Summerhall is proud to announce 140 shows for its seventh Fringe programme, in the 70th year of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
For this very special anniversary, once again the venue has risen to the challenge of gathering a unique array of international creative responses to a changing world, which honours both the original spirit of the Edinburgh Festival and current cultural trends.
The programme spans theatre, dance, visual art and live music from our year round Nothing Ever Happens Here… initiative.
We welcome back regular visitors to Summerhall: Sh!t Theatre, Atresbandes, The Place, Ontroerend Goed, Fellswoop Theatre, China Plate, FK Alexander and Ridiculusmus, amongst others. Once again, we will also be working with a number of the most internationally acclaimed companies and producers bringing theatrical work to Edinburgh in 2017, including regular collaborators Northern Stage, Paines Plough, Big in Belgium, and Rose Bruford College.
New strands for 2017 include a multinational programme of Middle Eastern theatre in the Arab Arts Focus season in association with the DCAF Festival in Cairo, Canada Hub in association with Aurora Nova, a look at some of the finest contemporary theatrical works from the country, and seasons of work from Taiwan, Finland and Sri Lanka. Army @ the Fringe in association with Summerhall is a programme of plays presented throughout August at a working Army Reserve Centre in Edinburgh’s New Town, which will be staffed by serving soldiers.
As ever, our visual art exhibitions will also champion risk-taking and boundary-pushing work. Alastair MacLennan, former representative of Ireland at the Venice Biennale and a chronicler of the country’s Troubles in his work, will be presenting a retrospective and a performance piece, while the EWVA (European Women’s Video Art in the 1970s and 1980s) project from Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design in Dundee will champion unheralded early pioneers of the medium. With Early Events 1996-2000, Liliane Lijn shows five narrative sculptures for the first time in the UK, Jane Frere will premiere her ‘Pink Pussy Protest’, and there will be a retrospective of Richard Lees’ Rock Against Racism posters in This is Hull! and a unique documentary project on the Calais Jungle in Protestimony.
See the full Summerhall programme at festival17.summerhall.co.uk