UNREAL: A Festival Of Magic And Performance to Open at Battersea Arts Centre

Battersea Arts Centre will present UNREAL: A Festival of Magic and Performance curated by artists Tom Cassani, Augusto Corrieri and Tim Bromage. The festival will bring together extraordinary artists from across the UK and Europe working at the intersection of magic and performance to present a week-long series of unreal acts for uncertain times.

Running from 7-14 November, UNREAL will transform BAC's iconic building into a playground of the impossible, where sleight of hand, illusion and live art collide. Through performances, works-in-progress and artist conversations, the festival invites audiences behind the curtain to explore how magic can help us navigate an increasingly uncertain world, creating moments of wonder, reflection and collective awe along the way.

The Programme Includes:

A Mouthful of Tongues uses the voice as a unique choreographic tool to create a compelling solo performance in which multiple identities are seen and heard through an act of distorted ventriloquism. A UK premiere by Stina Fors (Sweden/Austria), 7 Nov.

Black Magic and Iterations is a double bill of two shows focused on illusion and trickery. In Black Magic, two magicians work closely together, despite being physically distant whilst Iterations centres on Cassani's obsession with the skill and precision of sleight of hand magic. By Luis Sartori do Vale, Kalle Nio and Tom Cassani (Finland/Brazil/UK), 7 Nov.

Magic: An Illustrated History presents an oblique history of magic, and the conflicting role of the magician as conjuror, raconteur, and charlatan. Combining live vocals, illusion and puppetry, the show explores the importance of words and their power conjure, to mislead and to transform. A UK premiere by Jim Dahl (UK), 7 & 14 Nov.

Lento e Violento is a multi-layered riddle that plays with repetition, disruption, and manipulation, inviting audiences to explore the fantastical through a blend of circus, dance, music and magical illusion. A UK premiere by Valentina Cortese (France), 10 - 11 Nov.

Perpetuity (Work-in-Progress) fuses visual and physical storytelling, clowning, performance art and illusion to ask: how would you spend eternity? Inspired by Dorian Gray, lockdown and pot plants, this solo show explores a life that is never quite finished. By Shambles Ensemble (UK), 12 Nov.

Oraculum (Work-in-Progress) draws on the worlds of mind readers, divinators, and charismatic public speakers to reveal how we unknowingly share similar experiences and thoughts. A new solo show by Tom Cassani (UK), 13 Nov.

Liminal (Work-in-Progress) draws on Teng's experience of learning silk magic from a Japanese sensei, creating poetic metaphors that pierce the illusion of magic. By Hsiang-Sheng Teng (Taiwan/UK), 13 Nov.

Escaping Oneself blends feats of memory, theatre and humour to present a haunting, intimate solo performance revealing the story of a woman driven by a survival instinct to immerse herself in books. A UK premiere by Chloé Vivarès (France), 13 - 14 Nov.

This Is Not a Magic Show uses astonishing sleight-of- hand trickery to explore magic's invisible mechanics, its clichés, and how easily we suspend our disbelief. By Vincent Gambini (UK), 14 Nov.

Answer Me, Pythia (Work-in-Progress) continues Fors's ongoing research into ventriloquism and its lineage - from oracle to witch to comedian - asking what happens to a voice when the belief system around it changes. A performer. A dummy. One voice between two bodies. By Stina Fors (Sweden/Austria), 14 Nov.

Artist Talk: UNREAL sees trailblazing artists Marisa Carnesky and Jo Bannon discuss their respective performance practices and how they have explored magic within them, 11 Nov. (UK)

Tarek Iskander, Artistic Director and CEO of Battersea Arts Centre says: "The best theatre has always worked a bit like magic: it runs on mystery and misdirection, and never lets you look behind the curtain. UNREAL celebrates that kinship — where magic and contemporary performance meet, and your own sense of wonder does the rest. We've brought together artists from across the UK and Europe pushing both forms to their limits. In a world where it's harder than ever to know what's real, there's a genuine joy in choosing to be amazed — in letting yourself be fooled, and loving it.”

Tom Cassani, Augusto Corrieri and Tim Bromage, Unreal curators says: “Over the 12 years we've known each other, we have shared both a deep fascination and a frustration with magic as a genre of performance. In our different ways, we are all invested in expanding and rethinking magic's potential as a kind of theatre: what forms can magic take, beyond those it is always associated with? How can magic collide with other art forms, and produce strange hybrids and as-yet-unimagined possibilities?