“Dedicated to theatre at its most sensual and imaginative” THE SCOTSMAN
MANIPULATE Festival presents the very best of Scottish and international puppetry, visual theatre and animated film to adult audiences in Edinburgh and beyond. The Festival aims to engage and challenge our audiences with high-quality visually led work which pushes boundaries, plays with form and challenges perceptions.
By bringing together leading puppetry, visual theatre and animated film from across the globe with work which has been developed here in Scotland, we aim to spark opportunities for artistic exchange and to offer our audiences a diverse palette of rich visually led work.
Since 2008 leading, award-winning companies, artists and film-makers from Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, Colombia, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, England, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Holland, Hungary, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Mexico, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Scotland, Slovakia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden and the USA have provided the vibrant, dynamic core of a festival that entertains, intrigues and inspires.
During the winter months you can view festival events and book your tickets by visiting our dedicated MANIPULATE Festival website here.
ATTENDING THE FESTIVAL
MANIPULATE takes place every year in the depths of Scottish winter, between January and February. Our programme is announced every year in October or November, after which you can browse what’s on offer, book tickets and plan your visit. The festival currently takes place in the City of Edinburgh, however we often tour work to other cities in the weeks following the festival or more recently have begun to present some work online. To be the first to find out about the MANIPULATE programme, you can sign up to our newsletter here.
PERFORMING OR SCREENING WORK AT THE FESTIVAL
MANIPULATE is a curated festival which means that there is no formal application or selection process for you to apply to. However, we are always delighted to hear from artists who have a new project to bring to our attention or want to build a relationship with Puppet Animation Scotland. To find out how to let us know about your work, how we make decisions about programming, and the timeline of decision-making, please visit the Perform & Screen page in our ARTISTS section.
CLIMATE
As an international festival, we are highly conscious of the impact of our activities and searching for new ways to reduce our footprint. We firmly believe that international cultural exchange is an important part of building human empathy and understanding across the globe, but it is also our view that we cannot use this belief as a reason not to take action on climate. We are working to find new ways of programming internationally whilst reducing the volume of carbon-intensive travel that we rely on.
ACCESS
Puppet Animation Scotland has a strong commitment to accessibility, and we strive to constantly improve access for all audiences. As the work presented during MANIPULATE is primarily visual, containing little or no spoken dialogue, our current focus is to provide British Sign Language or subtitling as often as possible for D/deaf and hard of hearing audiences. Each year we will provide access information at the time of launch and we are always open to suggestions as to how we can improve the accessibility of our work.