London International Mime Festival comes to East London this month

Stab in the dark: Light by Theatre Ad Infinitum. Photograph: Alex Brenner

The curtain’s up on the London International Mime Festival this month, with a season of physical and dance-theatre that aims to leave viewers – like the performers – at a loss for words.

East London audiences can look forward to the premiere of Light at the Barbican, inspired by Edward Snowden’s revelations and the ensuing debate on state surveillance. Fusing anime-style storytelling and a layered soundscape, it depicts an Orwellian future where a totalitarian regime uses implants and cyberspace to infiltrate its citizens’ minds.

At the dance end of the festival’s programming is Olivier Award nominee Aurelien Bory’s new work Plexus, showing at Sadler’s Wells, as well as 32 rue Vandenbranden by Belgian company Peeping Tom, a piece of dance-theatre at the Barbican in which six performers portray a small mountain community in a foreboding world of cold, wind and ice.

Also appearing at the Barbican is American puppeteer Basil Twist, part of the creative team for Kate Bush’s Before the Dawn concerts, whose new work is Dogugaeshi, inspired by the Japanese art of creating illusions through perspective.

London International Mime Festival
Until 31 January 2015 at various venues