OUT THE BOX Festival of Puppetry and Visual Performance

UNIMA South Africa’s annual Out The Box Festival of Puppetry and Visual Performance is a week-long multidisciplinary event celebrating innovation, diversity and sustainability. The festival provides a platform for performing and visual artists to collaborate, to push boundaries and to blur the lines of their disciplines in order to create provocative and groundbreaking work. The 6th edition of Out The Box held in 2011 proved itself to be the largest festival of puppetry and visual theatre in Africa, and attracted artists from all over the world.

The festival takes  place in Cape Town, South Africa and in 2011 venues included  the Little Theatre Complex in Gardens, the Labia Cinema, Iziko National Gallery, Iziko South African Museum, Fire & Ice Hotel, Magnet Theatre and Theatre Arts Admin Collective. Venues for the next edition of the Out The Box Festival due to be held in September 2013 will be announced shortly.

The focus of Out The Box is visual performance – performance that creates diverse imagery, using puppetry, objects, video, art, dynamic multimedia, poetry and physicality. Visual performance encourages experimentation and the integration of artistic mediums. Building on the success of its previous years, audience enthusiasm and the outstanding local and international artists, Out The Box is leading the way in this cutting edge art form, building bridges between artistic and cultural communities and stimulating a love of diversity in the arts.

The festival is the biggest of its kind in Africa and boasts an array of mind- blowing talent… Out The Box is a very busy week with bucket loads of performances, workshops, talks, films and exhibitions – Cape Argus 2008

The Out The Box festival is a multicultural event that creates opportunities for cultural and artistic interaction. Out The Box is the only South African arts festival which dedicates equal space in its programming to work for children and young people. It provides arts education and exposure to hundreds of learners annually and provides opportunities for families to develop a love of the arts together.

The Handspring Awards (launched 2010) adds significant prestige and appeal for both local and international artists striving for excellence.

Festival Features are:

* Iqonga! (platform for short experimental pieces by professional and emerging artists)
* Moving Things film festival (stop motion animation and puppetry films)
* Active Puppets (puppetry training and social development)
* Thinking Out the Box Conference and Public Talks
* Workshops in film, theatre and puppetry
* Exhibition of puppet creations by children

The 2011 festival featured a new innovation called the Arts for a Sustainable Earth Platform, which  engaged with artists and key stakeholders to raise awareness around climate change and inspire new behaviours for sustainable living. The plays presented inspired us to think differently about our relationship with the planet and with one another.

2011 Festival Portfolios

• Festival Director – Yvette Hardie
• Out the Box Theatre Festival Curators – Janni Younge, Jaqueline Dommisse, Yvette Hardie
• Family and Schools Festival Manager – Tahirih Cook
• Active Puppets Manager – Cindy Mkaza
• Iqonga Platform – Handspring Puppet Company: Jason Potgieter
• Moving Things Film Festival Curators – Jacqueline van Meygaarden, Toni Olivier, Phillip Kraft
• Film Festival Manager – Toni Olivier
• Conference Curator – Jane Taylor
• Production Management – G&D Live: Dominique Newman, Gislaine Fittock
• Technical Director – Go2productions: Jaco Nothnagel, Juanita Ferreira
• Administration and Communications – Justin Christian, Joost van Hoof, Pieter Botha
• Design – Luke Younge
• Marketing – Yusrah Bardien
• Publicity – Allison Foat at DIVA PR (021 462 7384) or diva_events@iafrica.com