tracetheatre

Walking along a dusty road that stretches to the horizon, we snake our way through to our inevitable meeting with the sea. Sometimes keeping up, sometime lagging behind, we struggle onwards, determined to keep up with the music and the words. Some of us really attempt to fly, but others simply look to those watching for the comfort of applause.

Clapping our hands and hoping to fly is a theatre performance that is never quite what it seems, a show where the performers jostle for position, where the rules are never properly established, as though the piece itself was trying to break free.

Trace Theatre’s work emerges out of the conflicting views of its members on what theatre is and what it should achieve, a conflict that often spills over into the performances themselves. The struggle to exist as a collaboration is therefore at the core of the company’s identity.

Formed in early 2007, and based in Manchester, Clapping our hands and hoping to fly is the company’s third piece, following the success of Cringe and Once Upon a Something.

‘Extremely watchable, always intellectually challenging, always physically brave and never outstays its welcome’ (Robbie Carnegie on Cringe, buxtonfringe.org.uk, 2007)