AVAILABLE FROM THE 15TH TO THE 22ND MAY 2020

This year, the grand opening of the 2020 edition of the Festival d'Aix-en-Provence would have been the renowned WOZZECK, with Simon McBurney as its stage director.
Although, he will be unable to come to Aix this year, he invites the Festival d'Aix’s audience to view one of his most beautiful and innovative creations, THE ENCOUNTER, which will be available on the Festival d'Aix website from the 15th May at 7pm (BST) for one week only. The novel binaural (3D audio) experience within the performance was widely praised during its creation at the Barbican in London in 2016. THE ENCOUNTER truly is a must see!

Whether at the theatre, the opera, or the cinema, Simon McBurney’s work is always received with much enthusiasm from audiences. The Encounter was performed to a full house at the Barbican all throughout its time there in 2016 and 2017. It was widely praised by leading critics and won several awards including the Special Tony Award for Sound Design in 2017.

In 1969 Loren McIntyre, a National Geographic photographer, found himself lost among the people of the remote Javari Valley in Brazil. It was an encounter that was to change his life, bringing the limits of human consciousness into startling focus. Inspired by the book Amazon Beaming by Petru Popescu, Simon McBurney traces McIntyre's journey into the depths of the Amazon rainforest, incorporating innovative technology into his solo performance to build a shifting world of sound.

THE ENCOUNTER will be freely available to stream from Friday the 15th May at 7pm (BST) and will remain available for one week until Friday the 22nd May at 10pm (BST).

Simon McBurney will also e-meet with audience members on Wednesday the 20th May at 7.30pm (BST) to discuss THE ENCOUNTER in further detail.
SIGN UP FOR THE ONLINE DISCUSSION HERE!

The Encounter was co-produced by the Barbican in London, Edinburgh International Festival, Onassis Cultural Center in Athens, the Schaubühne in Berlin, the Vidy-Lausanne Theater, and the Warwick Arts Centre.
The Encounter online is supported by The Space.