Manipulate festival promises feast of visual theatre, in spite of funding challenge

Even though its Creative Scotland grant has been at a standstill for eight years, Manipulate continues to find ways to present some of Europe’s finest visual theatre in Scotland, and to show some of Scotland’s finest to the world, writes Joyce McMillan

Like everyone else on the Scottish and UK arts scene, this winter, Dawn Taylor concedes that these are “extremely tricky” times. As artistic director of Manipulate Arts, formerly Puppet Animation Scotland – the organisation behind Scotland’s annual Manipulate Festival of visual theatre and animated film – she presides over a company whose modest £180,000 a year grant from Creative Scotland has been at a standstill for more than eight years, and is now barely enough, when other costs have been taken into consideration, to employ Manipulate’s three permanent staff at a living wage, while also doubling the size of the team for a few months before the festival.

Finding additional funding from elsewhere, Taylor adds, has also become steadily more difficult, although Manipulate has won some support from trusts and foundations for its year-round work with young people in four communities across Scotland. Brexit has made life more difficult and expensive for all arts organisations working across borders; and costs have soared, even as arts and third sector funding options across Scotland and the UK have dwindled or shut down.

Is Taylor downhearted, though? She is not; mainly because she finds such powerful inspiration in the work of the artists Manipulate seeks to support, and to provide with an international showcase in Edinburgh, every winter. This year’s Manipulate Festival features 30 events staged at Summerhall, the Fruitmarket Gallery, the Traverse Theatre and The Studio, and ranges from a fine international programme of animated film through half-a-dozen workshops and round tables, to its central series of 12 live performances from companies based in Belgium, France and Denmark, as well as England and Scotland.

“We do have slightly fewer countries represented than in recent years,” says Taylor, “and it does become ever harder to programme large-scale and spectacular international theatre, given touring costs. But thanks to our two guest film programmers, we’ve been able to expand our film programme, and widen its geographical and cultural range; and I’m still thrilled to have the chance to present some of Europe’s finest visual theatre here in Edinburgh, and to be able to show some of Scotland’s finest to the world.”

This year’s festival therefore opens, on 2 February at the Traverse, with the Danish show The House – a darkly comic adult puppet show about a family at war over its dying matriarch’s funeral home business – and Glasgow-based theatre-maker Al Seed’s remarkable solo show Plinth, an extraordinary piece of total theatre about the story of humankind, created last year with Scotland’s Vanishing Point company and director Matthew Lenton.

Among the other Scottish shows featured in Manipulate 2024 are a double bill from the Glasgow-based Surge organisation, specialising in street arts and circus, Ruxy Cantir’s hilarious Pickled Republic, about the fate of a bunch of talking vegetables, and Edinburgh company Tortoise In A Nutshell’s latest show Ragnarok, a meditation on the end of the world inspired by the mighty Norse myth of that name. Glasgow based physical theatre group MHz bring their latest show Ruins; and award-winning Glasgow-based theatre-maker Ramesh Meyyappan, who co-created last-year’s Manipulate hit Love Beyond, works with Bristol company Ad Infinitum on new show Last Rites, about a complex father-son relationship cut short by death.

Running alongside the Scottish-made work, meanwhile, are two contrasting pieces from the brilliant French company Bakelite, L’Amour Du Risque at the Fruitmarket – described as a ballet for robot vacuum cleaners – and Envahisseurs (Invaders) at the Traverse, a witty meditation on alien invasion inspired by 1950s science fiction films.

Ruins, by MHz PIC: Brian Hartley

At the Fruitmarket, Belgian choreographer Ugo Dehaes pursues the robot and artificial intelligence theme with Simple Machines, a show in which he tries to grow organic robots in his basement, and train them as dancers. The English company Ockham’s Razor bring Tess, their ground-breaking circus-infuenced version of Tess Of The D’Urbervilles. And on the final weekend of the festival, the French group Compagnie à present their show La Conquete, an acclaimed piece of physical and puppet theatre that uses the body as a stage on which to explore the history of colonial possession and exploitation.

“When we were first setting up our company,” says Arran Howie of Tortoise In A Nutshell, “the Manipulate Festival was one of the things we found completely inspirational. It gave us a chance to see work by Scottish and international artists that was big and spectacular and visual and so inventive, and now it’s just great for us to see our own work showcased in that context.

“Among other things, the Manipulate audience in Edinburgh is wonderful - open minded and ready for anything, with a lovely international feel. And the Manipulate team are great, too. They don’t have the money to commission shows or support them financially, but they’re so supportive of the whole process, offering extra pairs of eyes on the work as it develops, and a context in which it can really be seen; and we appreciate that so much.”

And Dawn Taylor, too, is delighted that that special Manipulate Festival atmosphere has survived the difficult pandemic years, and is still with us in 2024. “One thing we’re delighted about this year,” she says, “is that we’ve had some one-off funding from Creative Scotland to create a small international visitor programme, so this year we’ll be welcoming visual theatre guests from Norway, Finland, Germany and Belgium, alongside the artists appearing in the festival.

Tess, by Ockham's Razor PIC: Kie Cummings

“That’s the kind of initiative we’d love to develop further, if the funding can be found. And in the meantime, despite all the uncertainties, we hope that this year’s festival will be a really powerful celebration of all that’s possible, in visual and object theatre – a big hurrah for its achievements so far, and for its its huge potential to keep bringing people together across barriers of language and culture, in the tough years to come.”

The Manipulate Festival 2024 runs from 1-11 February, in venues across Edinburgh. For details see https://www.manipulatearts.co.uk/festival/whats-on/