The Manipulate Festival, Scotland’s international festival of animation, film, movement, puppetry, and visual theatre returns for its ambitious 17th season. This year’s festival will run from February 1st – 11th across multiple physical and online venues.
The full programme can be found here.
Next week, Edinburgh will host the return of one of the most extensive international Festival events (and it’s even better than the other one in August). Returning for its seventeenth edition, Manipulate Arts will feature a diverse array of visual storytelling – some of which you might encounter on your daily stroll throughout the city.
Fling open the doors, and wander into a realm of limitless imagination – as Manipulate Festival 2024 offers a wealth of creative delights with returning greats, new and explosive movement pieces, a venture into the emerging relationship art shares with artificial intelligence, and some of the animation world’s finest pieces.
One of Scotland’s truly international events, Manipulate Arts has (over the years) welcomed artists and creatives from Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, Colombia, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, England, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Holland, Hungary, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Mexico, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Slovakia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden and the USA, and are keen to extend their support and build new presenting and collaborative relationships and works across the world.
A celebration of artistry and storytelling, specialising in visual theatre, movement, and animated film – with a focus on imbuing life into the mundane, and the inanimate and sharing tales through imagery and optics. This year, Manipulate looks to alleviate as much of the barriers for their d/Deaf and Hard of Hearing audiences for the 2024 season, an encouraging decision: especially welcomed given the festival’s presentation form as a primarily visual medium.
With a curated film programme, many of which are available to those unable to attend the festival in person, features a diverse range of short and feature films from across the world – some specifically curated without spoken word to reach as wide an audience as possible. Each short film event is presented both live in Edinburgh and online for UK audiences, and all are part of our Film Pass ticket deals.
Manipulate also offers BSL interpretation closed captioning or have moved to incorporate some aspect of inclusive representation accessible access, and information relating to the venue’s access and contact details may be obtained here.
The Studio, Potterrow
Featuring Scottish, UK, and World premieres – The Studio, Potterrow – located behind the Festival Theatre is a superb space for physical-based performances and micro-pieces. Hosting workshops, gatherings, and work-in-progress pieces, The Studio is a safe space for all to come together and celebrate new work – including a double-bill of HOVER and I, Honeypot on February 5th.
Unquestionably one of the festival’s key events, multi-award-winning theatre company Ad Infinitum present a bold new production which celebrates the transformative powers of ritual and grief. An Ending. A Beginning. A goodbye: Last Rites will run at The Studio on February 3rd and 4th and follows twenty-four hours in which a man has to perform his father’s funeral rites. Performed and co-created by CATS-winning Ramesh Meyyappan (Love Beyond), and directed by co-creator George Mann, Last Rites combines visual and physical storytelling with dynamic projection to create an epic no-verbal solo show.
A returning favourite and firm feature of Manipulate, Snapshots welcomes new and curious works-in-progress from Scotland-based artists who present innovative ideas in circus, movement, puppetry, visual theatre and dance. Join fellow artists and enthusiasts before the show on February 5th in the Studio bar from 6pm before coming together for a night of fresh ideas and radical creations – featuring work from Sarah Cosgrove, Vee Smith, Mamoru Iriguchi, Craig Manson, and Freda O’Bryne. Featuring puppetry, object theatre, animated film, physical theatre circus and dance, the line-up promises insight into the process of a diverse group of artists working with a wide range of techniques.
Bringing object theatre to The Studio on February 9th and 10th, partway through the festival, La Conquête is a smart and topical show exploring the legacy of colonialism through a subtle back-and-forth over time, dissecting the transformation and exploitation which occurs. Utilising the body as a stage, a landmass, and an object to be conquered, submitted and possessed: every element to be exploited and transformed as religions and cultured and reformed and populations divided. The performance is presented by two artists whose present lived realities are intertwined with the legacy of colonialism: Dorothée Saysombat (performer and director originating from Laos and China) and Sika Gblondoume (performer and singer originating from Benin). Based on their personal story linked to the universal history, this show talks about colonisation as a legacy which concerns all of us.
Concluding The Studio’s time with Manipulate for the 2024 festival, Bex Anson and Dav Bernard’s Ruins (February 11th), a highly visual dance performance, takes inspiration from Donna Haraway’s eco-feminist writing Staying with the Trouble, Making kin in the Chthulucene. Co-created with movement artists Philip Alexander, Rita Hu and Suzie Cunningham, Ruins explores how we might move through trauma and pain, isolation and the damage caused both globally and personally, by focusing on being open with one another and the environment around us. Performed by Alexander, Hu, and Cunningham to explore adaptation, rupture, and togetherness across species, all set inside a hypnotic video cube where the three performers shapeshift, burrow, and writhe through the undergrowth of the soul in a soundscape from musician Cucina Povera.
The Traverse Theatre
The home of emerging writing, the Traverse Theatre, is the place to be throughout the festival will a myriad of touring giants, premiere shows, dynamic object theatre, and some singing legumes…
The first returning show is the latest in a series of performances, renowned theatre company Al Seed’s acclaimed Plinth reaches Edinburgh at the festival on February 2nd and 3rd at the Traverse Theatre. An extraordinary piece of movement-based storytelling, Plinth finds a balance of intense artistry and collective memory in a unique performance which finds a statue sparked into life at the height of war, attempting to comprehend the new world around it, tormented by images, Plinth takes inspiration from the legend of Theseus, the Minotaur, and Ariadne. Have a read of our review of Al Seed’s show from earlier in its tour.
Another returning show, this one reminds us that life is a pantry – welcome to the jar. Take some time ot hear the laments of lives not lived, regrets felt, and watch chaos bounce around as Pickled Republic returns to Edinburgh at the Traverse Theatre on February 9th. This hugely surreal theatrical cabaret for adults contains puppetry, masks, spoken word, and a few stray seeds… Have a read of our five-star review of the show from it’s time at the Assembly Roxy in 2023.
Opening the festival at the Traverse Theatre, Sofie Krog & David Faraco lead audiences through the story of the Warehouse Family Funeral House with The House’s Scottish premiere on February 2nd and 3rd. This complex and darkly hilarious puppet performance from Sofie Krog Theater, one of Denmark’s leading puppet theatre companies, utilises strange contraptions and lighting to craft a scary, chilling journey of evil deeds and cunning plans. The UK’s foremost circus theatre company, the award-winning Ockham’s Razor presents a bold new vision of Hardy’s classic novel, Tess of the D’Urbervilles, at the Traverse on February 7th and 8th. Mixing the original text with flourishes of physical language, they retell the well-known story of loss, power and endurance through a feminist lens – exploring class, consent, agency and female desire.
Returning to Manipulate Festival for the first time since 2011, masters of European object theatre, Bakélite, bring ‘Envahisseurs (Invaders)’ to Traverse Theatre on February 4th at 2pm and 5pm. A show designed to tickle the present, while stoking fond memories, this short experience show takes inspiration from science fiction films of the fifties. And on February 11th, explore the puppet collection of German puppeteer Fritz Wortelmann across five digital rooms through a virtual reality headset. Hosted in the foyer at Traverse Theatre, in half-an-hour slots in a virtual exhibit for Puppets 4.0.
The most anticipated event of the Manipulate festival is the long-overdue performance of multi-award-winning, Edinburgh-based, Tortoise in a Nutshell’s Ragnarök. Renowned for their world-class visuals that spark imagination, this immense piece collides the ancient world with modern spectacle. Performed at the Traverse at the end of the festival (February 10th and 11th), Ragnarök creates a haunting and multi-sensory world, populated with hand-crafted clay figures set to an immersive soundtrack. Fusing various art forms; puppetry, human performance, live animation and music, this is their most ambitious piece to date.
Fruitmarket
Located on Market Street, to the side of Waverley Station, the Fruitmarket Gallery is a tremendous artistic and expressive space for local and international artists – and home to some of Manipulate’s most interesting pieces of movement, honesty, and the future.
And Fruitmarket is also where it all kicks off! Come and celebrate the opening of the 17th Manipulate Festival with puppets, dancing, films, and drinks on February 1st! With exclusive pop-up events and performances, with sneak-peaks at the highlights of the festival, this is the best opportunity to meet artists and audiences, supporters, and like-minded enthusiasts. With performances from Nikki Hill, Ella MacKay of Nudge Puppets, and Calum Donald and Melanie Monteiro of Circus Tempo, plus a DT set from Arusa Qureshi – and also, the launch of the anticipated pop-up cinema for one, One Bum Cinema!
Bakélite’s second short performance happens at Fruitmarket on February 3rd at 3pm, and again at 5pm: L’Amour du Risque is a ballet for robot vacuum cleaners. Enough said. Accompanied by romantic music, a man awaits a candle-lit dinner, but the service here is of the automated variety. Managed by artificial intelligence, with limited capabilities, the robot waiters come and go, forming a hypnotic dance. But as the meal progresses, their behaviour becomes increasingly erratic, and an accident is never far away. The latest in object theatre from celebrated French artists Compagnie Bakélite, led by Olivier Rannou, L’Amour du Risque is a delicate dance aiming to always remain in balance, on the precipice between convenience and utter disaster.
The robots continue at Fruitmarket, as the satirical show Simple Machines from choreographer Ugo Dehaes demonstrates how he grows organic-looking robots in his basement, training them to be dancers. Performed at Fruitmarket on February 4th, Simple Machines is an attempt to make humans completely superfluous in the creation process; the future is waiting…
Away from the production side, Fruitmarket will also host a series of roundtable events, organised to draw artists and audiences together to discuss where we are going. The first, on February 2nd, is in response to the current war in Palestine, and the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, an acknowledgement of the global social-political landscape the festival finds itself taking place within. The second roundtable, happening on February 4th, is focused on dramaturgy and language and will be facilitated by Lucy Ireland and Jim Manganello from Scotland-based dance theatre company Shotput, alongside Dawn Taylor, the Artistic Director and CEO of Manipulate Arts.
Summerhall and Institut Français
Over at Summerhall, the festival champions its excellent animation and short film programme, with a series of collective shorts and feature film screenings.
First up, on February 3rd at Summerhall, the Shorts 1 programme is co-curated with Samizdat Eastern European Film Festival in Glasgow to offer a unique collection of surrealist animation of Eastern Europe from 1965 – 2022. A whistle-stop tour through an intensely rich history of animation across Central Asia and Eastern Europe, featuring Scenes with Beans, Money and Happiness, Tyll the Giant (Suur Tõll), The Mask of Red Death and others.
Resistance Through Storytelling is the second series of shorts, this time curated by Manipulate Arts Associate Programmer Natasha Thembiso Ruwona, writer, artist and researcher based between London and Scotland. Highlighting an array of styles, the selected films explore various mechanics of storytelling through challenging systems of power, animation forms and personal assertions. On February 3rd at 4pm, Summerhall audiences can watch Why Slugs Have No Legs, Hadis, Baigal Nuur – Lake Baikal, A Float and many others.
Programmed by Manipulate Act Associate Programmer Holly Summerson, the festival’s third Shorts programme, Beyond Words, has a focus on wordless films, programmed with d/Deaf and Hard of Hearing audiences in mind. Drawing together visual storytelling masterpieces, Beyond Words will showcase films representing conflict, resentment, grief, and healing – with a programme featuring; Pests (Nuisibles), Trace, Sow (Sembrar), The Legend of Goldhorn, Sisters and others.
While over at the French Institute of Scotland, February 8th offers a magnificent opportunity for audiences to catch a landmark film in European animation history, Fantastic Planet, directed by René Laloux, animated at Jiří Trnka Studio in Prague. Influenced by the concepts of animal rights, agency, racism, and oppression, the allegorical 1973 sci-fi animated film presents the story of the Oms and their struggle for freedom against the Draags; a psychedelic experience, with production designed by noted surrealist Roland Topor.
Manipulate runs from February 1st – 11th both in-person and online.
A full listing of events, venues, and additional information may be obtained here.