SpaceBridge

Irina Kruzhilina is a New York-based director, scenographer, visual dramaturg, experience designer and educator, creating work at the intersection of visual art, live performance, and civic engagement. Her creative endeavors range from downtown theater to large scale parades, from opera to site-responsive installations. Since 2005, her work has been shown, locally and globally, at Times Square, Tokyo Disney, BAM, Prague National Theatre, the NY Philharmonic, the XXI Commonwealth Games, Barbican Center, and others. Irina is the founder of Visual Echo, a New York-based performance organization dedicated to facilitating generative dialogues among people from diverse backgrounds. Irina holds the position of associate professor at the New School of Drama, where she co-developed a new MFA program in Contemporary Theatre and Performance. She is a La MaMa resident artist and Joan D. Firestone Fund Award recipient.

SpaceBridge is a co-production between La MaMa ETC, En Garde Arts and Visual Echo and is commissioned by the Joan D. Firestone Commissioning Fund at En Garde Arts. The project is developed in collaboration with the Stella Adler Studio of Acting, which generously provided educational support to help participants acquire valuable performance skills and build their confidence and self-esteem. SpaceBridge is supported by the New School of Drama, with assistance from its students and faculty in the project's development.

La MaMa productions are supported in part by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature, the Howard Gilman Foundation, Radio Drama Network, and The Shubert Foundation. Additional support for SpaceBridge is provided by The Richenthal Foundation.

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Part of Under The Radar, the annual festival of experimental theater.

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Under the Radar is the United States' premier festival of experimental theater and performance art. As a long-time New York City-based platform for cutting-edge work hailing from around the globe. Produced by ArKtype with Festival Director Mark Russell, UTR has been reimagined in its 20th annual season as a city-wide celebration that incisively speaks to our moment. Rather than being tied to a single host institution, Under the Radar's current iteration is curated collaboratively with an array of renowned arts organizations and curators, each harnessing the connective nature of the festival format to introduce some of the world's most innovative multidisciplinary voices to wider audiences. The 2025 edition of UTR will include over 33 distinct programs at 24 theater spaces, presenting more than 250 performances in only 16 days from January 4 to 19. The depth, breadth and excellence of this year's festival serves as proof that collaboration can power the American theater through this era of existential crisis into a reinvigorat

ed future of conjoined artists ready to embrace diversity, challenge and reinvention.

Staff Festival Founder + Director:  Mark Russell 

Co-Creative Director/Producer-in-Residence:  Meropi Peponides 

Co-Creative Director/Artist-in-Residence:  Kaneza Schaal 

Festival Producer:  Thomas O. Kriegsmann & Sami Pyne | ArKtype 

Producer, Symposium & Coming Attractions:  Iyvon E. 

Producer, Marketing & Public Programs:  Bryn Herdrich 

Director of Development:  Kendall Masson 

Director of Production:  Brian Freeland 

Marketing and Communications Strategy:  Sapphire Stubbs | general population 

Communications Manager, Copywriting & Strategy: John Seroff | GreenHouse Publicity Digital 

Engagement and Social Media Lead:  FAILSPACE 

Press Representation: Blake Zidell & Adriana Leshko | Blake Zidell & Associates 

Website Design: Abigail Browde 

Producing Fellow: Joy Chen 

Dramaturgy Fellow: Anastasia Ellis 

Artist & Presenter Services Fellow: Carolina Hurtado Castro 

Public Programs Fellow: Margot Anderson-Song

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