotton, 07788 276922 or john.cotton@jcapr.co.uk

For general enquiries relating to Fertility Fest 2019 – Hannah McMillan, 07971 086649 or hannah.mcmillan@midaspr.co.uk

For Grief is the Thing with Feathers and The Knight of the Burning Pestle – Kate Morley, 07970 465648 or kate@katemorleypr.com

Public information
Box office: 020 7638 8891
https://www.barbican.org.uk/theatre2019


Listings information


Waltz of the Hommelettes
Les Antliaclastes
London International Mime Festival 2019
France
Freely adapted from The Elves by the Brothers Grimm
Direction, Design and Puppetry by Patrick Sims
Puppetry by Josephine Biereye and Richard Penny
Sound by Karine Dumont
Lighting by Sophie Barraud
Tue 15–Sat 19 Jan 2019 (6 performances)
The Pit
7.45pm; also 2.30pm on Sat 19 Jan 2019
1 hour/no interval
£18 plus booking fee
Age guidance: 7+
Press night: Tue 15 Jan 2019, 7.45pm
Post-show talk: Thu 17 Jan 2019 (free to same-day ticket holders)

Presented by the Barbican in association with London International Mime Festival
This visit to London is supported by Institut français du Royaume-Uni

Anywhere
Le Théâtre de L’Entrouvert
London International Mime Festival 2019
France
Freely adapted from Oedipus on the Road by Henry Bauchau
Created and Designed by Elise Vigneron
Staging by Elise Vigneron, Hélène Barreau
Dramaturgy by Benoît Vreux
Movement by Eleonora Gimenez
Lighting and Sound by Thibaut Boisleve
Music by Pascal Charrier, Sylvain Darrifourcq, Robin Fincker, Franck Lamiot and Julien Tamisier
Tue 22–Sat 26 Jan 2019 (6 performances)
The Pit
7.45pm; also 2pm on Sat 26 Jan 2019
50 mins/no interval
£18 plus booking fee
Age guidance: 10+
Press night: Tue 22 Jan 2019, 7.45pm
Post-show talk: Thu 24 Jan 2019 (free to same-day ticket holders)

Presented by the Barbican in association with London International Mime Festival

Co-produced by Espace Jéliote scène conventionnée Arts de la Marionnette, Théâtre Gymnase-Bernardines – Marseille, TJP Centre dramatique National d’Alsace – Strasbourg, Théàtre Durance – Château-Arnoux, 3bisf-lieu d’arts contemporains – Aix-en-Provence and International Festival of Puppets – Charleville-Mézières

This visit to London is supported by Institut français du Royaume-Uni

The Wedding
Gecko
London International Mime Festival 2019
UK
Created by Amit Lahav
Design by Rhys Jarman
Lighting by Joe Hornsby
Sound by Jonathan Everett
Original Music by Dave Price
Associate Director Rich Rusk
Costumes by Gayle Playford
With Lucia Chocarro, Chris Evans, Madeleine Fairminer, Anna Finkel, Katie Lusby, Ryen Perkins-Gangnes, Uroš Petronijević, Dan Watson, Kenny Wing Tao Ho
Thu 24–Sat 26 Jan 2019 (4 performances)
Barbican Theatre
7.45pm; also 2.30pm on Sat 26 Jan 2019
1 hour 20 mins/no interval
£16-28 plus booking fee
Age guidance: 14+
Press night: Thu 24 Jan 2019, 7.45pm
Post-show talk: Fri 25 Jan 2019 (free to same-day ticket holders)

Presented by the Barbican in association with London International Mime Festival


Father (Vader)
Peeping Tom
London International Mime Festival 2019
Belgium
Directed by Franck Chartier
Dramaturgy by Gabriela Carrizo
Sound by Raphaëlle Latini, Ismaël Colombani, Eurudike De Beul, Renaud Crols and Yannck Willox
Lighting by Giacomo Gorini
Costumes by Camille De Bonhome
Set by Amber Vandehoeck
With Leo De Beul, Marie Gyselbrecht, Hun-Mok Jung, Maria Carolina Vieira, Simon Versnel, Brandon Lagaert and Yi-Chun Liu
Wed 30 Jan–Sat 2 Feb 2019 (4 performances)
Barbican Theatre
7.45pm
1 hour 25 mins/no interval
£16-28 plus booking fee
Age guidance: 14+
Press night: Wed 30 Jan 2019, 7.45pm
Post-show talk: Fri 1 Feb 2019 (free to same-day ticket holders)
BSL-interpreted performance: Fri 1 Feb 2019, 7.45pm

Presented by the Barbican in association with London International Mime Festival

Co-produced by Theater im Pfalzbau, KVS – Royal Flemish Theatre, Grec Festival, Hellerau – European Center for the Arts Dresden, Les Théâtres de la Ville de Luxembourg, Théâtre de la Ville – Paris, Maison de la Culture de Bourges, La Rose des Vents and Le Printemps des Comédiens


The Cherry Orchard
by Anton Chekhov
Moscow Pushkin Drama Theatre
Russia
Directed by Vladimir Mirzoev
Set Design by Alexander Lisyansky
Costumes by Alla Kozhenkova
Performed by Victoria Isakova, Alexander Petrov, Natalia Reva-Ryadinskaya, Taisiya Vilkova, Andrey Sukhov, Vera Voronkova, Mikhail Zhigalov, Sergey Miller, Anastasia Mitrazhik, Artem Yeshkin, Alexander Dmitriev and Oleg Pishnenko
Tue 5 & Wed 6 Feb 2019 (2 performances)
Barbican Theatre
7pm
2 hours 50 mins/including interval
£16-£85 plus booking fee
Premium Seats: £125 (£150 Premium Package)
The Premium Package seats also include a complimentary glass of champagne and a programme
Age guidance: 14+
Press night: Tue 5 Feb 2019, 7pm

Presented by the Barbican

Tour produced by Oksana Nemchuk in association with ArtsBridge

The Pushkin Theatre would like to acknowledge the generous support of Roman Abramovich


The Good Person of Szechwan
by Bertolt Brecht
Moscow Pushkin Drama Theatre
Russia
Directed by Yuriy Butusov
Set Design by Alexander Shishkin
Lighting Design by Alexander Sivaev
Music by Paul Dessau
Music Direction by Igor Gorsky
Performed by Alexandra Ursulyak, Alexander Matrosov, Anastasia Lebedeva, Alexander Arsentiev, Vera Voronkova, Andrey Sukhov, Irina Petrova, Anna Begunova, Aleksey Rahmanov, Natalia Reva-Ryadinskaya, Alexander Dmitriev, Ivan Litvinenko
Fri 8 & Sat 9 Feb 2019 (3 performances)
Barbican Theatre
7pm; also 1pm on Sat 9 Feb 2019
3 hours 20 mins/including interval
£16-£85 plus booking fee
Premium Seats: £125 (£150 Premium Package)
The Premium Package seats also include a complimentary glass of champagne and a programme
Age guidance: 16+
Press night: Fri 8 Feb 2019, 7pm

Presented by the Barbican

Tour produced by Oksana Nemchuk in association with ArtsBridge

The Pushkin Theatre would like to acknowledge the generous support of Roman Abramovich



Mother’s Field
based on a story by Chingiz Aitmatov
Moscow Pushkin Drama Theatre
Russia
Directed by Sergei Zemlyansky
Set Design by Maxim Obrezkov
Music by Pavel Akimkin
Performed by Natalia Reva-Ryadinskaya, Sergey Miller, Vladimir Motashnev, Evgeniy Plitkin, Rodion Dolguirev, Anastasia Panina, Olga Demina
Sat 9 Feb 2019
The Pit
2.30pm and 7.45pm
1 hour 10 mins/no interval
Age guidance: 14+
£35–45 plus booking fee
Press performances: Sat 9 Feb 2019, 2.30pm and 7.45pm

Presented by the Barbican

Tour produced by Oksana Nemchuk in association with ArtsBridge

The Pushkin Theatre would like to acknowledge the generous support of Roman Abramovich


Tesseract
Charles Atlas/Rashaun Mitchell/Silas Riener
US
Tesseract 3D film:
Direction and Editing by Charles Atlas
Choreography and Design by Rashaun Mitchell and Silas Riener
Music by Fennesz
Performed by David Rafael Botana, Kristen Foote, Hiroki Ichinose, Cori Kresge, Rashaun Mitchell, Silas Riener, and Melissa Toogood
Tesseract live performance:
Choreography by Rashaun Mitchell and Silas Riener
Video by Charles Atlas
Music by Mas Ysa
Lighting by Davison Scandrett
Costumes by Mary Jo Mecca and Yvette Helin
Performed by David Rafael Botana, Eleanor Hullihan, Kate Jewett, Cori Kresge, Rashaun Mitchell, and Silas Riener
Thu 28 Feb–Sat 2 Mar 2019 (3 performances)
Barbican Theatre
7.45pm
1hr 45mins/including an interval
£16–£30 plus booking fees
Age guidance: 12+
Press night: Thu 28 Feb 2019, 7.45pm
Pre-show talk for members: Fri 1 Mar 2019, 6pm

Presented by the Barbican

Tesseract (3D film) was commissioned and produced by EMPAC/Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and co-commissioned by Triangle France

Tesseract (live performance) was co-commissioned by EMPAC, Walker Art Center, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago and On the Boards, and the Brooklyn Academy of Music

Made possible by the New England Foundation for the Arts’ National Dance Project, with lead funding from Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and The Andrew W Mellon Foundation. Developed, in part, through residencies at EMPAC, The Watermill Center and Walker Art Center


Medea
Internationaal Theater Amsterdam (Toneelgroep Amsterdam)
Australia/The Netherlands
Based on Euripides
Written and Directed by Simon Stone
Translation by Vera Hoogstad and Peter van Kraaij
Dramaturgy by Peter Van Kraaij
Set Design by Bob Cousins
Lighting by Bernie van Velzen
Sound by Stefan Gregory
Costumes by An D’Huys
With Evgenia Brendes, Fred Goessens, Aus Greidanus Jr, Marieke Heebink, Eva Heijnen, Leon Voorberg, Faas Jonkers, Poema Kitseroo
Wed 6–Sat 9 Mar 2019 (4 performances)
Barbican Theatre
7.45pm
1 hour 20 mins/no interval
£16-40 plus booking fee
Age guidance: 16+
Press night: Wed 6 Mar 2019, 7.45pm

Presented by the Barbican


Double Bill
Ballet Black
UK
Choreography by Mthuthuzeli November and Luca Silvestrini
Lighting by David Plater
Thu 14–Sun 17 Mar 2019 (4 performances)
Barbican Theatre
7.45pm; 3pm only on Sun 17 Mar 2019
1 hour 30 mins/including an interval
£16-30 plus booking fee
Age guidance: 7+
Press night: Fri 15 Mar 2019, 7.45pm
Post-show talk: Fri 15 Mar 2019 (free to same-day ticket holders)

Presented by the Barbican

Ingoma (Song) is co-commissioned by the Barbican


I is a strange loop
Marcus du Sautoy and Victoria Gould
UK
Directed by Dermot Keaney
Music by Stephen Hiscock
Thu 21–Sat 23 Mar 2019 (4 performances)
The Pit
7.45pm; also 2.30pm on Sat 23 Mar 2019
1 hour 20 mins/no interval
£18 plus booking fee
Age guidance: 8+
Press night: Thu 21 Mar 2019, 7.45pm

Presented by the Barbican


A Family Outing: 20 Years On
Ursula Martinez
UK/Spain
Directed by Mark Whitelaw
Performed by Ursula Martinez and Milagros Lea
Wed 27–Sat 30 Mar 2019 (4 performances)
The Pit
7.45pm
1 hour/no interval
£18 plus booking fee
Age guidance: 14+
Press night: Wed 27 Mar 2019, 7.45pm
Weekend Lab with Ursula Martinez: Sat 2–Sun 3 Mar 2019

Presented by the Barbican

Co-commissioned by the Barbican, SICK! Festival and Perth Festival


Grief is the Thing with Feathers
By Max Porter
Wayward Productions
UK
Adapted and Directed by Enda Walsh
Composed by Teho Teardo
Design by Jamie Vartan
Costume by Christina Cunningham
Lighting by Adam Silverman
Sound by Helen Atkinson
Video by Will Duke
Mon 25 Mar–Sat 13 Apr 2019 (18 performances)
No performances on Sundays
Barbican Theatre
7.45pm
1 hour 25 mins/no interval
£16-60 plus booking fee (£2 off top three ticket prices for preview performances on Mon 25, Tue 26 & Wed 27 Mar 2019)
Age guidance: 12+
Press night: Thu 28 Mar 2019, 7.45pm
Post-show talk: Wed 3 Apr 2019 (free to same-day ticket holders)
Pre-show talk for Members: Thu 4 Apr 2019
Captioned performance: Tue 2 Apr 2019, 7.45pm
Audio-described performance with Touch Tour: Tue 9 Apr 2019, starts at 6pm

Presented by the Barbican

Wayward Productions in association with Complicité

Co-produced by the Barbican, Cork Opera House, Edinburgh International Festival, Oxford Playhouse, St Ann’s Warehouse and Warwick Arts Centre


Not a moment too soon
Ferran Carvajal/Trevor Carlson
Spain/USA
Created and Directed by Ferran Carvajal
Performed by Trevor Carlson
Dramaturgy by Albert Tola
Text by Trevor Carlson, Ferran Carvajal and Albert Tola
Video by Miquel Àngel Raió
Set Design by Max Glaenzel
Composed by Jaume Manresa
Lighting by María Domènech
Costumes by Alejandro Andújar
Sculpture by Casey Curran
Photography by Mark Seliger
Executive Producer Kenneth Tabachnick
Thu 4–Sat 6 Apr 2019 (3 performances)
Silk Street Theatre
7.45pm
1 hour 10 mins/no interval
£28 plus booking fee
Age guidance: 12+
Press night: Thu 4 Apr 2019, 7.45pm
Post-show talk: Fri 5 Apr 2019 (free to same-day ticket holders)

Presented by the Barbican

Produced by Thorus Arts

Co-produced by the Barbican and Mercat de les Flors

Supported by the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, ICEC Generalitat de Catalunya and Consorci Institut Estudis Balearics

Part of the official celebration of the Merce Cunningham Centennial


Rooms
Galway International Arts Festival
Ireland
Written and Directed by Enda Walsh
Design by Paul Fahy
Lighting by Adam Fitzsimons
Sound by Helen Atkinson
Thu 11–Fri 19 Apr 2019
Silk Street Theatre
1pm, 3pm, 5pm, 7pm and 9pm; also 11am on Fri 12, Sat 13, Sun 14 and Fri 19 Apr 2019
2 hours (approx. 15 minutes in each room plus time moving between rooms)
£30 plus booking fee
Age guidance: 14+
Journalists are invited to review the installation on Thu 11 Apr 2019. Please contact the Communications Office to book your slot

Presented by the Barbican

Produced by Galway International Arts Festival


Collisions
Lynette Wallworth
Australia
Featuring Nyarri Nyarri Morgan and Curtis Taylor
Produced by Nicole Newnham
Associate Producer Nola Taylor
Wed 10–Sat 20 Apr 2019
The Pit
6pm, 6.30pm, 7pm, 7,30pm, 8pm, 8.30pm, 9pm, 9.30pm and 10pm on Wed 10, Thu 11, Fri 12, Sat 13, Sun 14, Wed 17, Thu 18, Fri 19, Sat 20 Apr 2019
Also 11am, 11.30am, 12pm, 12.30pm, 1pm, 1.30pm, 2pm, 2.30pm and 3pm on Sat 13, Sun 14 and Sat 20 Apr 2019
No screenings on Mon 15 or Tue 16 Apr 2019
25 mis/including a 10-minute introduction to headset use
£10 plus booking fee
Age guidance: 12+
Journalists are invited to review the screening on Thu 11 Apr 2019. Please contact the Communications Office to book your slot

Presented by the Barbican

Night of 100 Solos: A Centennial Event
Merce Cunningham Trust
UK/USA
Staged by Daniel Squire (London), Patricia Lent (New York City) and Andrea Weber (Los Angeles)
Musical Direction by John King
Creative Producer Trevor Carlson
Tue 16 Apr 2019
Barbican Theatre
7.45pm
1 hour 15 mins/no interval
£16-50 plus booking fee
Age guidance: 10+

Presented by the Barbican

Co-produced by Merce Cunningham Trust with the Barbican, Brooklyn Academy of Music and Center for the Art of Performance (UCLA)

Part of the official celebration of the Merce Cunningham Centennial


Fertility Fest 2019
UK
Founded by Jessica Hepburn and Gabby Vautier
Tue 23 Apr–Sat 18 May 2019
Various Barbican venues
Age guidance: 14+

Presented by the Barbican and Fertility Fest

Supported by the Wellcome Trust


Avalanche: A Love Story
Based on the memoir by Julia Leigh
Barbican/Fertility Fest
Australia/UK
Directed by Anne-Louise Sarks
Design by Marg Horwell
Sat 27 Apr–Sat 18 May 2019 (22 performances)
Barbican Theatre
7.45pm; 3pm only on Sun 28 Apr, Sun 5 and Sun 12 May 2019; also 2.30pm on Sat 4, Sat 11 and Sat 18 May 2019
1 hour 30 mins/no interval
£16–60 plus booking fee (£2 off top three ticket prices for preview performances on Sat 27, Sun 28 & Tue 30 Apr 2019)
Age guidance 14+
Press night: Wed 1 May 2019, 7.45pm
Captioned performance: Thu 9 May 2019, 7.45pm
Audio-described performance: Fri 17 May 2019, 7.45pm

Produced by Barbican Theatre Productions and Fertility Fest

Co-produced by Sydney Theatre Company


Four Quartets
Pam Tanowitz/Kaija Saariaho/Brice Marden
USA
Text by TS Eliot
Choreography by Pam Tanowitz
Music by Kaija Saariaho
Images by Brice Marden
Set Design and Lighting by Clifton Taylor
Costumes by Reid Bartelme and Harriet Jung
Sound by Jean-Baptiste Barrière
Dramaturgy by Gideon Lester
Narrated by Kathleen Chalfant
With Colin Jacobsen (The Knights) and soloists from Britten Sinfonia
Performed by Kara Chan, Jason Collins, Dylan Crossman, Christine Flores, Zachary Gonder, Lindsey Jones, Victor Lozano, Maile Okamura and Melissa Toogood
Wed 22–Sat 25 May 2019 (4 performances)
Barbican Theatre
7.45pm
1 hour 30 mins/no interval
£25-45 plus booking fee
Age guidance: 10+
Press night: Wed 22 May 2019, 7.45pm

Co-commissioned by the Barbican, Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College, Center for the Art of Performance at UCLA and Lincoln Center/White Light Festival

Produced by Bard SummerScape


Kalakuta Republik
Faso Danse Théâtre & Halles de Schaerbeek/Serge Aimé Coulibaly
Belgium/Burkina Faso
Conceived, Created and Choreographed by Serge Aimé Coulibaly
Co-Created by Adonis Nebié, Marion Alzieu, Sayouba Sigué, Ahmed Soura, Ida Faho, Antonia Naouele
Music by Yvan Talbot
Video by Eve Martin
Dramaturgy by Sara Vanderieck
Set and Costumes by Catherine Cosme
Lighting by Hermann Coulibaly
Thu 30 May–Sat 1 Jun 2019 (3 performances)
Barbican Theatre
7.45pm
1 hour 25 mins/including an interval
£16-28 plus booking fee
Age guidance: 12+
Press night: Thu 30 May 2019, 7.45pm

Presented by the Barbican

Produced by Faso Danse Théâtre and Halles de Schaerbeek

Co-produced by Maison de la Danse – Lyon, Torinodanza – Turin, Le Manège Maubeuge, Le Tarmac – Paris, Les Théâtres de la ville de Luxembourg, Ankata – Bobo Dioulasso, Les Récréâtrales de Ouagadougou, Festival Africologne – Cologne and De Grote Post - Ostend

Tour produced by Frans Brood Productions


The Knight of the Burning Pestle
by Francis Beaumont
Cheek by Jowl/Moscow Pushkin Drama Theatre
UK/Russia
Directed by Declan Donnellan
Design by Nick Ormerod
Wed 5–Sat 8 Jun 2019 (5 performances)
Barbican Theatre
7.45pm; 2.30pm on Sat 8 Jun 2019
Running time to be confirmed
£25-45 plus booking fee
Age guidance: 16+
Press night: Wed 5 Jun 2019, 7.45pm
Pre-show talk for Barbican members and Cheek by Jowl patrons: Thu 6 Jun 2019, 6pm

Presented by the Barbican

Produced by Cheek by Jowl and Moscow Pushkin Drama Theatre in a co-production with the Barbican, Les Gémeaux/Sceaux/Scène Nationale, Centro Dramático Nacional, Madrid (INAEM)


The Damned (Les Damnés)
Comédie-Française
France
Based on the work of Luchino Visconti, Nicola Badalucco, Enrico Medioli
Directed by Ivo van Hove
Set Design and Lighting by Jan Versweyveld
Costume Design by An D’Huys
Video by Tal Yarden
Sound Concept and Design by Eric Sleichim
Dramaturgy by Bart Van den Eynde
Wed 19–Tue 25 Jun 2019 (6 performances)
No performance on Sun 23 Jun 2019
Barbican Theatre
7.45pm
2 hours 10 mins/no interval
£16-50 plus booking fee
Age guidance: 16+ (contains adult themes, graphic violence and nudity)
Press night: Wed 19 Jun 2019, 7.45pm

Presented by the Barbican

Produced by Comédie-Française

With the support of the Institut Français du Royaume-Uni, including its Trust, the Friends of the French Institute, with particular acknowledgment to the donors Vincent and Florence Gombault, Marc and Odile Mourre, Bernard Oppetit and Olga Jegunova and Ingmar and Sabrina Vallano

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