LIFT 2024

42 performances, 8 shows, 7 venues, 1 festival.

Personal accounts of justice, migration and protest took on new mythical proportions through barrier-breaking storytelling.

With three world premieres, dynamic international collaborations and brand new iconic presentations.

“A gut-punching performance that will leave you in splits.”

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

– A Young(ish) Perspective on The Land Acknowledgement

“magically uplifting.”

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

– The Telegraph on ECHO: Every Cold-Hearted Oxygen

“ Powerful, raw, vital, fearless, thought-provoking. I have never seen anything quite like it.”

– LIFT 2024 Audience Member

This festival featured 8 productions from around the world.

Alongside the main festival programme, LIFT also partnered with Royal Central School of Speech and Drama to take part in the 29th iteration of the Performance Studies International conference.

LIFT also commissioned BAFTA award-winning interactive arts company Coney to design and deliver a series of playful workshops for workers and residents in the City of London called Workplace Boosts. This initiative was supported by the City of London as a part of LIFT’s LIFT the City programme.

LIFT 24 video highlights

L'Animale at the Old Bailey

Democracy from Where I Stand at the Dutch Church

LIFT 2024 highlights

The Land Acknowledgement

The Land Acknowledgement. Images by Dahlia-Katz

Democracy From Where I Stand

Democracy From Where I Stand. Images by Matthew Johnson

Bat Night Market

Bat Night Market. Images by Ellie Kurttz

L'Homme rare

L'Homme rare. Images by Olivier Miche

The Trials and Passions of Unfamous Women

The Trials and Passions of Unfamous Women. Images by Ellie Kurttz

Bacchae: Prelude to a Purge

Bacchae: Prelude to a Purge. Images by Laurent Philippe

L'Animale

L'Animale. Images by Katie Edwards

ECHO (Every Cold-Hearted Oxygen)

ECHO. Images by Manuel Harlan

LIFT 24 Archived event pages

The Land Acknowledgement or As You Like It

5 – 9 Jun

Cliff Cardinal aims to surprise and provoke with his Land Acknowledgement or As you Like It. Cultural provocateur Cliff Cardinal revisits Shakespeare’s timeless tale of mistaken identities, gentle ruses and banishment in this show that exults in difficult subject matter. Dubbed "the Canadian arts surprise of the year" by The Globe and Mail, Cardinal's brilliant play, The Land Acknowledgement or As You Like It, offers you the unvarnished truth of the state of the reconciliation process between Indigenous communities and colonial settlers in Canada. When the curtains rise, prepare for Shakespeare as you’ve never seen him before and likely never will again.

Bat Night Market

10 – 12 & 14 – 15 Jun

A marketplace for the mind, an experience for the senses. Step outside your comfort zone and into a night market of the future. Bat Night Market tells the tales of the extraordinary bat species, examining their imperative nature in our global ecosystem and teaching us that conservation of the key species is more crucial now than ever before. Set in an imagined night market where bat species are extinct, Bat Night Market intersects performance, speculative design and science. We invite visitors to celebrate these enigmatic animals in an evening of discussions, games, tastings and sensory experiences. Bat Night Market is an international collaboration between designer UK artist Robert Charles Johnson and artist Kuang-Yi Ku, Taiwan/Netherlands.

Democracy From Where I Stand

8 June (this event has now passed)

In 2024, half the world’s population will head to the polls in national elections. In the UK, people will be asked to vote in a General Election on 4 July. Democracy is being put to the test in an unprecedented way. LIFT would like us all to have a chat about it. Featuring Brenda Emmanus (London) Lola Shoneyin (Lagos), Aditi Mittal (Mumbai), Rosie Holt (London), Fetuma Hassan (London), Dr Michelle Johansen (London) , Baque Luar (London), Margaret Atwood (Toronto), Osheen Siva (Thiruvannamalai/Vellore).

L’Homme rare

12 – 13 Jun

The issue of gender has always featured in Nadia Beugré’s work, but in L’Homme rare she tackles it head-on, questioning the attention paid to bodies and the qualities attributed to their movements. With innovative choreography and staging, Nadia brings perceptions of gender, and how we view and objectify bodies, into stark relief.

The Trials and Passions of Unfamous Women

14 – 22 Jun

The Trials and Passions of Unfamous Women asks what is justice, and who has the power to decide? This bold and theatrical experience immerses us in the haze between the shared rituals of theatre and the halls of justice. A collaboration between LIFT, Brazilian theatremakers Janaina Leite and Lara Durarte, and Clean Break. This world premiere explores the theme that The Personal is Epic.

Bacchae: Prelude to a Purge

18 – 19 Jun

A raucous and absurd carnival processes onstage to the sounds of Brazilian funk, clown antics, pop, and Ravel’s Boléro. In this wildly delirious work, Cape Verdean-born, Lisbon-based choreographer and performance artist Marlene Monteiro Freitas dares you to traverse the order and wild chaos of Euripides—and ultimately, the depths of the human psyche.

L’Animale

22 - 23 June (this event has now passed)

Against the formidable backdrop of the Old Bailey's Grand Hall, Milan's Chiara Bersani transforms The Dying Swan into L'Animale. Pushing the boundaries of dance, L'Animale is an evocative exploration of the universal themes of loneliness and mortality, creating a unique, unrepeatable performance each time.

ECHO: Every Cold-Hearted Oxygen

13 – 27 Jul

Iranian playwright Nassim Soleimanpour (White Rabbit Red Rabbit, NASSIM) and Italian Palestinian director Omar Elerian (NASSIM, Misty, two Palestinians go dogging) push the boundaries of his signature unrehearsed cold reads to the next level. A new performer takes to the stage at every show without having a clue of what is going to be asked of them. Unrehearsed and unprepared, the script becomes their guide as they journey through the story of the playwright, connected live from his flat in Berlin? Or is he? Can we really know where or when we are? ECHO asks us to confront what it feels like to be an immigrant in time. Fusing technology with the oldest tricks in the book, ECHO is an experiment in concept touring for the age of climate crisis: an ambitious, magical and uncompromising production where no one travels yet everybody can be present.

PSi 29

20 – 23 Jun

PSi #29 - Assemble! is the twenty-ninth iteration of PSi’s annual conference in 2024.

LIFT the City: Coney Workplace Boosts

5 Jun – 27 Jul

This spring, LIFT has commissioned BAFTA award-winning interactive arts company Coney to design and deliver a series of playful workshops for workers in the City, supported by The City of London Corporation