Two West Leeds residents behind the popular Culture Vulture website are helping to put on a performance about a one-woman space race.
Armley’s Phil Kirby and Stanningley’s Neil Mudd are teaming up with performance artist Lydia Cottrell to recreate Atlantis at the Riley Theatre in Leeds.
A Culture Vulture Joint with Leeds Inspired, the show follows the recent 50th anniversary of the first moon landing.
Atlantis whisks the audience on an interstellar journey and asks some pretty big questions:
What did we learn from the race into space? What did we gain by getting there? Can we train for failure, and do dreams really come true?
Featuring stage projection, hotdogs and a child-sized paddling pool, Atlantis explores the answers to all these questions and more.
Along the way, Lydia suggests we all inhabit a spaceship – Spaceship Earth – and draws a parallel between our planet and the Space Shuttle’s namesake, the mythical island that sank beneath the waves.
The show is provocative, funny and highly kinetic, as you would expect from one half of 70/30 Split, described by The Guardian as being ‘as touching as they are resolutely fearless.’
Lydia Cottrell said:
“The idea for Atlantis came about while I was on a family holiday to Florida.
“While I was there I ended up spending three days alone in Disneyland, doing a lot of people watching, I also visited Kennedy Space Centre and felt completely humbled standing under the Atlantis Space Shuttle.
“All of this made me think on my life’s journey, the journey of the human race and what it takes to actually achieve something.
“The work is extremely physical; the audience will see me go through a bleep test, a ballet class, circuit training and aerobics. Mainly the show is about dreams, how hard we work to achieve them, how failure along the way affects us, and what happens when we do reach our goals.”
Atlantis is at the NSCD’s Riley Theatre, 98 Chapeltown Rd, Leeds LS7 4BH on Friday 20th September 2019 with tickets priced at £7.
Bookings via the Riley Theatre.