Festivals
This has been the first summer in memory when festivals have been cancelled and stages left silent. For creatives everywhere festivals are an integral part of the high season as so much can be achieved during the milder months. Scores of shows are scheduled in the spring and summer with profits are stock piled to allow for research and development to continue throughout the autumn and winter. However it’s not just theatre finances that are replenished. Festivals are a restorative for our souls, providing inspiration for our creativity and offering a response to our need for connection.
The success of theatre is dependent on the resourcefulness of the people involved, and participating in events as part of a larger collective is essential for sustaining our industry because it sustains the individuals at the heart of it. If you’ve never experienced a festival, try to imagine how you might feel at the end of a long day walking in the wind and rain when you finally arrive at a pub full of familiar faces where there’s a warm fire and a cold pint awaiting you! There’s a sense of achievement and relief in celebrating all the obstacles you have overcome to get there.
Our season starts at Brighton Fringe, the largest arts festival in the country. Brighton provides the perfect backdrop as it is a city that is alive with artistry and diversity. You can see classics, original writing, cabaret, circus shows, music, poetry, stand up and even attend workshops about working in the arts. Venues can be found everywhere from police cells to private basements, taxis and even beach huts!
Perhaps you have seen us suffering for our art in the midwinter snow, out over the water at the end of the Palace Pier attempting to manipulate puppets and keep our camera from freezing whilst taking promo photos in sub zero temperatures! By the time spring arrives we can be found in the town centre giving people a snapshot of what they might expect from a Sabotage show. Being in the midst of a city makes the festival accessible to anyone and we always get wonderful reactions from intrigued passers by!
Sabotage perform within the beautiful Bosco, a rigid theatre tent over a hundred years old! Atmospheric and timeless, it lends itself well to working with puppets as the seating is banked so everyone can see the detail on stage. The intense summer heat provides an endurance test for our actors especially as there are always stormy scenes in our shows so characters often have heavy winter coats as part of their costumes!
The venue is at the heart of the bustling Spiegel Gardens so competing with noise from outside to transport the audience into the world we’ve created for them is another classic challenge. The sound and lighting desk is set to one side of the space, so as stage manager I have to rely on the work we’ve done in rehearsals and trust my intuition as I can’t see the whole stage for myself. There are so many companies competing for access at festivals you only have a few stolen moments to plot your lights in order to improvise on the day. So there are points in the shows when the actors can’t see clearly as their masks limit their vision and I can’t see the action because of the venue layout and none of the audience are any the wiser that we’re working in the dark! We dedicate shows like that to the wonderful Stevie Wonder because he reminds us that you don’t need to be able to see what you’re doing in order to connect with an audience and keep them entertained! That’s the magic of live events, you have to trust the process absolutely and throw yourself into whatever happens.
Folkstone Puppetry Festival is another favourite of ours. It’s a young festival going from strength to strength, even developing an online channel for broadcasting work from all around the world! It’s surprising how varied projects from a similar theatrical genre can be. We have encountered shadow puppets, home made creations, marionettes and life size articulated puppets too. Puppetry is a quite a niche genre so it’s brilliant that the work is shown for free and in a very public setting.
There are stages set on the disused station platform at Folkestone Harbour and all along the Harbour Arm. We have to watch out for the on shore wind and ensure our audience can hear what’s happening over the roar of the waves! We also alter our props and set, redirecting particular scenes and adding discreet handles or weights so that the actors can keep hold of anything that might get caught up in the sea breeze!
Due to its location Folkestone attracts visitors form Europe and as puppetry is a striking visual medium, with stylised story telling, it’s perfect for crossing language barriers and engaging audiences from further afield. Creative communities are essential to the survival, development and vitality of regional towns, particularly seaside resorts which might otherwise become simply seasonal destinations, so it’s wonderful to experience such a vibrant artistic scene.
Our final festival of the season, Smugglers, takes place in the Kentish countryside, with music, theatre, story telling and workshops. All too often our traditional experience of culture involves arriving a little before a show, preoccupied with finding refreshments and seats. If there’s an interval it doesn’t last long and by the time an event is over the venue will be almost completely closed, encouraging everyone to leave as swiftly as possible. There’s no time to linger in the moment and little room for longer conversations about the ideas and emotions that were provoked.
Festivals that take place out in the wilds, over a long weekend, give us all that much needed space to breathe. There is time to interact with an artistic activity or experience, time to process it, ruminate on it and respond. Festival goers will often see and hear a dozen different things in a day so there is a cumulative effect, with everything you encounter amplifying and echoing what has gone before. You make discoveries about yourself and gain an insight into what’s resonating with the wider world through recurring themes and revisited refrains. It is a rich tapestry of creativity, a feast for our senses and a playground for our thoughts and feelings.
Our venue, Nomad’s Land, is set in a woodland clearing, with the audience seated on the ground. There are platforms and nooks built into the trees so people can climb up amongst the branches and watch the world from above. There is no raised staged, no lights or microphones, no boundaries between the actors and the audience. The simplicity and authenticity of the space allows us to imagine what life must’ve been like in more modest times, using the shelter of the woods to come together and share stories.
The entire festival is built with an awareness of and appreciation for the environment, carefully constructed using natural materials in harmony with the landscape. The festival has deliberately remained small and almost everyone you encounter has contributed in some way, so there’s an intimate sense of community and shared ownership of the occasion.
It is both otherworldly and familiar, a microcosmic representation of what has always existed within the world. As our horizons expand and the mechanics of the modern world grow increasingly complex it is inevitable that life leaves us overwhelmed and disconnected. Festivals remind us of and reveal to us what is so often obscured by the mundane day to day.
One of our mottos within Sabotage is ‘Find Another Way’. If you can imagine something you are one step closer to bringing it to life. Festivals in all their forms are a shining example of what can be achieved when people come together to create a shared space with whatever resources they have to hand. There’s a sense of enterprise and optimism that resonates throughout festivals and we revisit them year after year because they inspire us to keep investing our time and energy into the arts. If you’ve yet to discover festivals for yourself we hope that this might inspire you to go out in search of some next summer - and if you have any to recommend to us then don’t hesitate to get in touch!
words by Zinta Gercans
