Programme revealed for Mayfest 2022

A naked dance party taking place after-hours at The Galleries, a concept gig about growing up as a gay Jehovah’s Witness and town criers on College Green demanding change.

These are all among the highlights of Mayfest as it prepares to return to Bristol for the first time in four years.

All tickets to the biennial festival will be priced on a pay-what-you-can basis, with 15 shows taking place at ten venues and sites from May 13 to 29.

Mayfest is a festival of contemporary theatre, promising “a vibrant, boundary-blurring context for unusual, playful, and ambitious live performance from artists all over the world”.

“Join us to celebrate, bear witness, laugh, cry and shake it all out,” say Mayfest’s Matthew Austin and Kate Yedigaroff.

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Mayfest 2022 will begin with a free opening party in the foyer of Bristol Old Vic, with Brook Tate’s Birthmarked, directed by Sally Cookson, also at the theatre.

Rallying Cry is a new piece by Scottee and Travis Alabanza premiering on College Green which will raise up the voices of four town criers’ demanding change in their city.

HABITAT by Austrian choreographer Doris Uhlich is described as “a huge naked dance party-cum-durational choreography piece” taking place after-hours in The Galleries made up entirely of locally-recruited participants.

Swiss artist Monika Truong presents another UK premiere – Be Part Of – “an explorative, interactive theatre performance about the nature of community and whose voices get to be heard and represented in our society” at Trinity’s Fyfe Hall.

At the Mount Without, composer Benji Bower leads the Terra Collective on a five-part “symphonic love letter” to planet Earth entitled Terra Coda.

On foot, Palestinian filmmaker, writer and actor Ramzi Maqdisi and Olivia Furber present The Land’s Heart Is Greater Than Its Map – “an emotional, cartographic resistance piece in the form of a walking tour through a city that cannot be named”.

Raquel Meseguer Zafe invites participants to undertake A Crash Course in Cloudspotting, “exploring human connection through an intimate audio journey”.

polyphony is a new experiential composition led by Verity Standen in collaboration with sound artist Yas Clarke; while Exposure, James Leadbitter’s “powerful reckoning with Covid-19’s devastating impact on health workers” in Exposure, is presented in partnership with University Hospitals Bristol & Weston NHS Foundation Trust.

A Crash Course in Cloudspotting is an audio journey based on stories collected from hundreds of people living with invisible disabilities and chronic illness.- photo: Paul Samuel White

Matthew and Kate said: “As we consider Mayfest’s return after four years away we find ourselves moved and invigorated by a renewed sense of the profound importance of coming together, and of the essential role that art has in helping us to understand the shape-shifting world we live in.

“Festivals play a huge part in bringing us together intensely, kindly and surprisingly to share stories, to reflect, and to be inspired. We are working with some truly extraordinary artists this year to bring you a programme that will do just that.

“No one through-line unites these singular works because the invitation is for you to discover your own connections, but in their own way each speaks to themes of resilience, collective memory, community, to finding our voices and using them.”

Main photo: Paul Samuel White

Read more: Ten years of MAYK celebrated in new video

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