Lift Off

Bankside, London, 1993

London International Festival of Theatre commissioned Anne Bean and Paul Burwell to create an event to  launch LIFT 1993. They negotiated the use of the empty former power station at Bankside, London (now Tate Modern) to create an event which plugged into the energy that the power station had once created to conjure an intense urban rite to the city. They used the chimney as a gigantic flame thrower and the flat roofs on each side for twenty-four drummers to throw huge fire-ball rhythms into the air. The incandescent light of welders threw huge shadows up and down the chimney and remote-controlled helicopters carried flares to cast more shadows whilst flaming ropes were pulled on pulleys up to the chimney on each side.