Performance Festival 2025

We escaped rationality, embraced fiction and questioned our perspectives with special events including live performances, talks, screenings, tours and workshops – all inspired by the theme of 'illusion'.

Ran from 25 April 2025 to 4 May 2025 at V&A South Kensington

Past events

Shakespeare's Magic: Trail

Keep Watching: Kyle McDonald’s 'Exhausting a Crowd'

NVAP Screening: The Chairs

The Enthoven Unboxed Tour: 100 Years of Collecting Performance

In the Spotlight: Theatre and Performance Galleries Tour

Friday Late: Is this for Real?

In The Dark Presents: Trick of the Ear

In The Dark Presents: Illusions Of...

Shakespeare's Magic: All the World's a Stage

Open Studios - April

Oliver Messel: The Art of Illusion

DIY Decadent Bodies: Zine-making workshop with E.M. Parry

Vidya Patel: māyā

BalletBoyz: The Principles of Classical Dance

Decadent Doubles: Costume-making workshop with Miss HerNia

Many Planes of Existence: Constructing Worlds in Modernist Theatre

NVAP Screening: Waiting for Godot

Il Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda

Trick of the Eye and a Glimpse into the Mind: Eugene Berman and the Neo-Romantics

NVAP Screening: Art

Designing 'Wicked' Women

NVAP Screening: The Wiz

One Final Vanishing Act: Blackstar and the Lyrics of David Bowie

NVAP Screening: Constellations

'The Crown': Designs Fit for a Queen

Crafting 'The Crown' - screening + Q&A

Spectres and the Supernatural: Victorian Spirit Photography

NVAP Screening: Barnum

Styling an Icon: Lily Savage

The Magic Thrills of Her: Untold Stories of Women Illusionists

Shakespeare's Magic: Where the Wild Thyme Blows

NVAP Family-Friendly Screening: Red Riding Hood

The Secrets of Stage Magic

Fashioning Identities: A Virtual Try-on Experience

Shadow Kingdom: Shadow Puppetry in Motion

Career Insight: Performance and Illusion

Career Insight: Performance and Illusion

Reflect and Refract: Life Drawing with 2B or Not 2B Collective

Spectacle of the Surreal

Illusion Made Reality: Independent Music Venues

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