The Out The Box Festival at the Baxter

For adult audiences, artists present their wildest and most beautiful imaginings in works using puppetry, projection, objects, multi-media and live performers. At the forefront of contemporary theatre worldwide, Visual Performance is about collaboration and experimentation. It departs from the spoken word into a sensory, evocative experience that explores the boundaries between performance and visual art. When the sun sets and the little ones are tucked in bed, adult audiences are invited back to experience something completely different. Included in the breath-taking line-up for the Adult Festival this year are international performance artists and contemporary dancers, Duda Paiva from the Netherlands with Angel and Edna Jaime from Mozambique with her provocative work, (Eu) peca de terra-II. Some of the local works featured are the groundbreaking Quack! by FTH:K ; Acty Tang's Inscrutable and the acclaimed Mothertongue Theatre's The Baggage of Bags as well as several new works by new and emerging theatre makers.

So often it is childhood that comes to mind when thinking of puppetry and those wanting a family theatre experience won't be disappointed. This year The Out The Box festival has created a Family Festival programme of puppetry and visual performance from around the globe featuring both overseas artists and preeminent Southern African youth theatre practitioners like Ubom from Grahamstown and Arley's Workshop from Durban and the remarkable Seka from Zambia.

An extraordinary range of shows are on offer, some that will appeal to the sophisticated tastes of older children and teenagers like Lennie and the Wasteland as well as well as shows that will cast a spell of wonder over the very young. Take a journey through Africa with Tales from the Calabash; Indlovu People; Taku and the Rainbow Princess and Embo; or be inspired by stories from other parts of the world with productions like Oruk from Sweden, or Lost and Found from Canada.

Active Puppets Proactive training and development programme sees selected groups performing short pieces as part of Showcase with works created especially for the festival. Iqonga, Unima's platform for experimentation in Visual Performance, features short form works by emergent theatre makers and performance art professionals. Moving Things, our film component, will be presented again this year with an exciting selection of stop motion and puppetry films at the Labia. Aja Marneveck will be convening a conference entitled The role of Women in the Development and Creation of Puppetry and Visual Theatre in Contemporary Performance.

For those who want to get more deeply immersed in the experience, a range of exciting workshops will be presented by specialists in the many diverse forms of puppetry, including a workshop by South Africa's national treasure, Handspring Puppet Company.

Out the Box offers engaging professional entertainment that will fire the imaginations of children and adults alike. Tickets cost from R30 to R50 via Computicket with special offers for block bookings of ten or more. For more info please visit www.unimasouthafrica.org or call 021 462 5811.