Sylvia Rimat

Presented by The Basement/East by South East, Contact + Word of Warning during Flying Solo Festival 2014

####In Brief Get your neurons firing and retrace a lifetime of decisions in this playful look at decision-making.

Watch trailer here.

####Venue + Booking Details
Date: Wednesday 12 March 2014, 7pm
Venue: Contact, Oxford Road, Manchester, M15 6JA
Tickets: £9/5 | Special offer: buy ten + get one free
Box Office Tel: 0161 274 0600

####Access Information The performance lasts approximately 60 minutes with no interval; it uses spoken word from a dense source text and includes moments of complete darkness (black-out). Age advisory: 15+

####More
A playful and quirky investigation into decision-making, the neurons involved in the process, the difficulty many of us have to know what we want (really) and the complexity of the worlds around and within us. Using the image of a meadow and the stars above, performance maker Sylvia Rimat looks at the decisions that shaped the very performance, retraces a lifetime of decision-making and celebrates the choice each audience member made to join her.

Informed by conversations with Neuroscientists, a Mathematician, a Psychotherapist and an Astrologist, who all attempted to help Sylvia find out more about what’s going on in her brain.

####Who is she?
Sylvia Rimat is a Bristol-based performance maker, originally from Germany, creating live work for theatres, galleries and public space. Her performances have been presented in the UK + Europe, including at the British Council Showcase 2013, SPILL Festival at the Barbican, In Between Time Festival, The Basement, The Junctione and in Denmark, Poland, Germany + Spain. Sylvia is an In Between Time Associate Artist and a member of Residence in Bristol.

Her projects often revolve around the places and times we inhabit mentally, physically and in our imagination. Consciousness, memory, personal histories and risk are reoccurring themes and focus points. She is interested in the live moment of performance and considers carefully the presence of an audience, whilst applying simple methods for creating places, situations and interactions in space. More recently Sylvia has become interested in following an interdisciplinary approach and collaborated with various specialists, e.g. from Neuroscience, Experimental Psychology, Hypnotherapy, Psychotherapy and Astrology…

####What people have said about her
A preview of Flying Solo Festival 2014 by The Guardian’s Lyn Gardner.
Two reviews of If You Decide To Stay at Contact — by the Good review, 3* + Words & Fixtures.

Her artwork confronted the question of personal agency and choice face on, through a frank personal story of the artist’s own conflicted relationship with decision making. The piece was far more than that, and reached into concepts of time, identity, and nomenclature – defining one’s choices in the world as defining oneself.
Exeunt Magazine
If You Decide To Stay is full of unpredictable and engaging lines of curiosity, which invite us to stay in the most playful ways. Sylvia’s distinctive performance style has a great off-beat comedy to it, which makes the piece not only thought-provoking, but very entertaining too.
Tanuja Amarasuriya, Executive Producer, Theatre Bristol.

####Credits
Commissioned and produced by In Between Time for IBT13 International Festival of Performance. Developed at The Basement through East by South East, and at Residence. Supported by Bristol Old Vic Ferment and ICIA Bath. Supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England.

####Websites
www.sylviarimat.com | @SylviaRimat