• Advertise
  • Request Review
  • Write for Us
  • Privacy
  • Login

Theatre Bubble

The UK Theatre Network

Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy
  • Reviews
  • News
  • Features
  • Spotlight
  • Opinions
  • Interviews
  • Guides
  • Ed Fringe

INTERVIEW / Voila 2020 directors on this year’s festival

November 12, 2020 by Tom Bailey Leave a Comment

Theatre Bubble speaks to director of The Cockpit Dave Wybrow and Voila co-directors Sharlit Deyzac and Amy Clare Tasker

 

What can audiences expect from Voila! Festival this year?

DW: Inspiration! This theatrical conversation is taking place at an intensely difficult time against all the odds. Despite everything, these Voila voices have broken through. The pressing, crying need for direct connections across borders has never been more keenly felt, and Voila this year has become above all else a triumph of collaborative achievement. It’s like COVID was invented to force us to find new ways to talk to each other. And we have.

SD: Voila! Europe is a celebration of languages and cultures, and a welcoming community of European Theatre lovers. This year, with the festival taking place entirely online, we’ve been thinking about ways to create that sense of togetherness digitally. Everything in our online programme is LIVE, a shared experience in real time, from our Welcome Night on Zoom to online interactive shows.

This year’s Voila offers one-on-one performances, an absurdist concert, puppetry with ‘insubordinate costumes’, gonzo journalism, watch parties and meet-ups with theatre makers. There’s even a ‘ridiculously serious’ game of ‘Bingo!’ in Karavan Ensemble & Yael Murcuriali’s new show, framing human rights as a game of chance.

ACT: As always, the festival is multilingual, multicultural, and multidisciplinary. Most shows are in English, or mainly in English with other languages sprinkled in. Even if you don’t speak those languages (like me!), you’ll be surprised how much you understand, with the help of body language, or bilingual delivery, or subtitles.

What’s been the biggest challenge of pulling together a festival in 2020?

DW: Coming to understand the online world as part of the real – not just a second rate alternative to it.  We’ve had to find new ways to make online events worthwhile – not just as events but as ticketed events, where artists can still derive income from theatre at a time when theatre is either banned or limited. But we’ve also had to find out what ‘live’ actually means. What can a virtual dimension to a show bring that its ‘actual’ dimension misses? What happens when you have three or more ‘layers’ of audience ? The watch party watching the zoom meeting where the performers are also watching each other, etc etc.  We’ve invented 28-day pay walls, stumbled across hyper-voyeurism and realised we really can be there with others and here with ourselves at the same time.  

ACT: The government announcing a lockdown in England days before the start of the festival was also a pretty big challenge! We had planned to present four shows on stage at The Cockpit with social distancing. But we were prepared for the possibility of a second lockdown, and those productions have all adapted to an online format, using the templates we created in the spring and summer for online interactive shows or watch party & discussion events. We’re so inspired by the determination and innovation we’ve seen from all the companies taking part in Voila this year.

 

What’s next for the Voila! Team?

DW: Going cross-Europe! Last year, we went London-wide. This year we have found collaborators in Austria, Hungary, and Portugal. Next year and beyond, we will reach out  and make contact with collaborative hubs in other places to help grow the cross-continental independent theatre movement. 

SD: Exactly. Our focus is on making and maintaining connections within independent European Theatre, and that includes outward-looking artists and theatres here in the UK. We’d love to work with more venues to programme European theatre year-round, with the wealth of talented artists from European backgrounds based in the UK. Once the travel restrictions are lifted, we’re looking forward to resuming our plans to invite artists from abroad to perform in London, in collaboration with partners like the Hungarian Cultural Centre. We’re also very excited about expanding the festival to other European cities, starting with Vienna in 2021.

There’s so much to choose from in the festival! Have you noticed any particular themes in this year’s shows?

ACT: We don’t dictate an overall theme for the festival, and we love the eclectic mix of ideas that bubble up as we read the applications. The climate crisis is always an important theme – for example in Farewell Concert by Budapest’s K2 Theater, the actors arrive on stage in hazmat suits with oxygen masks and sing Mozart’s Requiem. The theme of identity is always present at Voila, represented in ‘Diary of an Expat: Reloaded’, ‘Don’t Leave Me This Way’, and ‘Naked’.

SD: Some of the shows this year are responding directly to the pandemic with themes of isolation and community: a joyous physical comedy ‘We Missed You’ by award-winning clowns Julia Masli and Viggo Venn; ‘The Escape of Iris Dupont’ with beautiful masks and life-size puppets created during artist Freya Strang’s confinement in a small French village; and Coney’s ‘Telephone’ which creates a remarkable sense of connection between audiences live on Zoom.

DW: It’s all about the personal and the political.  The huge themes of our time – climate, gender identity, state control, violence, post humanity, borders and equality. They are all there with  intensely personal stories linked to real-world concerns and hunger for change.  This is a generation of theatre makers who are paying attention and determined to communicate with each other.

And what do you hope for in a post-COVID theatre world?

DW: Connection, contact and change.  Independent European Theatre is a key space where people of energy, ideas and talent are formulating their relationship to the future. It’s a voice – one of the few spaces where a cross-continental conversation between people on the ground can actually happen, and we need to make sure its speakers are heard and its participants are seen  and its ideas made visible. Our best future depends on our ability to make unlikely connections, formulate our priorities – and mobilise. Independent European Theatre is a crucial level for that to happen. Voila’s aim is to help make sure it does.

ACT: We’re already seeing a resurgence of appreciation for theatre, and for being together in a shared space and time. Between lockdowns, The Cockpit was home to sold-out socially-distanced performances, and we hope that this time next year, Voila! Europe will be back in the venue, feeling the buzz of audiences in the foyer and seeing performers on stage in 3D. 

SD: We’re also hoping to see digital programming embraced across the theatre world. There are so many benefits to online performance becoming mainstream: reducing the environmental impact of touring; avoiding visa restrictions for visiting artists; and reaching out to audiences beyond our immediate geography. Hopefully this will mean more opportunities for artists to collaborate across borders and more opportunities for audiences to enjoy and explore theatre from around the world.

 

Voila! Festival runs online from 9th – 21st November. For more info, please visit: https://www.voilafestival.co.uk/

Tom Bailey

Author: Tom Bailey

Tom is a theatre maker and writer based in London, England. He covers news and interviews for Theatre Bubble.
T: Twitter F: Facebook

Filed Under: Interviews Tagged With: Amy Clare Tasker, Cockpit, Dave Wybrow, Sharlit Deyzac, voila, voila festival, Voila! Europe Festival

Join the discussion Cancel reply

NEWS / Living Record Festival of digital arts announces programme

Living Record Festival is a month-long Digital Arts Festival curating and presenting over 40 original pieces from a range of [Read More]

INTERVIEW / Open Bar on A ChristMESS CAROL

Tell us about Open Bar Theatre and also how you came about and how the name came about. OBT: Open Bar [Read More]

NEWS / Ayomide Adegun awarded The Luke Westlake Scholarship 2020

22 year old South Londoner Ayomide Adegun is currently in his 2nd year of the BA Acting course at Royal [Read More]

NEWS / Late Night Staring at High Res Pixels announced

A new play repurposed for online viewing from the creative team behind Scrounger, and the first of the Finborough Theatre’s [Read More]

NEWS / Crimes Against Christmas becomes an audio advent calendar

Typically at this time of year theatre company New Old Friends would have just finished an Autumn tour and be [Read More]

Top Posts & Pages

  • 10 Tips to Help You Prepare for Your Reality TV Auditions
  • 5 Stage Elements to Consider for a Rousing Theatrical Production
  • Katy Owen: Auditioning for Oxford School of Drama
  • Parliament Square at the Bush Theatre
  • Katy Owen: How to Apply to Drama Schools*
  • Alice's Adventures in Wonderland soon to be live online.
  • Interview with Alan Flanagan, writer-performer of Bingo
  • Is this the real location of Ambridge?
  • Katy Owen: LAMDA Audition (First Round)
  • Living Record Festival of digital arts announces programme
  • Tom Bailey

    Tom Bailey
    Editor

  • November 12th, 2020
  • comment iconNo Comments
  • Facebook17Tweet6LinkedInEmail

    Newsletter

    Enjoyed what you've read? Get even more great content directly to your inbox - Completely Free

    About Theatre Bubble

    Theatre Bubble is the news, review and blogging site created by Blue Pie Media and run by a dedicated team of outstanding editors and writers: we're always looking for new contributors - to find out more click here.

    Contact Us

    News: news@theatrebubble.com
    Reviews: reviews@theatrebubble.com
    Website: webmaster@theatrebubble.com

    Privacy Policy

    Copyright © 2021 · Blue Pie Media

    Share this ArticleLike this article? Email it to a friend!

    Email sent!