With a programme of productions from Austria, Cyprus, England, Russia and the USA, as well as plenty of home-grown talent, MANIPULATE 2016 continued to present its annual wide-ranging, dynamic snapshot of world-class puppetry, visual theatre and animated film from around the world. Among many festival highlights were the Scottish-based productions Loopsend (Paper Doll Militia), Macbeth: Without Words (Ludens Ensemble) and Bird (Sita Pieraccini). We also welcomed for the first time English company Blind Summit with its global hit show The Table, world-renowned director, puppeteer, designer and performer Julian Crouch and his piece Birdheart, as well as leading Quebecois company Théâtre Incliné from Canada with Threads, its powerful award-winning allegorical piece about the fate of women and their children in conflict zones. We also welcomed Stephen Mottram back to MANIPULATE as part of our artists’ professional development programme to lead an intensive workshop, The Logic of Movement.
