Kakilang(formerly Chinese Arts Now CAN) has announced the full programme and dates for its unique multi-art form festival which celebrates the work of artists from across the wide spectrum of East and Southeast Asian heritages. Eight extraordinary events platforming theatre, dance, visual arts, live music, cabaret and puppetry will be staged from the 21 February – 23 April 2023 in a selection of London’s leading arts venues including the Barbican, Omnibus Theatre, Rich Mix, Shoreditch Town Hall, Two Temple Place and The Yard.

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Whether you’re familiar with Studio Ghibli’s My Neighbour Totoro or not, the eponymous anime aesthetic is something I’m sure many of us are familiar with – a mercurial, comforting , friendly, creature who happens to appear at just the right moments. Originally an animation released in April 1988, the Japanese cultural phenomenon has enjoyed success internationally having also received various accolades along the way. 34 years on, and the cult classic has been reimagined for the stage, receiving its premiere at the Barbican and realised by Tom Morton-Smith and director Phelim McDermott.

Courtesy of Manuel Harlan.

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‘The decision is made at a higher management level’: archived voice recording of an agent from the Family and Community Service (FACS) in New South Wales, Australia, as they ‘remove’ a child from its mother. These, the chilling opening moments of Larissa Behrendt’s 2017 documentary After the Apology, are a fitting portent of the film to come. In a series which Barbican curator Alex Davidson describes as highlighting ‘the best, most important, most interesting and often the hardest to see’ films from indigenous Australians, After the Apology surely ranks as one of the most harrowingly painful documentaries ever made. Statistics blaze across the screen in black and white for this rare big-screen showing, giving voice to victims and the systematic trauma they have been subjected to.

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Shamanism is a term used to describe a healer’s ability to interact with a world otherwise unseen to the naked eye, a world inhabited by a whole host of spiritual energies. An aspect of humanity that has been practised for thousands of years, and continues to be in many indigenous communities, this is a practice typically carried out by men. Emmy award-winning Lynette Wallworth crafts an innovative foray into the world of Hushahu, the first woman shaman of the Yawanawá located in the Amazon with Awavena. A ground-breaking film documenting a ground breaking moment for the community and wider world.

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Courtesy of Ami Robertson.

Power forms a significant part of our lives on both an individual and collective level, a fascinating entity shaping our daily interactions with one another. Born in 2016, after reading a piece in which the topic of power appeared to form the full stop of a larger conversation, cultural thinker and researcher Suzanne Alleyne was inspired to draw on this phenomenon further. Her ongoing research project The Neurology of Power, focusing on the neuroscience behind power. Feeding into this research project, Suzanne, alongside the Barbican Theatre present talk series Can we talk about Power?, a series comprising of various discussions with a distinguished panel of neuroscientists and creatives. Ahead of the event, Suzanne tells us more about what to expect.

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Culture Mile: Radio Local: hyper-local radio broadcast to the world

Culture Mile, the City of London’s cultural district stretching from Farringdon to Moorgate will go hyper-local during the lockdown with Radio Local – a daily live broadcast, bringing the sounds and stories of the City, into people’s homes and broadcast to the world.

Radio Local, created by performance artists Hunt & Darton, will be an hour-long show every day from 1 – 2pm, Sat 30 May – Fri 12 June. It will be built with, by and for the City’s residents, workers and local businesses. The show will be streamed live here and here, on Resonance Extra (DAB), with a daily repeat show on Resonance 104.4FM at 10am. It will also go out live on community radio East London Radio and Barts Hospital Radio.

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Project Manager Alex Turner has overseen the preparations for this year’s TheatreCraft. An event aimed at those aged 16 to 30 looking to learn more about theatre disciplines off stage, the initiative will see industry professionals give talks and workshops, as well as a careers fair at the Waldorf Hilton Hotel offering attendees the chance to meet some of the UK’s leading theatres, companies and education providers. Read on to find out more about this year’s event.

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Iqbal Khan mightily takes the reigns of Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra at the Barbican as part of the RSC’s transfer of their Rome season. An explosion of colour and ceremony is aided by Robert Innes Hopkins’s brilliant stage design, allowing the drama of the piece to stir with its uncompromising power dynamics. This tragedy of affairs, corruption, revolt and war translates with ease, Khan and the cast have done well to make the Bard’s work feel approachable yet hold its dynamism.

Courtesy of the Royal Shakespeare Company.

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It is clear that a storm is brewing in Conall Morrison’s adventurous Woyzeck in Winter as white confetti-like snow drifts across a beautifully crafted set of old dismantled pianos. This adaptation at the Barbican sees Morrison match George Buchner’s original unfinished script Woyzeck with Franz Schubert’s song cycles Die Winterreise originally composed in response to Wilhem Muller’s poems of the same name.

Courtesy of Colm Hogan.

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There are only a hand full of artists whose eloquence and finesse would require a review greater in length than the entire collective works of Shakespeare. Robert Lepage is one such artist whose work deserves a great tome of a review, in one sentence, Lepage is the kind of international artist Britain needs to shake up contemporary theatre right now.

Courtesy of the Barbican.

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