SpaceBridge
Conceived and Directed by Irina Kruzhilina
In association with En Garde Arts and Visual Echo
Part of Under the Radar
SpaceBridge
A group of Russian refugee children and their American-born peers build a more welcoming world
SpaceBridge is a live performance that brings together Russian refugee children, who fled to the US due to their families’ anti-war stance and now live in NYC shelters, with American peers to build lifelong friendships while coming to terms with their differences. The performance tracks immigrant children as they integrate into American society and wrestle with questions of heritage, collective responsibility, and guilt by association. SpaceBridge is devised and performed by eleven young Russian refugees, aged ten to fifteen, alongside eight American-born participants of the same age. The project draws its inspiration from the 1983 peace mission to the USSR led by eleven-year-old American activist Samantha Smith, who bridged the gap between American and Russian children during the Cold War and is based on a series of creative storytelling workshops with immigrant and non-immigrant youth created and led by Irina Kruzhilina. The workshops are designed to foster interactions between American youth and a variety of immigrant groups with the intended goal of developing a publishable curriculum, involving and training additional teaching artists, and pursuing opportunities for engaging additional refugee communities. We hope to initiate meaningful conversations about the experiences of young refugees from anywhere in the world.
Photo by Maria Baranova
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.
Part of Under The Radar, the annual festival of experimental theater.
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