The Encounter online

Please wear headphones to watch.

The Encounter tells the story of National Geographic photographer Loren McIntyre who, in 1969, became lost in a remote part of the Brazilian rainforest while searching for the Mayoruna people. His encounter was to test his perception of the world, bringing the limits of human consciousness into startling focus. 

The Encounter Inspired by the book Amazon Beaming by Petru Popescu

Directed and Performed Simon McBurney

Co-Director Kirsty Housley

Associate Director Jemima James

Design Michael Levine

Sound Gareth Fry with Pete Malkin

Lighting Paul Anderson

Projection Will Duke 

The Encounter online is supported by The Space, is free to watch and will be available from 15 May until 22 May 2020. A Complicité co-production with the Barbican, Edinburgh International Festival, Onassis Cultural Centre – Athens, Schaubühne Berlin, Théâtre Vidy-Lausanne and Warwick Arts Centre.

“We are, as a consequence of this pandemic, bodily cut off from one another. Disconnected. Isolated. But perhaps this sense of our separation one from another, is simply a heightening of what we felt before this all began. We are thinking now, not only about how long this will last, but also what happens on the other side. To reconnect we need, perhaps, to learn to listen more closely. To each other. To our communities. To other cultures. To nature itself. The Encounter is at its heart a story about ‘listening’, not ‘hearing’ but listening; to other, older narratives which, at the deepest level, form who we are, and if we do, we can imagine how we can ‘begin’ again.”

We are supporting a fundraising campaign by our friends in the Kuikuro community in the Amazon to help them protect themselves from the pandemic. If you enjoy the show, please make a donation https://www.justgiving.com/campaign/Kuikuroagainstcovid