Playful performance for kids

A Box Roe Valley Arts Centre, Limavady Today, 1.30pm

Packing and stacking. Just an ordinary job, for an ordinary person on an ordinary day, until... he falls into a box.

And then everything becomes a little bit peculiar as the world around him changes. Children love boxes — they turn into hiding places, spaceships, boats and cars.

This playful children’s dance/ theatre performance was created by Zoe Ramsey and Tonya Sheina of Echo Echo Ensemble and explores the endless possibilities of a box. The show lasts 30 minutes and is suitable for a very young audience aged three years and up.

For box office, tel: 7776 0650.

Median & Accumulated Layout

The Mac, Belfast October 15-16, 7.45pm

Belfast International Arts Festival kicks off with Median — a show which fuses dance, sounds and digital visuals into one sensory experience.

The Japanese choreographer Umeda draws inspiration from elements invisible to the naked eye. Here he explores the choreography of cells, molecular forms and organic synthesis. Umeda brings this other world of movement, light and sound into sight in a spectacular immersive experience.

In Accumulated Layout, dance movement changes in accordance with the layout of lights. Umeda, one of the leading figures of the Japanese avant-garde art scene, fuses choreographic writing, computer code, sound and visual composition into a form of global language. Age guidance: 10+.

For box office, tel: 9023 5053.

Uncle Vanya Marketplace Theatre, Armagh October 17, 8pm

Chekhov’s tragicomedy is performed here in a bittersweet, multi-disciplinary new adaptation. The isolated inhabitants of a country household plunge head over heels in lust when a beautiful stranger arrives.

When the owner announces the estate sale for his own gain, the occupants become restless and passions rise in this modern take on Vanya which highlights the farcical nature of the text and showcases the physical work inspired — believe it or not — by the decline of the bee.

For box office, tel: 3752 1821.

The Playboy of the Western World Lyric Theatre, Belfast Until November 2, 7.30pm

Pegeen is desperate to escape the confines of a life stuck in the middle of nowhere — in this case, somewhere near the border.

When the stranger Christy Mahon arrives at her father’s shebeen, with a story that sets the village talking, Pegeen joins the locals in falling for him.

Director Oonagh Murphy has given this playboy a dust down and moved it into a contemporary setting, striking new chords in Synge’s classic story.

For box office, tel: 9038 1081.