Complicité has announced that the recording of its multi award-winning production, The Encounter, a show seen by over 88,000 people throughout 2016-17, will be available to watch online for one week only from Friday 15th May (7pm BST) to Friday 22nd May 2020 (10pm BST) on Complicité’s website and YouTube channel.
Inspired by the novel Amazon Beaming by Petru Popescu, and directed and performed by Simon McBurney in an exceptional solo performance, The Encounter premiered at Edinburgh International Festival in 2015 and has since toured Australia, Europe (including eight weeks at the Barbican, London) and the USA (including a Broadway transfer to the John Golden Theatre, New York).
For the online stream, audiences will need to wear headphones to experience the show’s extraordinary binaural sound design (3D audio). Any headphones will work, but playing the film out of speakers will not give the same effect.
In 1969, National Geographic photographer Loren McIntyre became lost in a remote part of the Brazilian rainforest while searching for the Mayoruna people. His encounter was to test his perception of the world, bringing the limits of human consciousness into startling focus.
Threading scenes of his own life with details of McIntyre’s journey, Simon McBurney incorporates objects and sound effects into this solo performance to evoke the depths of the Amazon rainforest. His storytelling is served by the enveloping presence of binaural technology.
The show’s ground-breaking sound design, by multi Olivier Award Winner Gareth Fry (Harry Potter and Cursed Child), is transmitted to the audience through headphones and plugs into the power of the imagination, questioning our perceptions of time and our own consciousness. Wearing headphones to watch the broadcast brings this immersive experience into people’s homes in a unique way.
A live discussion event and public Q&A will take place on Wednesday 20 May, 7.30pm, with Simon McBurney and guests, including filmmaker Takumã Kuikuro on a link to the Xingu region of the Amazon. Register to join the discussion.
The Encounter is a Complicité co-production with the Barbican, Edinburgh International Festival, Onassis Cultural Centre – Athens, Schaubühne Berlin, Théâtre Vidy-Lausanne and Warwick Arts Centre.
