SICK! Festival 2017: first shows announced

Launched in Brighton in 2013 and now running across Brighton and Manchester, SICK! Festival is dedicated to revealing and debating our most urgent physical, mental and social challenges, embracing difficult topics through an unflinching programme taking in multiple art forms.

The focus for 2017 is on issues of identity and belonging, and includes two brand new co-commissions between SICK! Festival and other partners, as well as four UK premieres.

Highlights include the premieres of To Belong by Koen De Preter and Theater Stap, a dance performance about what it means to be part of a group; Claire Cunningham's Guide Gods, a piece that uses dance, live music, humour and interviews with religious leaders, academics, deaf and disabled people to explore how the major world faiths view deafness and disability; and The Game, a real-life 'game' performance with levels and consequences in which five volunteers from Manchester will participate, unscripted, in a work exploring the act of buying sex and the subculture of prostitution.

Also premiering at the festival are Traumboy by Daniel Hellmann, a solo performance in which Hellmann reports on his experiences as a male prostitute – without shame, honestly and interactively – and There is a Light: BRIGHTLIGHT by Contact Young Company, an original theatre production inspired by the findings of the first major study developed by young people, for young people, about their cancer care experiences. 

Comedian Sophie Willan will present her highly acclaimed show On Record, and visionary theatre practitioners Ridiculusmus present Give Me Your Love, a show exploring the use of MDMA in treatment of post-tramatic stress. 

“SICK! Festival exists to provide a common space in which differing perspectives and voices can come together in shared exploration, discovery and understanding," says artistic director Helen Medland. 

“The work we present examines difficult issues – sexuality, identity, mental suffering, ageing – the stuff of being human. All too often, this stuff is hidden away from public view, SICK! Festival exists to change that.”

Medland's is a perspective shared by the festival’s many academic and healthcare partners, which have been supportive of its ability to bring hard-hitting issues out into the open for public discussion and debate. Of the 2015 programme, Fabia Bates, director of Survivors’ Network, said, "It was fantastic. Very brave and challenging. The quality of the work presented was incredibly important and the festival is really effective in raising awareness and advocacy."

For 2017, SICK! is working with partners including the Lowry, Contact, HOME and the Whitworth Art Gallery. 

The full programme will be announced in early December. For now, find listings and buy tickets at sickfestival.com and keep an eye on theskinny.co.uk/news for further announcements.

---

SICK! Festival 
8-25 March, Manchester & Brighton

facebook.com/sickfestival
@sickfestival