Cadavre Exquis – Sydney Festival

Overview

Every 13-year-old has played that game at a sleepover where you write one line on a piece of paper, fold it over and pass it on to the next pimply, excitable friend in the aim of contributing to a (no doubt hilarious) unfolding story. Although we probably didn’t know it at the time, Cadavre Exquis or "Exquisite Corpse" is a technique long used to collectively tell a story. A tradition so thrilling it is being brought to the Sydney Festival in 2014.

A performance of chance, Cadavre Exquis is written by many people, each adding to the story in sequence. With four internationally acclaimed theatre companies here asked to contribute a 15-minute section of text — guided only by the last image of the previous part — this is performance celebrating innovation, delight and collaboration.

In the lead will be Kassys (The Netherlands) , devising the first and final sections, with the in-between parts taken care of by the likes of Nature Theatre of Oklahoma (the New York group who brought the 12-hour epic Life and Times to the Melbourne Festival), Tim Crouch (the UK theatre maker also here presenting rule of this stage performance being that anything goes, Cadavre Exquis will inevitably be as electrifying for the performers as it is for the audience. It's playing at Carriageworks as part of the Sydney Festival.

Want more Sydney Festival events? Check out our top ten picks of the festival. Image by Mette van der Sijs.