Five (new) Questions for John Scott
Posted March 31, 2011 at 12:05 pm
by Maura Donohue, Culturebot
Irish Modern Dance Theatre artistic director John Scott”s Fall and Recover is currently running at La Mama thru April 9. He and I recently met to talk specifically about his process working with survivors of torture who now live in Ireland. He spoke to Andy last year for a previous Five Questions. READ MORE >>
Shinsai
March 11, 2012 at 2:30pm
Join us on Sunday March 11, 2012, the one-year anniversary of the earthquake that devastated Japan’s Tohoku region, as we join theaters nationwide to present works by major American and Japanese theater artists. The Japan Playwrights Association will disperse the proceeds from this one-day-only event to the Japanese theater community affected by the disaster. more info Theatre Communication Group
Kurotama Kikaku will perform a reading of Yoji Sakate’s work and more. SAVE THE DATE and share this one-day only event with us!
Sunday, March 11, 2012 at 2:30PM
47 Great Jones Street （between Lafayette & Bowery)
Suggested donation $10
R.S.V.P Seats are limited. Please make reservation. Info Call at (212)928-5826
The funds donated through SHINSAI directly to the Japan Playwrights Association for distribution to help restore the conditions that surround the Japanese theatre, i.e. theatre buildings, companies, rehearsal spaces, education and audiences.
World Theatre Day 2011 Honors Ellen Stewart
Posted March 27, 2011 at 10:36 pm
World Theatre Day 2011 from Theatre Communications Group.
from BroadwayWorld.com
Theatre Communications Group (TCG), the national organization for theatre, which also houses the US Center of the InterNational Theatre Institute (ITI-US), invites all theatres, individual artists, institutions and audiences to celebrate the 49th annual World Theatre Day on March 27, 2011. TCG/ITI-US, invited Tony Award-winning actor and global citizen Jeffrey Wright to issue a US message, which was recorded on video: www.tcg.org/international. Pulitzer Prize-winning Playwright, Lynn Nottage gave the first US message for World Theatre Day last year.
Created in 1961, World Theatre Day is celebrated annually on March 27 by InterNational Theatre Institute Centers around the world and the interNational Theatre community. Each year, a renowned theatre artist of world stature is invited to craft an international message to mark the global occasion. This year, ITI Worldwide, headquartered in Paris, asked artist, academic and humanitarian Jessica A. Kaahwa, from Uganda, to write the international message. As with last year’s international message by Judi Dench, Kaahwa’s statement will be translated into more than 20 languages and distributed to tens of thousands of audiences.
Kaahwa makes a case for theatre as a tool for peace building internationally. She writes, “To anticipate a peaceful future, we must begin by using peaceful means that seek to understand, respect and recognize the contributions of every human being in the business of harnessing peace. Theatre is that universal language by which we can advance messages of peace and reconciliation.”
Wright, who won the 1994 Tony Award for Angels in America and most recently performed in John Guare’s new play, A Free Man of Color, at Lincoln Center Theatre, is Chairman of the Taia Peace Foundation, which is active in development work in Sierra Leone. Wright articulates that the art of listening is critical for the transformation of theatre to occur, “If we listen well and observe, the theater’s gift to us is the sly suggestion that what occurs within its walls can occur without them, too – that the world is changeable.”
TCG/ITI-US dedicates its World Theatre Day celebrations to the full life and inspiring legacy of Ellen Stewart, founding artistic director of the La MaMa Experimental Theatre, who passed away on January 13, 2011. Stewart, considered as a mother, goddess and true arts advocate, was a vital part of the interNational Theatre community and composed the World Theatre Day International Message in 1975.
This year, as in the past, one way to celebrate World Theatre Day is to spread the US and international messages. TCG/ITI-US is encouraging its members, colleagues and audiences to:
Visit www.tcg.org/international for ways to celebrate, including downloadable versions of the messages from Wright and Kaahwa;
On Sunday, March 27, share the World Theatre Day messages with your audience and community;
Register with the Performing Arts Alliance (PAA) and participate on Arts Advocacy Day (April 4-5, 2011);
Use the PAA web resources to contact your elected officials regarding the need for:
improved visa processing for international guest artists;
increased funding for the Cultural Programs Division of the State Department’s Office of Citizen Exchanges;
Register for the Human Rights Watch.
To download the messages and bios of Wright or Kaahwa – and for more information about World Theatre Day celebrations, please visit: www.tcg.org.
InterNational Theatre Institute (ITI) was formed in 1948, when the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) joined with world-renowned theatre experts to form an international non-governmental organization in the field of the performing arts. The mission of ITI is to “promote international exchange of knowledge and practice in theatre arts in order to consolidate peace and friendship between peoples, to deepen mutual understanding and to increase creative cooperation between all people in the theatre arts.” Today, ITI consists of approximately 90 Centers worldwide. An ITI Center is made up of professionals active in the theatre life of a country and representative of all branches of the performing arts.
The first World Theatre Day International Message was written by Jean Cocteau in 1962. Succeeding honorees include Arthur Miller (1963), Ellen Stewart (1975), Vaclav Havel (1994), Ariane Mnouchkine (2005), Sultan bin Mohammad Al Qasimi (2007), Augusto Boal (2009), Dame Judi Dench (2010).
Theatre Communications Group (TCG), the national organization for theatre, exists to strengthen, nurture and promote the professional not-for-profit American theatre. Founded in 1961, TCG’s constituency has grown from a handful of groundbreaking theatres to nearly 700 member theatres and affiliate organizations and more than 12,000 individuals nationwide. TCG became home to the US Center of ITI in 1999 and is represented on the US National Commission for UNESCO. TCG offers its members networking and knowledge-building opportunities through conferences, events, research and communications; grants approximately $2 million per year to theatre companies and individual artists; and advocates at the federal level. TCG is the nation’s largest independent publisher of dramatic literature, with 11 Pulitzer Prizes for Best Play on its booklist; it also publishes the award-winning AMERICAN THEATRE magazine and ARTSEARCH®, the essential source for a career in the arts. www.tcg.org
InfiniteBody: Fall and Recover
Posted at 10:27 pm
John Scott’s “Fall and Recover” at La MaMa
by Eva Yaa Asantewaa, InfiniteBody
I’m just realizing now that John Scott’s program notes list no credit for lighting design, which leads me to my only partly fanciful conclusion that Fall and Recover, the ensemble work he has finally been able to bring to La MaMa’s stage, gets its splendid lights from the natural radiance of its cast of dancers. So let me begin with appreciation for the luminous contributions of Francis Acilu, Julie Chi, Philip Connaughton, Aisling Doyle, Faranak Mehdi Golhini, Solomon Ijigade, Sebastiao Mpembele Kamalandua, Kiribu, Patience Namehe, Nina, Elizabeth Su, Haile Tkabo and Mufutau Kehinde Yusuf (Junior). READ MORE >>
The Leonard Lopate Show: Fall and Recover
Posted March 25, 2011 at 3:51 pm
Irish choreographer John Scott and performers Kiribu and Nina Oiplea discuss “Fall and Recover.” Based on the experiences and stories of survivors of torture in Africa, Asia, and Romania, the work emerges from workshops with clients of The Centre for Care for Survivors of Torture, which is located in Dublin, Ireland. Two Irish dancers perform with a cast of 11 torture survivors from nine countries– Kiribu is from eastern Africa and Nina Oiplea is from Eastern Europe. “Fall and Recover” opens at La MaMa’s Ellen Stewart Theatre March 25.
or click here
Flavorpill Editor Picks: Fall and Recover
Posted at 3:46 pm
After a nearly show-stopping visa snafu, choreographer John Scott of Irish Modern Dance Theatre brings together two dancers with 11 torture survivors and clients of the Centre for Care for Survivors of Torture in Dublin. Their jarring collaborative performance, which was met with great acclaim in Dublin, charts the journey of healing after unimaginable physical and psychological hardship as dancers find a way back to humanity. Live music performed by Rossa O’Snodaigh of Irish band Kíla scores the piece.
Great Scott: Fall and Recover
Posted March 24, 2011 at 12:56 pm
Great Scott
Working with immigrants, John Scott choreographs the new Irish experience.
by Susan Reiter, The Westsider
La MaMa Moves! 2011 Festival Image
Posted March 23, 2011 at 11:38 am
by Kanan Shah @ Discovering Oz
We’re excited to present this year’s festival image for La MaMa Moves! 2011, opening May 24 and taking place in all our venues.
This year’s image is of Joan Finkelstein, who is being honored at our benefit performance on May 24 and was created by the very talented artist and designer Kanan Shah. The image will be featured on the La MaMa Moves! program, festival guide, and street banner.
This is the second year that La MaMa has commissioned an original illustration for the La MaMa Moves! Dance Festival. Last year, the artistic duo Telephone and Soup (i.e. Kasey Sciezscka and Steven Weinberg) contributed the silhouette portrait of Ellen Stewart.
About the artist
Kanan Shah is an award-winning designer and fine artist from Mumbai, India. She is currently a resident designer at Discovering Oz, a New York marketing firm specializing in strategic communications for arts, non-profit and mission-driven companies. She has an M.S. in Communications Design from Pratt Institute.
Ivo Dimchev: Financial Times
Posted March 18, 2011 at 11:38 am
Ivo Dimchev, Perforations Festival NY
by Apollinaire Scherr, Financial Times
I dragged myself to the opening night of the Perforations Festival – 10 days of cutting-edge Balkan performance at La MaMa in the East Village. The sad saga of an ageing drag queen is a New York speciality. What could Bulgarian physical theatre artist Ivo Dimchev’s Lili Handel possibly add? READ MORE >>
Prepare for Perforations
Posted March 16, 2011 at 1:17 pm
Prepare for Perforations
by Max Berlinger, OUT
On Friday, March 11, Bulgarian performer Ivo Dimchev kicked off the Balkan Performance Art Festival Perforations at LaMama with the premiere of his signature work “Lilli Handel.” In the piece, Dimchev plays the titular Lilli, a man-woman who physically calls to mind both Leigh Bowery and one of Vincent D’Onofrio’s incarnations in the 2000 film “The Cell.” But Dimchev’s performance is no mere circus spectacle. In a 50-minute solo that found Dimchev neighing, spitting, singing, sweating, and drawing his own blood onstage, the artist managed to crack up the sometimes cringing audience as he addressed the subjects of age, fading beauty, sexual roles, and consumption — artistic and sexual. Considering that was just the first night, expect similarly outrageous and entertaining antics from the various performers on the bill, from Croatia’s Badco to Slovenia’s MladinskoTheater. This is indie art at its most provocative.
David Gothard
David Gothard Bio
David Gothard graduated with an MA in Philosophy and African History from Edinburgh University during four years when student drama played an important part.
As a British Council post-graduate in Budapest, he directed pioneering and provocative productions of TS Eliot, Beckett and Pinter. He worked at the Royal Court Theatre, London, under the artistic directorship of Lindsay Anderson and William Gaskill.
He joined Riverside Studios in London in 1977 as Artistic Programmer under Peter Gill, during a seminal period: In the opening season were launched a now legendary “The Cherry Orchard” from Peter Gill, Athol Fugard’s work from South Africa, Miro’s first theatre collaboration since Diaghilev and Shuji Tereyama’s “Directions to Servants”.
Amongst the writers developed over the early years were Hanif Kureishi, Tunde Ikoli and David Drane. They and others showcased work through short-term repertory festivals of new work including the Plays Umbrella structure, which included Mustapha Matura, Edgar White, Peter Gill and Nicholas Wright. Directors launching their careers, often through informal performances, included Simon Usher, David Leveaux, Tina Packer, Stephen Daldry and Simon McBurney with a pioneering Complicite event.
American writers successfully introduced to Britain by David included Emily Mann, Naomi Wallace, David Hancock, winners of the 1995 and 1996 Obies, and Todd Ristau. Three of these he later directed.
The relationship between writing and film played an important part in David’s activities at Riverside, even before its 35mm cinema was built, much of it built on the initiative of Jan Dawson, his film colleague. With a 16mm screen suspended from the roof of one of the studios, Bill Forsyth, Peter Greenaway, Lazar Stoianovic, Rebecca O’Brien and Andrew
Eaton all developed the roots of their careers. In 1985, Andrei Tarkovsky found a home base there for the build-up for “The Sacrifice.” He ran a working committee for Tarkovsky as they both developed the possibility of “Hamlet ” as a film. Hanif Kureishi had worked in David’s office and their package containing the script of “My Beautiful Laundrette” propelled Stephen Frears and Tim Bevan into a shake-up of the British film scene.
In the late eighties, after leaving Riverside, David returned to Eastern Europe. In Yugloslavia he directed Howard Barker’s “The Castle” and then for fifteen months chaired an international committee on theatre projects involving leading companies from Hungary, Germany and Italy, including the representation of all the national groupings within
the former-Yugoslavia. During the war he returned to teach actors, writers and directors at the Slovenian Theatre and Film Academy and wrote a report on Slovenia’s potential participation in the cultural programme of the European Community.
In 1998 and 1999 he taught screenplay writing for the Soros Foundation in Ljubjana. Productions of “Hamlet”, then “Macbeth” re-launching the National Theatre of Kosova, were initiated with David directing while he was president of the jury at the Sarajevo Festival in autumn 1998. Early in 1999, David returned to Budapest to the Merlin Theatre where he directed an experimental based on Ted Hughes’”Crow” and the work of Janos Pilinsky and Sheryl Sutton.
In 1988 David was awarded the first Kingman Brewster Theatre Fellowship of the British American Arts and workshopped new writing in the USA, giving seminars on Tarkovski and new British film at Columbia University. He was based at the Actors Studio in New York and at the National Theatre in Washington DC. In the late eighties he also
introduced the Frankfurt Ballet, Miro’s “Mori el Merma” and the theatre work of Andrzej Wajda to America at the Pepsico Summerfare festival at Purchase, upstate New York.
He returned to London to commission first-time directors and writers for a series of shorts for Channel 4. He then continued his working association with Hanif Kureishi as a producer on “London Kills Me”.
David has regularly been invited on to the jury of the Playwrights’ Festival and to teach at the Playwrights’ Workshop at the University of Iowa. There he helped initiate a team of writers to form a company for touring new plays in the mid-west. His own directing of David Hancock’s “Ark Tattoo” came to New York. In November, 1998, he directed a workshop
of a new play, “In the Sweat”, by two Iowa writers, Naomi Wallace and Bruce McLeod, for a youth project at the National Theatre. In the summer of 2003 he directed a new play by Brian Tuttle in Columbus, Ohio and an open air production of Chekhov’s “The Seagull” in the park. In 2005 he directed a second Tuttle play in Boston
David is a member of the judging committee for the George Devine Award for new playwriting and the Jan Dawson and Katrin Carlidge’s awards for independent film. He teaches directors as a guest at the National Film and Television School.
In January 2007, he became Associate Artist at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, and is preparing a production at the Kasser Theatre in Montclair, based on New Jersey artists, William Carlos Williams, Robert Smithson, George Segal, Leroi Jones and Allen Ginsberg.
He regularly teaches student directors on writing at the National Film School and at Birkbeck in the University of London.
Erik Ehn
Spatial writing
Writing as physical and mathematical patterning; writing as staging imagery. Through a series of regular exercises, we will generate new material and each fashion an original script, exploring options in terms of narrative, rhythm and meaning.
BIO
Playwright, teacher. Works include Soulographie (a set of 17 plays on 20th Century American Genocides), The Cycle Plays (5 new Noh), and The Saint Plays (an ongoing series). Graduate, New Dramatist. Current Director of Playwriting, Brown University.
Work includes The Saint Plays, No Time Like the Present, Wolf at the Door, Tailings, Beginner, Ideas of Good and Evil, and an adaptation of Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury. He is currently working on completing a series of 15 plays – Soulographie – on the history of the US in the 20th Century from the point of view of its genocides, intended for production in NY in April 2012 (scripts include Maria Kizito, Heavenly Shades of Night are Falling, Yermedea, Drunk Still Drinking). His works have been produced in San Francisco (Intersection, Thick Description, Yugen), Seattle (Annex, Empty Space), Austin (Frontera), New York (BACA, Whitney Museum), San Diego (Sledgehammer), Chicago (Red Moon), Atlanta (7 Stages), Los Angeles (Cal Rep, Museum of Jurassic Technology), Belgrade (Dah); elsewhere. He has taught at the U of Iowa, Naropa, UC San Diego, UT Dallas, and Cal Arts (graduate); U San Francisco, SF State, Santa Clara, and Skidmore (undergrad); he just completed a writing workshop with the Belarus Free Theater in Minsk. He conducts annual trips to Rwanda/Uganda, taking students and professionals in the field to study the history of these countries, and to explore the ways art is participating in recovery from violence. He produces the Arts in the One World conference yearly, which engages themes of art and social change. Artistic Associate, Theatre of Yugen. Graduate of New Dramatists. Former Dean of the CalArts School of Theater.
Ferdinando Ceriani & Carla Ferraro
That Instrument Was Out Of Tune
Anxiety/calmness, waiting/action, anger/love, illusion/defeat are some of the contrasts suggested by one of most remarkable Italian playwrights Franco Molè, in his play Large concert for Broogh, which will serve as a base for the workshop. Some fragments form the text will be chosen as an ideal ring in which to explore the emotions as living material for the actor. The workshop focuses on the body as expressive medium and will engage the participants in a practicle way towards the creation of microperfromances, using various scenes from the play.
BIO
Ferdinando Ceriani
Theatre director and curator of many festivals, Ceriani is Associate Director of the Compagnia Italiana, founded and directed by Maurizio Scaparro. As a director he has deviced and adapted many succesful performances, such as Shakespeare love, with famous Italian actress Valeria Moricone, Dove danzano in draghi e gli dei, Tiziano’s Cina for the Theatre Festival of Venice Biennale. The dream of G. with Giulia Lazzarini and Milano Jazz Band; or the celebrative event 60 years of the Piccolo Teatro, for Milano’s Piccolo Teatro. He has also created a well know theatre adaptation of Fellini’s movie Clowns, Salonicco 43 that premiered in Tel Aviv, Salonicco e at the Theatre Festival of Venice Biennale, before beginning its Italian and European tour.
Carla Ferraro
Carla graduated from the Accademy of Dramatic Art in Rome under the direction of Lorenzo Salveti that immediately invited her to play major roles in numerous theatre projects. She has also worked with other important Italian directors such as Piero Maccarinelli, Giancarlo Sepe and Maurizio Scaparro. She has a long time collaboration with Ferdinando Ceriani, including Salonicco 43, for Venice Biennale and the music theatre performance Six memos for the next Millenium, based upon the American Lectures by Italo Calvino. She is the protagonist of the movie Last Pulcinella by Maurizio Scaparro starring with Massimo Ranieri, Adriana Asti e Jean Sorel. Parallel to the work in theatre she is also very activly involved in radio and television projects, in dubbing, and especially in teaching acting in various schools and institutions.
André De Shields
André De Shields Workshop
The Actor’s art is one with a mythic theme: discover the Golden Triangle—that place in the psyche where mind, body and spirit exist as individual smoldering embers. Once converged, they burst into a fire in the soul that burns through all illusions. The Actor that succeeds in this adventure is transformed into the Hero, possessing the tool for unlocking the power of life buried in the unconscious. It is this power that the Actor can then invest in new ways of life called characters. The adventure awaits!
BIO
André De Shields
In a career spanning more than forty years, André De Shields has distinguished himself as an unparalleled actor, director, choreographer and educator. He is the recipient of the 2009 National Black Theatre Festival Living Legend Award, the 2009 AUDELCO Award for Outstanding Performance by a Lead Actor in a Musical/Male (Archbishop Supreme Tartuffe), and the 2007 Village Voice OBIE Award for Sustained Excellence of Performance. Mr. De Shields is best known for his show stopping performances in the original Broadway productions of four legendary musicals: The Full Monty, for which he received Tony, Drama Desk and Astaire Award nominations, in addition to both the Outer Critics Circle and Drama League Awards; Play On! (Tony nomination), Ain’t Misbehavin’ (Drama Desk nomination) and The Wiz (title role). At the Classical Theatre of Harlem, he has participated in five remarkable collaborations with its former Artistic Director, Alfred Preisser—as Makak in Derek Walcott’s Dream On Monkey Mountain, in the title roles of Archbishop Supreme Tartuffe, Caligula and King Lear—resulting in a co-production with the Folger Shakespeare Theatre in Washington, DC during its 2006-2007 season, commemorating its seventy-fifth anniversary—and Langston Hughes’ Black Nativity (Lucille Lortel, Drama Desk and Drama league Award nominations/Outstanding Leading Man in a Musical). He received the 2007 Classical Theatre of Harlem Award for Sustained Excellence in the Theatre. As an educator, Mr. De Shields has served as Adjunct and Distinguished Visiting Professor at NYU’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study, where he taught Shakespeare, and designed the Interdisciplinary Arts Workshop, EXTREME PERFORMANCE: From Ancient Africa To Post-Modern America. He was the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr./Rosa Parks/Cesar Chavez Visiting Professor at the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, where he directed a multi-ethnic, pan-historical production of Euripides’ Trojan Women.
Tina Landau
Tina Landau Workshop
Tina Landau’s workshop will focus on expanding the actor’s awareness, spontaneity, and openness, using the method of Viewpoints as a primary, but not exclusive, tool. As an approach to training, rehearsal, and/or performance, the Viewpoints technique has gained increasing popularity in the U.S. and abroad significantly through the book Tina co-authored with Anne Bogart, (The Viewpoints Book: A Practical Guide to Viewpoints and Composition) as well as Tina’s own work as both a director and a teacher. In Tina’s Viewpoints work, artists are offered a language and practice for working with increased responsiveness, for building cohesive ensembles, and for creating both vibrant stage moments and newly generated work. In class, participants will be introduced to ten individual Viewpoints as well as the ways in which they can be applied to a range of work including solo performance, traditional scene work, self-generated pieces, formal choreography, and more. With a combined stress on an intuitive, physical approach along with a more analytic or textual approach, the class will lead to the performance of both scenes from plays and short originally devised pieces.
Bio
Tina Landau is a writer, director and teacher, whose most recent work includes writing the book for the upcoming musical BEAUTY with Regina Spektor, directing ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA (Hartford Stage), Tracy Letts’ SUPERIOR DONUTS (on Broadway), and Tarell McCraney’s THE BROTHER SISTER PLAYS at Steppenwolf, where she is an ensemble member and has directed numerous productions including THE TEMPEST, DIARY OF ANNE FRANK, CHERRY ORCHARD, TIME OF YOUR LIFE, BALLAD OF LITTLE JO, her own play SPACE, and many more. Among her other productions are MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM (McCarter/Papermill), Paula Vogel’s CIVIL WAR CHRISTMAS (Long Wharf), BELLS ARE RINGING (Broadway), and book and direction for the musicals FLOYD COLLINS and DREAM TRUE. Tina has won the prestigious United States Artist Fellowship, along with awards from the Princess Grace Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, Pew Charitable Trust, NEA, as well as the Richard Rodgers Award, the Obie, and the Lucille Lortel. She has taught at the Yale School of Drama, Columbia University, NYU, Harvard University, Northwestern, UCSD, and others, along with the SITI Company and previous summers at La MaMa Umbria. She is co-author with Anne Bogart of The Viewpoints Book: A Practical Guide to Viewpoints and Composition published by TCG.
Fall and Recover in Irish Times
Posted March 15, 2011 at 12:58 pm
Irish Modern Dance Theatre rehearse Fall and Recover. Click HERE to see the slide shows
Japan Earthquake Relief
La MaMa is thinking of our friends and family in Japan. Please give support in this time of need. Here are a few links to organizations that are working on relief and recovery in Japan.
Peace Winds Japan http://www.peace-winds.org/en/
JEN http://www.jen-npo.org/en/
ICA Japan http://www.icajapan.org/
KNK Japan http://knk-network.org/
Japanese Red Cross Society via Google http://www.google.com/crisisresponse/japanquake2011.html
Flavorpill picks: Perforations
Posted March 11, 2011 at 3:19 pm
Perforations Festival New York
by Alyssa Alpine, Flavorpill
It takes a lot of determination — to say nothing of time and money — to import an entire festival from Eastern Europe to NYC, but that’s exactly what Zvonimir Dobrović has done. Started by Dobrović in 2009 in Croatia, Perforations brings together artists working outside of the Balkan region’s domineering state-sponsored system. Apparently, a hotbed of activity was fermenting behind the shreds of the Iron Curtain: at LaMama, look for dance and theatre in all sorts of experimental and alternative incarnations, with many of the artists making their US debuts.
Contemporary Performance From the Balkan
Posted March 10, 2011 at 11:07 pm
Contemporary Performance From the Balkan Comes to NYC
Jeremy M. Barker, Culturebot
My idea was, we need a platform, and that’s how Perforacije came about,” Zvonimir Dobrovic told me, by way of explaining the birth of Perforacije (Perforations), the contemporary performance festival dedicated to artists from the Balkans that he founded several years in his native Croatia. “It was just, ‘Let’s try to support the artists we support anyway, but just give them more visibility.’ Because of the political and historic situations of the wars, even though it’s a very small area–from Ljubljana to Zagreb it’s like one and half hours, from Zagreb to Belgrade it’s like five hours–but people don’t travel so much and they don’t know so much. So you wouldn’t know what’s happening in Belgrade, you wouldn’t know what’s happening in Ljubljana.” READ MORE >>
Belarus Free Theatre Returning to New York
Posted at 5:06 pm
Belarus Free Theater Returning to New York
By LARRY ROHTER, New York Times
With their political status still unclear back in their homeland, members of the Belarus Free Theater will be returning to New York next month for a five week run at La MaMa, which along with the Public Theater has offered the group an “artistic residency” as a gesture of solidarity. Beginning April 13, the troupe, which fled Belarus in December during a crackdown by the country’s authoritarian president, Aleksandr G. Lukashenko, will perform three of its original works, including the New York premiere of “Discover Love,” a meditation on marriage and political repression. Rounding out the program are “Being Harold Pinter” and “Zone of Silence,” both of which were critically praised when performed at the Public Theater’s Under the Radar Festival in January.