Eleonora – The Last Night in Pittsburgh

December 21 – December 23, 2011

The performance is a feverish alternating of memories and dreams, with the echo of her most loved plays and with the comfort of the words written during her entire life for the loved ones and for herself. This production is also an homage – in the occasion of the 150° anniversary of the Unification of Italy – to an extraordinary woman like Eleonora Duse, for what she meant, and still means today, for the diffusion of Italian culture and Theatre worldwide.

Joanne Akalaitis

Joanne Akalaitis Workshop:

The Body in Space

The most thrilling event in theater is the moment when the performance begins, a moment of pure potential. This workshop will consist of a series of movement, vocal and acting exercises that create a vocabulary for use in any play of any period. We will work on composition in slow motion and real time. We will work on Roberto Calasso’s The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony, an examination of Greek myths.

Joanne Akalaitis Bio

Theatre director and writer JoAnne Akalaitis has won five Obie Awards for direction (and sustained achievement) and founded the critically acclaimed Mabou Mines in New York. She is former artistic director of the New York Shakespeare Festival and was artist in residence at the Court Theatre. She was the Andrew Mellon Co-chair of the Directing Program at Juilliard School and is currently the Wallace Benjamin Flint and L. May Hawver Flint Professor of Theater at Bard College.

Hjalmar Jorge Joffre-Eichhorn

Hjalmar Jorge Joffre-Eichhorn Workshop:

Playback/ Theatre of the Oppressed Workshop

The workshop will focus on a variety of methodologies, most of them participatory and interactive such as Playback Theatre and Theatre of the Oppressed. We will also look at some of the interactive techniques as innovative approaches to the rehearsal of scripted plays.

Hjalmar Jorge Joffre-Eichhorn Bio

Hjalmar holds a MA in Peace and Development Studies and has been working with different community-based theatre techniques in a variety of countries, including Afghanistan, Australia, Belgium, Bolivia, Colombia, Germany, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Tajikistan, USA and Ukraine. He is one of the founders of the Afghanistan Human Rights and Democracy Organization (AHRDO; www.ahrdo.org), an all-Afghan community-based theatre platform based in Kabul, Afghanistan.

Luca Ronconi

Luca Ronconi Bio

Ronconi is considered one of Europe’s most influential theatrical directors. Was born in in 1933 in Sousse, Tunisia. After graduating from the Academy of Dramatic Art in Rome, in 1953, be began acting in productions directed by Luigi Squarzina, Orazio Costa, Michelangelo Antonioni, and others. In 1963, he directed his first play and since then has worked almost exclusively as a director.

He has directed a large number of theatre productions as well as operas, working for many prestigious companies, theaters and festivals in Italy and abroad, such as the Burgtheater in Vienna, Teatro alla Scala in Milan, the Vienna State Opera, the Rossini Festival in Pesaro, the Salzburg Festival and the Spoleto Festival.

He served as artistic director for some of major theater Institutions in Italy: Venice Biennale from 1977 to 1999, the Teatro Stabile di Torino from 1989 to 1994, Teatro di Roma from 1994 to 1998 and finally the Piccolo Teatro of Milan, from 1998 to 2004, succeeding to the icon of Italian Theatre, Giorgio Strehler.

During over thirty years of career Ronconi received many awards, among which the European Prize for the Theatre of Taormina Arte in 1998 and several Premio UBU for best theatrical performances of the season: Dream Project in 2000, Lolita in 2001 and Infinities in 2002. In 2006, for the Winter Olympics in Torino, Ronconi conceived and directed the Olympic Games of Culture, consisting in 5 interrelated play about the future. This complex project was awarder with another special Premio UBU.

Baba Israel

Baba Israel Bio

Baba Israel is a New Yorker with a Brooklyn pops and an Australian Mum. His father is the son of Russian Jewish immigrants and his mother a tai-chi practicing mystic. He was raised in the Living Theatre, a world traveled political and avant garde group. His father steve ben israel’s background as Jazz drummer, solo performer, and comedian have been a profound influence. He came of age in the New York of the eighties. A raw New York filled with Graffiti nights, dangerous turns, and creative possibility. As an artist he began his career at the legendary Nuyorican Poets Cafe, invited by Reg E. Gaines. It was a time where you had to negotiate issues of race, face boos if you did not bring skills, and since then Baba has been exploring the connections of Hip Hop, Jazz, Theatre, politics, and the raw and celebratory energy that got him started. He is a hip hop emcee, poet, and beatboxer who has toured across the United States, Europe, South America, Asia, and the South Pacific performing with artists such as Outkast, The Roots, Rahzel, Ron Carter, Afrika Bambaataa, Vernon Reid, and Bill Cosby.

Baba has been featured on MTV, BET, and VH1, and in the films Breath Control, The Freshest Kids, Freestyle, and Hip Hop for Hope. In 2008, he was selected as part of Lincoln Center’s Rhythm Road, touring Asia and the South Pacific with the Dana Leong Project. He collaborates with Jasion Lindner and is featured on his new project and record NOW vs NOW produced by Meshell Ndegeocello and mixed by Bob Power.

Together with Yako 440, Baba was named in URB Magazine’s prestigious NEXT 1000. Their latest album, “Beatbox Dub Poetics,” is available at CD Baby.

He has joined forces with Yako 440 and Core Rhythm to form Subphonik Music a label, production company, and sound system.

In addition to his music, Baba is an accomplished theater artist:

•Baba’s solo piece, “Boom Bap Meditations” premiered on October 3rd, 2008 to a sold out crowd at the Hip Hop Theater Festival

•He has performed in Hip Hop Commedia’s What you say white boy? Full Circle’s Soular Powered at the New Victory Theater on Broadway. He has collaborated as a musician with for theatre projects with Rha Goddess and Renita Martin. Baba is also active in his community, conducting workshops and assemblies at schools through Open Thought Arts and bringing theater to underrepresented communities through Playback NYC Theater Company, which he co-founded. Baba holds an MFA in interdisciplinary arts, uniting his passions for hip hop and theater.

Ruth Maleczech

Ruth Maleczech Workshop:

We will work on new concepts applied to American classical texts – how these concepts might affect design, performance, language and direction.

Ruth Maleczech Bio

Ruth Maleczech is a founder and present co-artistic director of Mabou Mines, now celebrating it’s 40th anniversary year. A fearless actor, Maleczech has collaborated on nearly every piece Mabou Mines has produced since 1970 and is possessed of “a theatrical vision…antithetical to almost everything contemporary American theater is about… [She is an] inspiration as an artist, a feminist and a creative spirit” (Women in Theatre). She has won 3 Obies, NEA Distinguished Artist Award, Foundation of Contemporary Arts Fellow, Otto Rene Castillo Award, U.S. Artists Gracie Fellow for 2010.

First and foremost an actress, Maleczech has nevertheless directed several works: Wrong Guys, from the hard-boiled novel by Jim Strahs; Vanishing Pictures, based on Poe’s “Mystery of Marie Roget”; Beckett’s Imagination Dead Imagine; The Bribe by Terry O’Reilly; her own Sueños and Belén: A Book of Hours, examining the plight of contemporary Mexican women; and most recently, Song For New York, a feminine response to 9/11. Maleczech’s alliance with Lee Breuer is the stuff of avant-theatrical legend. A shared appetite for complexity coupled with deep and abiding respect has sustained their tumultuous personal and professional lives. In addition to working together for a good half century, they have raised two children, Clove and Lute.

Ping Chong

Ping Chong Bio

Ping Chong is an internationally acclaimed theatre director, playwright, video and installation artist. Mr. Chong’s work has been presented at major festivals and theatres around the world including: The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Lincoln Center Festival, Brooklyn Academy of Music, La MaMa E.T.C, Spoleto USA Festival, Vienna Festival, RomaEuropa Festival, Lille European Capital of Culture, Tokyo International Arts Festival, Singapore Festival of the Arts, and many others. In 1992, Ping Chong created the first work in the Undesirable Elements series. Since then there have been over 40 productions in communities around the United States and around the world. His 2005 puppet theatre production, Cathay: Three Tales of China, a collaboration with the Shaanxi Folk Art Theater of Xian, China, was chosen as one of the top 10 productions of the 2005 season by NY Theatre Wire, and received 3 Henry Hewes Design Awards from the New York Theatre Wing. Mr. Chong has taught at numerous universities, including Harvard and New York University. Among his many honors and awards, he has received a Guggenheim Fellowship, two BESSIE awards and two OBIE awards, including one for sustained Achievement in 2000. In 2006, Ping Chong was named to the first class of USA Artist Fellows in recognition of his contributions to American arts and culture. Ping Chong world premiered his stage adaptation of Akira Kurosawa’s film masterpiece, Throne of Blood at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in July 2010 with performances in November as part of BAM’s 2010 Next Wave Festival.

Marco Martinelli and Ermanna Montanari

Marco Martinelli and Ermanna Montanari Workshop:

Alchemy at Work

Marco Martinelli and Ermanna Montanari will work on the art of combining and interweaving, which they consider the foundation of the theatre. The dramaturgy and the work of the actor are considered as two alchemical poles that influence and strengthen each other, wrestling to transform the staging into a life exercise. How to transform metal (the word) into gold (the phisical emotional live presence of the actor)? How to break a logical hierarchy (the actor executing the text) in favor of an organic vision (the embodied word)? We shall never forget that the avantgarde is the secret that the Greeks understood since the origins: The actor is the “technician of Dionysus”.

Marco Martinelli and Ermanna Montanari Bio

Marco Martinelli and Ermanna Montanari founded in 1983 the Teatro dell Albe, a company that has become established as one of the most important realities on the national and international scene. Marco is author and director, Ermanna is also author of most of the works, main actress and designer. The company has been interweaving the search for the “new” with the teachings of Traditional theatre, inventing a contemporary theatrical language. For their activity they have received awards and acknowledgements in Italy and abroad, as nine Ubu Prize (like the Academy Award for Italian theatre), the Lo Straniero Prize dedicated to the memory of Carmelo Bene, and two Golden Laurel at MESS International Festival of Sarajevo. In 1991 the Albe created Ravenna Teatro, one of the more lively theatrical centers in Italy, and in 2011 it will taken the artistic direction of the International Festival of Santarcangelo for the year 2011.

Dijana Milošević

Dijana Milošević Workshop:

The starting point is work with different skills and techniques, which help in the formation of the actor’s physical and vocal training. This leads to the creation of materials which can be used for the performance. The central theme to be explored in the workshop is the history of the place where the workshop takes place in relation to the personal histories of the participants

An approach in which both directors and actors will indulge in a creative process of physical and vocal training. Looking into how through creating materials and through the process of montage, creating a performance.

Dijana Milošević Bio

Graduated at the Faculty of Faculty for Special Education and Rehabilitation , University of Belgrade; and at the Faculty of Dramatic Arts- Department of Theatre Directing, University of Belgrade.

Ms. Milošević Co-founded DAH Teatar in 199, (that expanded into DAH Theater Research Center in 1993) and since the beginning, directs its performances..With this position, comes the responsibility of Artistic Director for many festivals and projects that the company engages. She continues to tour the world with DAH Theater’s performances while offering workshops and lectures during various residencies.

She was the programmer of INFANT(INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL OF NEW AND ALTERNATIVE THEATRE) festival in 1999 and 2000. She was a member of BITEF(BELGRADE INTERNATIONAL THEATRE FESTIVAL) Festival Jury and President of the BITEF Board. As the Co-founder of several theatre networks, she holds many high positions in various organizations including serving as President of the Association of Independent Theatres s in Belgrade until 2006. She founded and co- leads couple of educational programs within DAH Theatre Research Center – International School for Actors and Directors and Inside the Laboratory. She intesively collaborates with activists groups such as Women in Black and Women at Work in Serbia. She continues to direct theatre performances, write about theatre and society, lead workshops and give lectures world wide.

Heaven on My Mind: offoffonline.com review

Posted February 22, 2011 at 6:30 pm

Heaven on My Mind

by Kelly Aliano, offoffonline.com

What do the atomic bomb, a girl in white attending her prom, and infomercials for seeds have in common? On the surface, it seems, nothing. Yet Heaven on Earth , written by Charles L. Mee and created by Witness Relocation and Ildi! Eldi, includes all of these elements in a consistent and a coherent way that is equal parts hilarious, thought-provoking, poignant, and joyful. This true work of art grapples with the complicated questions of what it means to be mortal in a world in which life could end, suddenly, at any moment.

To summarize a specific plot in this play would be difficult and perhaps contrary to the play’s intentions. Knowing too much of what will be seen on stage also could spoil one wonderful aspect of this play: its element of surprise. Each scene, each detail included, is an unexpected treat.

This play does not have a traditional structure. Essentially, the it is a collage of scenes that all have something to do with the human condition and the concept of finding a “heaven on earth.” The characters contemplate a genius scientist’s notion of being uploaded into cyberspace as a form of immortality; a film is screened of a man reminiscing about his childhood during the Dust Bowl; a racecar driver discusses his recent experience in a major competition and the thrill of the race; etc. Are any of these aforementioned situations examples of heaven? Can there be joy in the worst possible circumstances? Would living forever be more wonderful than only living a short while but in that time frame having had someone’s love and having reciprocated those feelings?

The direction of this piece is consistent and the collage works beautifully to riff on the themes being addressed without feeling heavy-handed or too straightforward. The piece incorporates poetic text, compelling physical movement and dance, film, technical effects, even showtunes. What could come across as a hodgepodge of elements is, rather, expertly conducted by Dan Safer. Safer, as director and choreographer, is able to cleverly counterpose text on one notion with movement or stage business meant to evoke another. The stage pictures here are sumptuous feasts for the eyes and the text is unconditionally brilliant, whether it is evoking bizarre and charming humor or presenting hard-hitting and emotional realities of what it means to be human.

Mee is a true artist in his playwriting and this work is no exception. The words, full of subtle meanings, can resonate in a viewer’s head long after the play has ended. Each line of text raises important questions without providing direct, succinct answers. The actors all have great skill in how to turn a phrase, pacing their speeches with perfect timing. In addition, the movement work in this production is exquisite. All of the performers are superb in their various roles, showing their range of performance abilities. Also worth singling out is the lighting and set design by Jay Ryan. The lighting is perfectly linked to the tone of the atmosphere in each scene and the set, in its clever simplicity, is utilized ideally for a play of this nature.

Heaven on Earth is a poetic reminder of the transience of human life. Despite numerous possibilities of heavens, there is no way for us to know that our advanced human civilization will even be remembered, much less that our insignificant individual lives will have made any impact. And yet, this play is a celebration of precisely that seemingly insignificant blessing known as life. Do not wait for a heaven; do not even spend your finite days searching for one. Life itself is a heaven and this play is one of life’s pleasures, not to be missed

Dorcy Rugamba

Dorcy Rugamba Workshop:

1. The Body of the Actor as a Material

Very often, the body of an actor or a dancer stands out on the stage better than others and one sees only him, as if he were exposed to a grand light while his peers stay in the dark. His face, his look, all dazzle, even when he stands still. The actor’s body is filled with his whole being. It is then said that he makes a large presence on stage. In the jargon of Rwandese dance, his body is called “ikibiri”, literally “a big skin” which means that the dancer’s body is dilated.

This part of the workshop will be about the presence on stage. The goal is to help the actor develop a clear conscience of his body in its singularity. This conscience will be achieved by ways of feelings and not rationality. This in way for each trainee to appreciate the plastic potentials of his body and how he can use them to create a poetic universe.

In the beginning we will work with each participant, and starting by simple movements, to execute full gestures in order to create living and moving sculptures. This will be done both individually and in groups.

Secondly, we will work on physical interpretation of rhythmic sentences. We do this by using the body on stage as a music instrument.

2. Creation of “Dramatic Situations”

We will go to the town of Spoleto to do an exercise of observation. Based on people we met and observed in their respective environments of lives, we will create avatars, and imagine several dramatic situation of two or three characters.

The goal of this workshop is to put each participant in position to write, interpret and direct a short scene of theatrical moment to present to the rest of the group towards the end of the workshop.

We will debate on each scene during their creation in order to establish whether we understood what each director wanted to tell us; whether created universe, invented situations are clearly for everyone.

Together we will try to understand what works better and what works less and why. We will keep in mind that participants come from different cultures. Thus, they enrich us with their different ways to interpret signs and symbols.

Dorcy Rugamba Bio

Dorcy Rugamba is a Writer, Actor, and Theatre Director. He received a “Premier Prix” in Dramatic Arts from the Royal Academy of Music in Liege, Belgium. He is also a dancer trained in the Rwandan tradition “Intore” dancers. Dorcy was born in 1969 in Rwanda, from a family of artists. His father Cyprien Rugamba was a writer, choreographer and music composer. Dorcy’s father is the founder, and Art director until his death in 1994, of the famous “Amasimbi Amakombe” Ballet; which Dorcy joined in 1977 at the age of eight. In 1991, Dorcy made his début on the international stage when “Amasimbi n’Amakombe” Ballet performed in Antwerp and Brussels (Belgium), Fribourg (Switzerland), Mainz (Germany) and Paris (France) where the Ballet is regularly invited by Francoise Gründ and Sherif Khaznadar to perform at Maison des Cultures du Monde. At this time, Dorcy who was also a student in Pharmacology at the National University of Rwanda decided to make a career in the arts.

In 1992, he founded “Isango”, his first dance and theatre group in Rwanda. Dorcy left Rwanda two years later. It was on April 12, 1994, one week after the beginning of the genocide. He first settled in Paris. Later he went to Brussels, at The Université Catholique de Louvain (UCL), to complete his studies in pharmacology, started at the National university of Rwanda. After the UCL, Dorcy entered The Royal Academy of Music of Liege in the department of Dramatic Art. Since then, he devotes his time to literature and theatre.

In 1999, Dorcy co-authored, with five other authors, “Rwanda 94” a six hour-long play, in which he also plays several roles on stage. “Rwanda 94” was created at The Festival of Avignon in 1999 by Groupov and directed by Jacques Delcuvellerie. In 2001, “Rwanda 1994” received the Award of the best show in Belgium and the Océ Award for literature. In 2002, the play obtained the “prix special de la critique en France”. In 2004, ten years after the genocide, and after four seasons (in Europe, in Canada, in the Caribbean), “Rwanda 94” is presented to the Rwandan public in Butare, Kigali and Bisesero.

Meanwhile, in 2001, in Kigali, Dorcy founded “Urwintore” Workshops. It is platform for training, creation and research in performing arts.

In May 2004, Dorcy was hired by Peter Brook in a world tour to play the role of the writer Hampaté Bâ in “Tierno Bokar”, a play that Brook created at Ruhrtriennale in Germany.

In January 2005, Dorcy published “Marembo” a poetic account about the last days of his family in Rwanda.

In October 2005, as a result of “Urwintore” Workshops, Dorcy adapted and directed “The Investigation”, a documentary play of Peter Weiss on the trials of Nazi perpetrators at Auschwitz. In 2005, “The Investigation” is presented to Rwandan audience in Butare and Kigali, and to the Belgian audience in Liege during The Emulation Festival. The play was also is presented in Paris at Bouffes du Nord Theatre, Young Vic Theater in London, the Bankart Studio in Yokohama, in Japan, Chicago Shakespeare Theater and Kasser Theater in Montclair, New-Jersey, in the United States.

In December 2006, Dorcy played the role of Apemantus in “Timon of Athens” of Shakespeare, with The Théatre de la Boutonniere, Paris, in a production of Abib Nagmouchin.

In April 2007, “Bloody Niggers! ” a play written by Dorcy Rugamba, is created at the National Theatre of Belgium, in a production of Jacques Delcuvellerie. Bloody Niggers received a verry enthousiastic guess by the critics and the audience, in all Europe, Africa and caribean islands. The play is still on tour.

In April 2008 Dorcy played in the adaptation of “Fire next time” of James Baldwin, a production of Rosa Gasquet, where he plays the writer.

As of 2009, Dorcy devotes most of his time to teaching. He develops theatre curricula, teaches theater and supervises theatre related training sessions in England, Belgium, Senegal and Rwanda.

In February 2010, Theatre Suivant of Saint Quentin, with funds from Région-Ilede-France, invited Dorcy as Writer-in-Residence. He wrote there the play “Aller Retour Au Paradis” and presented it on stage with actors of “Théâtre Suivant” in a work in progerss form at The Ferme de Bel Ebat in Les Yvelines. His short play “Market Place” is adapted for radio audiences by Théâtre Suivant, and is presented within the framework of the Bruissements de la langue, 2010 edition.

Recently, Dorcy finished writing, and will be directing, “Gamblers” a play about global markets. The play will premiere on April 6,7 2011 at Zuiderspershuis in Antwerp. The coming season Dorcy will be acting in role of a racist ideologue in “Hate Radio” a play by the writer and producer Milo Rau. At the same time is working on the creation of an Academy of Performing Arts in Rwanda

Heaven on Earth: nytheatre.com Review

Posted February 20, 2011 at 9:12 pm

Heaven on Earth, nytheatre.com Review

by Rachael Richman, nytheatre.com

What a delight to spend an evening in Charles L. Mee’s Heaven on Earth playing this month at La MaMa E.T.C. Dan Safer skillfully weaves text, music, movement, video, and plenty of whimsy into this collaboration between Witness Relocation (USA) and Ilda! Eldi (Lyon, France). READ MORE >>

Why We’re Getting Gay Married (in La MaMa-Loped)

Posted February 14, 2011 at 2:11 pm

Why We’re Getting Gay Married (in La MaMa-Loped)

Jesse Cameron Alick, The Clyde Fitch Report

On Valentine’s Day 2011, Scout Durwood, Lucile Baker Scott and I are getting gay married. No, gay marriage isn’t legal in New York State. And no, Lucile isn’t a boy. And I’m not a girl. And the two of us aren’t both marrying Scout. Though that would be hot. But yes, all three of us are gay. So it’s actually two separate wedding ceremonies we’re talking about here. READ MORE >>

La MaMa-loped: Because We Can

Posted at 2:06 pm

Gay & Lesbian Section, Time Out New York

Come watch as a bunch of queer people get legally hetero married! Scout Durwood, Lucile Scott and Jesse Cameron Alick star in a performance-art investigation into that ol’ institution of marriage. Featuring Death Row Tull as the wedding band, comedy from John Murdock, a burlesque divorce and wedding snacks courtesy of Top Chef‘s Josie Smith Malave.

MIXploratorium: A Queer Artist Installation and Performance Series

November 16 – December 2, 2011

INSTALLATION LAB
Running Nov. 16th through Nov. 22nd, 2011

INSTALLATION OPENING NOVEMBER 22
Installation runs from Nov. 22nd through Dec 3rd, 2011

MIXploratorium is presented by MIX NYC QUEER EXPERIMENTAL FILM FESTIVAL and THE DEPARTMENT OF TRANSFORMATION Queer Arts Collective.

Visual Artists: Peter Cramer, Cristy C. Road, Gabriel DeFazio, Avory Agony, Quito Ziegler, Serichai Traipoom, Larry Shea

These artists will take up residency at La Mama Galleria for a week, creating installations involving drawings from the most anticipated tarot deck of our generation, New Yorker covers that parallel the progress of one artist’s journey with HIV, intergalactic cushions shaping distant lounging spaces, a zine library years in the hoarding, found objects from the Rockaways sculpted into an object of personal hope, a short inspired by a visit to a witch in the Bronx, community, wild ponies, and fresh hot cookies. Together we celebrate the rigor of things that have been with us for years and things lasting no more than a day. The collective goal is to create a welcoming, otherworldly nest in the heart of downtown, then invite performing artists such as Damien Luxe, Heather Acs, Louie Chavez, Jennifer Blowdryer, Stephen Boyer, and Roo Kahn, and other exhibitionists for noise-making, readings, performance, vegan suppers, and terribly glamorous, yet extraordinarily low-key, parties. MIXploratorium is eager to transform a silent void into a raucous space of reflection and connection; anger and enlightenment.

MIXploratorium is an extension of MIX 24: The 24th MIX New York Queer Experimental Film Festival and is produced by The Department of Transformation.

FOR FURTHER DETAILS ON MIXPLORATORIUM PLEASE VISIT:
www.mixnyc.org
www.departmentoftransformation.org

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*YOUR MIXPLORATORIUM EVENT SCHEDULE*

NOVEMBER 22ND
6pm Opening Reception with Pop-Up Queer Photo Studio by Ricki and Seri

8pm Storytelling Fantastique – organized by Damien Luxe
Storytelling Fantastique, featuring Tigerlad, Polyester, Apocalypse & Glitter! Experience a night of experimental queer storytelling. “Tigerlad was just a lad. Tigerlad was just a tiger…” begins featured performer NCN’s perverse tale of wanderlust. Plus, cozy up to experience glitter realness with Glenn Marla, peak-oil polyester fetishists with Damien Luxe, lesbian fantastic apocalypse with Ariel Speedwagon, sci-fi with Victor Tobar, and more.
http://www.tigerlad.com/
http://www.axondluxe.com/

NOVEMBER 23RD
7pm A Cozy Night of Multi-Media Performance- curated by Heather Ács
Join us for a cozy night of multi-media “works-in-process” and open mic, where we “rewrite the script” by redefining family, home, and holidays. All are invited to share work in any medium under 10 min. Featured artists TBA. Contact acs.heather@gmail.com to be put on the list for the open mic prior to event.
http://www.heatheracs.com/

NOVEMBER 25TH
7pm The Cinematic Noise Experiment- organized by Louie Chavez
The Cinematic Noise Experiment is a night in which musicians, performers and artists come together to construct and destroy live soundscapes for film & projections.

NOVEMBER 26TH
2pm All Day Thanksvegan – organized by Avory Agony

NOVEMBER 27TH
2pm Dr. Seuss story hour – Roo Khan
Radical Environmentalism, Commodified Prejudice, and Extending Language : A Dr. Seuss Reading
The author Theodor Seuss Geisel created many books full of talented rhymes and skilled illustrations, but for many of us it was the messages behind the story that stuck with us. This will be a reading of three of Dr. Seuss’s works, with a few words of commentary and radical queer context: “The Lorax”, “The Sneeches”, and “On Beyond Zebra.”

5pm Dirty Talk: a cinematic reading event by Dirty Looks – curated by Bradford Nordeen
Featuring Jennifer Blowdryer, Stephen Boyer, Bradford Nordeen, Daniel Sander, Masha Tupitsyn
Since the invention of the cinema, its influence on every form has been totally immeasurable, not least of which is its distinct impact on literature, poetry and prose. Dirty Looks assembles 5 inter-generational writers who will present work that takes the moving-image as their primary point of inspiration.

NOVEMBER 29TH
8-10pm QuORUM’s Unicorn Power Creativity Explosion 5000
Artist/Curator: QuORUM via Heather Ács
Join QuORUM (Queers Organizing for Radical Unity and Mobilization), a consensus-based radical queer collective, for an evening of artistic celebration and queer brain power. We will be showing photos from past events, showcasing performers from our community, and facilitating a conversation about future happenings.
http://www.quorumnyc.org/

DECEMBER 1ST
1:30 – 7:30pm World AIDS Day Video: Untitled
Jim Hodges, Carlos Marques da Cruz & Encke King
A non-linear montage of archival and pop footage recalling the passionate activism sparked by the early years of the AIDS crisis.

DECEMBER 2ND
8PM CLOSING PARTY with Pop-Up Queer Photo Studio by Ricki and Seri
Damien Luxe and Heather Ács from the Heels on Wheels Glitter Roadshow – Ladybeast, collaborators from across the galaxy, including Najva Sol, stage a hirsuite intervention at the gallery’s entrance. Over the evening a performance emerges that shows up in the most visible of places and just keeps growing: hairsweet/hirsuite.
http://www.heelsonwheelsroadshow.com/

Carl Van Vechten – Daniel Lang/Levitsky
Fashionable Places out of Season (Libertas Sine Labore / Amica Non Serva)
A projection performance of images from the queer scrapbooks of Carl Van Vechten, accompanied by a spoken word cantata drawn from his novels, daybooks, and encyclopedic book on cats. Van Vechten, a ubiquitous figure of modernist New York, from concert halls and bohemian cocktail parties to Harlem dives and ‘buffet flats’, is now barely remembered. This performance is part of an ongoing project exploring the 18 volumes of scrapbooks in which Van Vechten compiled and collaged fifty years of queer and trans material, from commercial porn to tabloid articles to ephemera of all kinds.

Heaven on Earth: End Times

Posted February 13, 2011 at 10:55 pm

END TIMES

How would you survive the apocalypse?

By Alexis Soloski, Village Voice

Witness Relocation must think they’re out of this world! Their last play—an extravagantly titled performance piece inspired by the TV miniseries V—concerned aliens. Their latest, Heaven on Earth, is focused on the apocalypse. Using a script by Charles L. Mee, who composes collage plays gleaned from found texts, the youthful troupe will explore the subject of surviving the end of the earth. These players seem intrepid, but can they learn to hunt their own food and outlive war and plague? They’ll seek advice from such disparate sources as a seed catalog, Isaac Bashevis Singer, and O, The Oprah magazine. Surely she’ll tell them how to live their best afterlife.

Lysistrata: When the Puppets Called a Sex Strike

Posted February 9, 2011 at 12:25 pm

When the Puppets Called a Sex Strike

by Rachel Saltz, New York Times

For modern viewers, Aristophanes’ “Lysistrata” may be easier to admire than to like. The story, of course, compels: Lysistrata leads the Athenian and Spartan women in a sex strike to end the war between their cities. But all that ribaldry and priapism can be tough going. (Hell, perhaps, is other people’s bawdy comedy.)

In Theodora Skipitares’s production of “Lysistrata” at La MaMa, her puppets and masks come to the rescue. They provide distance between audience and play, a veil that offers both discretion and license. The puppets, mostly life-size and elegantly attired, are used for the individual characters. The choruses, male and female, are masked and more grotesque. They sport crude wigs and exaggerated sexual appendages: cloth penises for the gents and, for the ladies, pendulous breasts attached to their tunics.

Ms. Skipitares knows how to put on a show, and the most entertaining parts here involve the choruses, led by the excellent performers Hakim Williams and Raquel Cion. They and their teams — women on the left, men on the right — play out a singing, dancing, dirty-talking burlesque-house battle of the sexes.

The talented Sxip Shirey wrote the score and the chorus’s catchy, sometimes bluesy songs, which contribute to the production’s liveliness and accessibility.

Ms. Skipitares, whose puppet work has included stagings of “Medea” and plays about the Trojan War, here adapted, designed and directed. She also includes a contemporary hook. On a screen above two giant puppet heads that act as news anchors, she projects stories of recent sex strikes, in Colombia and Kenya, and other accounts of protests by the powerless. They’re interesting — and certainly relevant to the current moment — but unnecessary. They interrupt the play while it wrestles with the same points.

Ms. Skipitares’s most deft decision may be the assigning of those lead female roles to the puppets. (A few male characters, penises never far out of sight, are puppets too.) After all, Lysistrata & Co. don’t want to be playthings of men and the state, or captives of their own libidos. They don’t want to be puppets on a string. Ladies, welcome to the struggle.

Discovering Pasolini: Notes on an unborn movie

October 28 – October 30, 2011

An international project of: La MaMa Umbria International and La MaMa Experimental Theatre

Teatro La Pergola, Florence (Italy)
28-30 October, 2011 (world preview)

Text development: Andrea Jeva Quacquarelli
Adaption and directed: Andrea Paciotto

with:
Paulina Almeida
Carl Beleites
Raffaele Ottolenghi
David Power
Gable Roelofsen
Francesco Bolo Rossini

Music and sound: Malu Peeters
Set design: Jeffrey Isaac
Dramaturgy: Andrea Jeva Quacquarelli
with the collaboration of: Gherardo Vitali Rosati e Francesco Rossini
Producing director: Adriana Garbagnati
Stage Manager: Paolo Pannaccio
Costums realizazion: Laura Giannisi
Video realization: Roberto Ippolito
Light Design: Massimo Guarnotta
Online collaboration: Billy Clark, CultureHub
Organization: Offucina Eclectic Arts

with the special appearance of:
George Drance, Gherardo Vitali Rosati, Andrea Quacquarelli, Andrea Paciotto

special thanks to:
Graziella Cerami, Combo Perugia, Cooperativa Il Cerchio,
Compagnia Italiana, Culturehub

Teatro La Pergola
Via della Pergola 18/32, Firenze

Friday 28 and Saturday 29 October – at 8:30 and 10:30 pm
Sunday 30 October – at 4:30 pm

information and tickets: tel. +39 055/2264353 pubblico@teatrodellapergola.com

Click here to view photos from the rehearsals

Click here read a newspaper article on Discovering Pasolini

Discovering Pasolini, notes on an unborn movie is an international theatre project through which La MaMa choses to celebrate the great Italian poet and filmmaker Pier Paolo Pasolini. The first phase of the project will be presented this October, in Florence, within the Theatre Festival “Il Teatro Italiano nel Mondo”, a special event conceived by Maurizio Scaparro, for the celebration of the 150th Anniversary of Italian unification.

Artistic director of the project is Andrea Paciotto, the Italian director collaborating with La MaMa during the last 20 years, and it is realized in partnership with La MaMa Umbria International, the Artist Residence funded by Ellen Stewart in Spoleto, Italy. An interdisciplinary group of international artists has been reunited from Germany, Portugal, United Kingdom, The Netherlands, Italy and United States.

Discovering Pasolini, notes on an unborn movie will be presented as a site specific theatre performance, within various space of the Theatre La Pergola, one of oldest historical theater buildings in Italy. It will be performed in English and Italian, with subtitles.

A DIALOGUE WITH PASOLINI, THROUGH SAINT PAUL

The performance finds its inspiration from the screenplay of a movie about Saint Paul, that Pasolini never managed to realize. In this particular work, Pasolini portrayed a character spiritually torn apart, living the tragic conflict between sanctity – considered as freedom, love and joy – and priesthood, seen as a oppression and moralism. Pasolini expresses a strong attraction to Paul’s “holiness”, but strongly criticize him as a “priest”. Saint Paul was the founder of the Christian Church, opposed by Pasolini as an Establishment, which has falsifies history for the need of achieving power and control society.

In his idea for the film, Pasolini was thinking of transferring the story, both geographically and temporally. He tells the various episodes of the Apostle’s life, making continuous personal and poetic references: visions of the past come to surface, full of complex psychological unsolved remorses, as if Pasolini wanted to transfer his obsessions and even his perspectives in this exemplary story. Thus, also the performance highlights those aspects of the story that seem to create a link between crucial moments of both lives, from “enlightenment” to “martyrdom”. The starting point is offered by the screenplay. Initially, the various scenes are sober and short, showing only the key steps of the events narrated. Gradually the visions become more theatrical, repeating and expanding, revealing details that characterize the personalities of Saint Paul and of Pasolini. In its development, the performance also touches on those ironic and allegoric elements that can be seen in many works of Pasolini, especially in some of his movies.

The study of Pasolini’s works has led the group to develop almost an imaginary dialogue with this author, going to seek the answers in the screenplay on Saint Paul, but also in other important texts such as Lutheran Letters, Pirate Writings, as well as many other plays, films and novels. What binds these fragments together is that they all revolve around two particular topics of Pasolini’s ideas, which seem to us still very relevant today: “the relationship with the sacred” and “the alarm for the anthropological mutation” of society. The dramatic structure of the performance is composed almost like a fresco, made of many layers and details. From the totality of the composition, gradually emerge some of the aspects of Pasolini’s ideas and of his personality that make him one of the most relevant and universal Italian contemporary artists and intellectuals.

Carlos Lersundy: Homecoming

October 16 – November 13, 2011

La MaMa Galleria is honored to open the 50th anniversary season with an exhibition of new paintings by Colombian artist Carlos Lersundy. He has been apart of the La MaMa family since the very beginning, creating art for Ellen Stewart and some of La MaMa’s first highly acclaimed shows.

“Ellen’s work is transcendent. There are qualities about it that need to be preserved in time, such as impeccability, excellence in execution and meaning. My intent is to capture these qualities in the works presented here.” -Carlos Lersundy

Carlos Lersundy is recognized in Colombia and Latin America as one of the relevant figures in art and advertising. He has worked as a Creative Director in prestigious advertising agencies such as Young & Rubicam (New York and Amsterdam), and Leo Burnett (Bogotá). He has also been an independent documentary filmmaker. Founder, owner and Creative Director of the Vi-Viendo creative group- A company dedicated to the design of corporate and political advertising campaigns.

As a political advertising advisor and creative director, he has designed and produced the campaign for César Gaviria / President and the advertising campaign for the National Constituent Assembly of 1991.

For his advertising work, he was awarded two “Indias Catalina” for best commercial at the Film Festival of Cartagena and a “Condor de Oro” for the design of the Cesar Gaviria / Presidential image.

During his professional life he has shown special interest in cultural manifestations that identify the Colombians, being worthy of a scholarship from the Peggy Guggenheim Foundation to make a short film about the visualization practices of the Tucano Indians in the Amazon jungle.

Lersundy has done individual and group exhibitions internationally since 1967. For the last four years he has taught people to see anew using drawing and painting techniques.
carloslersundy.com

Urban Cock - oil on canvas, 40"x44"

Bogota - oil on canvas, 22"x26"

New York - oil on canvas, 22"x26"

Lyberty on Vacation - oil on canvas, 36"x50"

It's Cold Outside - oil on canvas, 34"38"

Ubu Roi - oil on canvas, 34"x38"

Ubu Roi 2 - oil on canvas, 34"x38"

Ubu Roi 3 - oil on canvas, 34"x38"

Futz - oil on canvas, 56"x40"

The White Whore and the Twobit Players - oil on canvas, 36"x56"

Jonathan Hart Makwaia in Concert

February 25 – February 27, 2011

Friday & Saturday at 10pm
Sunday at 5:30pm

World Premier

A selection of recent and favorite compositions by Jonathan Hart Makwaia for voice and piano. Jonathan’s music integrates traditional singing and other forms of vocal expression, interweaving the piano as an inextricable but distinct voice. Tonight’s program also features re-workings of music by Bach, Schubert and Fauré.