Panoptikum

Just got back from the Panoptikum festival in Nuremberg, Germany. I had the opportunity to attend this children's theatre festival along with Tony and Tessa from Imaginate and Andy Manley, associate artist with Imaginate.
It was a really great experience and so useful to see so much international work for children. Of course, not all of it is going to be everyone's cup of tea but there were enough moments of real magic to make the experience a great success. The festival spans a week and uses the three dedicated children's theatres in Nuremberg plus a couple of other venues. It's fantastic to think of one city having so many venues (each with their own in-house company) dedicated to making work for children. If nothing else, it was great to see such enthusiasm for making work for young people.

We saw about 4 shows each day we were there and there are a few which really stand out for me. First up was Gruppe 38 from Denmark. They presented their absolutely hilarious show A Sonatina, which I'd seen before at the Imaginate festival about 6 years ago, but it was fun to see it again. The show tells the story of Red Riding Hood, with the heroine played by an egg (freshly laid by a real on-stage chicken who steals the show!). The grandmother is played by a potato and the big bad wolf is played by a potato ricer so I'm sure you can imagine what happens to grandma! The show is a really witty, lively take on a familiar story with lovely live music.
I also really loved the new show by Danish company Carte Blanche. It was called Shadow of Time and told the story of a woman who looks at the timeline of her own life. It's not really narrative-driven, rather an exploration of what it is to be born, to age, and to die. It's told in an incredibly beautiful visual style which the children in the audience lapped up. At times you wonder exactly how the visual trickery is being performed but it's lovely just to wallow in the beauty rather than try to unpick the technical mastery.
The Terrific Adventures of Brave Joan Woodsword was great fun. It was presented by Theater Mumpitz, one of the local companies in Nuremberg and it's also coming to our festival in May. It's a really fast-paced story about a young girl who stands up to her school bullies and borrows heavily from the story of Joan of Arc. It's really silly, over-the-top and good fun but has a strong moral message throughout which I think will go down really well with Scottish kids.
The last show we saw was the terrific Run by Kopergietery. This is one of my favourite companies in the world and it was a real pleasure to finally get to see this show as I'd heard so much about it. The piece is performed by 23 males, aged from 7 to late 30s. The simple premise is that these men are all caught up in a game/ritual/torture of endlessly marching up and down the stage. This image goes on for at least 10 minutes before finally individuals begin to break out of ranks, either stopping and staring at the audience questioningly or falling where they stand. The lines slowly dissolve into chaos with scenes of real violence juxtaposed with moments of heart-stopping beauty. In one particularly moving section individuals begin to slowly fall to the floor with exhaustion as one performer runs throughout the crowd to try to prevent them from falling. His efforts are of course more or less wasted as the job consumes him and exhaustion fills the room.

It was absolutely freezing and snowed the entire time we were there. However, it's a really interesting city to explore no matter what the temperature. I was fascinated when we visited the Nazi party rally grounds. The scale of the place is hard to fathom, even when you're standing in the middle of the huge coliseum that was built for the Fuhrer to address the crowds of hundreds of thousands or when standing in the now empty and desolate Zeppelin field. The adjoining museum puts it all into context in a chilling exhibition that stands as a testament to this city's gruesome past.