As the World of possibilities struggles to remain intact, what will you make believe?

Performed on 7th and 8th May 2010, at The University Church of St. Mary the Virgin, High St. Oxford.

Tightrope invited the audience to join us in ‘the citadel’ where the authority had banished all Make-Believe. In this barren land of the faithless, all those who visited for the night were asked to discover how the seeds of faith, music, science and fairytales could grow in a community that walked a fine line between safety and oppression, amongst which was woven a sad tale of a girl who had a story so absurd that no one would listen, let-alone believe her.

Cast & Team:

Lizzy McBain – Artistic Director
Tania Grillo – Performance Direction and Design
Izzie Martin – Script and Production
David Bannister – Musical Director
Diana Scrivener – Choreographer
Owen Evans – Lighting Designer
Photographer – Robert Viglasky

Performers: 
Dominika Akuszewska
Chelsey Burden
Paola Esposito
Blayne George
Nicola Harrison
Francis O’Neill
Nick Tingay
Anthony Turner
Merika Vine
Michelle Witen

Musicians:
Esha Neogy – Viol
Emma Park – Recorder
Irene Anderson – Recorder
Lydia Dougan – Recorder
Kathryn Corrigan – Recorder
Avalina Künzel – Soprano
Jane Goodenough – Alto
Matthew Silverman – Bass

An explorer discovers the garden and the endless and repetitive circle of time

Following Underconstrucution’s A Walk Between (2007), the company were reunited in Brazil in 2009, to redevelop the work for the gardens of Instituto Moreira Salles in Rio de Janeiro. A cast of six Brazilian performers was brought together to collaborate in a new reading of Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities and interpret it for the new space.

Working over a period of three months, the cast brought their own stories to weave in to the pre-existing narrative of an explorer discovering the garden and the endless and repetitive circle of time. Accompanied by the Brazilian band Baile Convulsão with an original score, the characters walked through a place abandoned by time in a quest to complete their purpose and share their stories. The house at Instituto Moreira Salles was designed by Olavo Redig and its gardens by Roberto Burle Marx, Brazil’s most famous landscape designer. Completed in 1951 and initially the residence of the Moreira Salles family, the house is now a public cultural centre. Sobre o Caminhar was performed in the gardens as part of the centenary celebrations of the birth of Roberto Burle Marx.

Cast and Team:

Tania Grillo – Artistic Director
Lizzy McBain – Assistant Director

Performers:
Renata Bastos
André Grabois
Julia Grillo
Tania Grillo
Tony Lima
Alexandre Mendonça
Lizzy McBain
Natalia Warth

For Baile Convulsão

Tiago Leite – Guitar
Michel Klejnberg – Guitar
Guilherme Lozinsky – Drums
Bruno Emílio – Bass

Within this silent shade, all that exists is our memories and the places we have been to

Performed at dusk in the walled gardens of Southside House, Wimbledon, in September 2007, A Walk Between reflected the wild, almost magical character of the site. Taking the visually evocative depictions of Venice in Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities, as initial inspiration, a period of six months was spent visiting Southside, researching in to its history, and creating stories that explored one’s ability to describe places we remember.

Using the primary notion of a conversation between a traveller and a character enclosed by the garden’s walls, four actors told stories of cities travelled – an old man waiting for letters from his daughter, a postman on a boat taking letters to a port, a letter to a mother in times of war… A performance emerged that enabled the audience to explore the garden for themselves, at the same time chancing upon concurrent scenes, some intimate, others frenetic, before the gate was closed, thrusting them back outside to question whether what had been seen had even happened at all.

Cast & Team:

Lizzy McBain – Artistic Director and Designer
Tania Grillo – Artistic Director and Designer
Rob Watt – Performance Director
Robin Cannon – Photography

Performers:
Louisa Chadderton
Ming Chiang
Blayne George
Tania Grillo
Lizzy McBain
Paula Rodriguez