LIFT (London International Festival of Theatre)

After the 1980 launch of the London International Festival of Student Theatre by Rose Fenton and Lucy Neal, the 1st LIFT (London International Festival of Theatre) was held in 1981, gathering companies from Brazil, France, Japan, Malaysia, the Netherlands, Peru, Poland, West Germany and the UK. Since then, it has been held every other year and by 2001 reached a scale where it had invited important works from more than 60 countries. In the process, LIFT has risen to become one of Europe’s largest international festivals, with an international perspective and programming that has presented extraordinary and innovative events in both conventional theatres and in more unusual urban spaces around London.
With the change of artistic directors to Australian producer Angharad Wynne-Jones in 2003, LIFT suspended its alternate-year schedule. With institutions like Southbank Centre, the Barbican, Sadler’s Wells and ICA then conducting international projects, LIFT shifted to a year-round program of research and relatively small-scale projects. Among its experimental projects has been construction of a movable space called The Lift for performances, discussions and the like.
Since Mark Ball assumed responsibility as artistic director in 2009, LIFT returned to its alternate year festival schedule in 2010 for the first time in nine years. The programs now being presented are unique in the majority of the works are not conventional theater but progressive site-specific works, experiential performance and works utilizing media communications, or works involving mentally, visually or aurally challenged performers and performances for children or teens. In 2012, the festival was held just before the London Olympic and Paralympic games and drew a total audience of 43,000.