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S T A R R BUSBY presents Working Up A Surrender: A Communal Offering, Part I at the PRELUDE 2024 Festival at the Martin E. Segal Theater Center CUNY. PRELUDE Festival 2024 Working Up A Surrender: A Communal Offering, Part I S T A R R BUSBY 6-8 pm Thursday, October 17, 2024 Elebash Recital Hall Lobby RSVP Working Up A Surrender: A Communal Offering is an experience in support of community building and collective liberation that explores the question 'How can we center connection and care in a rapidly changing world?’ A Communal Offering, Part I will take place in Elebash Recital Hall Lobby, where visitors will each individually be invited to experience a private sound meditation. Visitors are welcome to arrive at Elebash Lobby at any time from 6-8 pm. Please also join us for Working Up A Surrender: A Communal Offering, Part II on Saturday, October 19, 5-5:50 pm in the Segal Theater. Working Up A Surrender: Collective Healing Experiments was first produced at JACK with the support of a NYSCA Grant LOBSTER Nora loves Patti Smith. Nora is Patti Smith. Nora is stoned out of her mind in the Chelsea Hotel. Actually, the Chelsea Hotel is her mind. Actually, the Chelsea Hotel is an out-of-use portable classroom in the Pacific Northwest, and that classroom is a breeding ground for lobsters. LOBSTER by Kallan Dana directed by Hanna Yurfest produced by Emma Richmond with: Anna Aubry, Chris Erdman, Annie Fang, Coco McNeil, Haley Wong Needy Lover presents an excerpt of LOBSTER , a play about teenagers putting on a production of Patti Smith and Sam Shepard's Cowboy Mouth . THE ARTISTS Needy Lover makes performances that are funny, propulsive, weird, and gut-wrenching (ideally all at the same time). We create theatre out of seemingly diametrically opposed forces: our work is both entertaining and unusual, funny and tragic. Needylover.com Kallan Dana is a writer and performer originally from Portland, Oregon. She has developed and presented work with Clubbed Thumb, The Hearth, The Tank, Bramble Theater Company, Dixon Place, Northwestern University, and Lee Strasberg Theatre & Film Institute. She is a New Georges affiliated artist and co-founder of the artist collaboration group TAG at The Tank. She received her MFA from Northwestern University. Upcoming: RACECAR RACECAR RACECAR with The Hearth/Connelly Theater Upstairs (dir. Sarah Blush), Dec 2024. LOBSTER with The Tank (dir. Hanna Yurfest), April/May 2025. Needylover.com and troveirl.com Hanna Yurfest is a director and producer from Richmond, MA. She co-founded and leads The Tank’s artist group TAG and creates work with her company, Needy Lover. Emma Richmond is a producer and director of performances and events. She has worked with/at HERE, The Tank, The Brick, and Audible, amongst others. She was The Tank’s 2022-23 Producing Fellow, and is a member of the artist group TAG. Her day job is Programs Manager at Clubbed Thumb, and she also makes work with her collective Trove, which she co-founded. www.emma-richmond.com Rooting for You The Barbarians It's the Season Six premiere of 'Sava Swerve's: The Model Detector' and Cameron is on it!!! June, Willa, and (by proximity) Sunny are hosting weekly viewing parties every week until Cameron gets cut, which, fingers crossed, is going to be the freakin' finale! A theatrical playground of a play that serves an entire season of 'so-bad-it's-good' reality TV embedded in the social lives of a friend group working through queerness, adolescence, judgment, and self-actualization. Presenting an excerpt from Rooting for You! with loose staging, experimenting with performance style, timing, and physicality. THE ARTISTS Ashil Lee (he/they) NYC-based actor, playwright, director, and sex educator. Korean-American, trans nonbinary, child of immigrants, bestie to iconic pup Huxley. Described as "a human rollercoaster" and "Pick a lane, buddy!" by that one AI Roast Bot. 2023 Lucille Lortel nominee (Outstanding Ensemble: The Nosebleed ) and Clubbed Thumb Early Career Writers Group Alum. NYU: Tisch. BFA in Acting, Minor in Youth Mental Health. Masters Candidate in Mental Health and Wellness (NYU Steinhardt: 20eventually), with intentions of incorporating mental health consciousness into the theatre industry. www.ashillee.com Phoebe Brooks is a gender non-conforming theater artist interested in establishing a Theatre of Joy for artists and audiences alike. A lifelong New Yorker, Phoebe makes art that spills out beyond theater-going conventions and forges unlikely communities. They love messing around with comedy, heightened text, and gender performance to uncover hidden histories. She's also kind of obsessed with interactivity; particularly about figuring out how to make audience participation less scary for audiences. Phoebe has a BA in Theatre from Northwestern University and an MFA in Theatre Directing from Columbia University's School of the Arts. The Barbarians is a word-drunk satirical play exploring political rhetoric and the power of words on the world. With cartoonish wit and rambunctious edge, it asks: what if the President tried to declare war, but the words didn't work? Written by Jerry Lieblich and directed by Paul Lazar, it will premiere in February 2025 at LaMama. The Barbarians is produced in association with Immediate Medium, and with support from the Venturous Theater Fund of the Tides Foundation. THE ARTISTS Jerry Lieblich (they/them) plays in the borderlands of theater, poetry, and music. Their work experiments with language as a way to explore unexpected textures of consciousness and attention. Plays include Mahinerator (The Tank), The Barbarians (La Mama - upcoming), D Deb Debbie Deborah (Critic’s Pick: NY Times), Ghost Stories (Critic’s Pick: TimeOut NY), and Everything for Dawn (Experiments in Opera). Their poetry has appeared in Foglifter, Second Factory, TAB, Grist, SOLAR, Pomona Valley Review, Cold Mountain Review, and Works and Days. Their poetry collection otherwise, without was a finalist for The National Poetry Series. Jerry has held residencies at MacDowell, MassMoCA, Blue Mountain Center, Millay Arts, and UCROSS, and Yiddishkayt. MFA: Brooklyn College. www.thirdear.nyc Paul Lazar is a founding member, along with Annie-B Parson, of Big Dance Theater. He has co-directed and acted in works for Big Dance since 1991, including commissions from the Brooklyn Academy of Music, The Old Vic (London), The Walker Art Center, Classic Stage Co., New York Live Arts, The Kitchen, and Japan Society. Paul directed Young Jean Lee’s We’re Gonna Die which was reprised in London featuring David Byrne. Other directing credits include Bodycast with Francis McDormand (BAM), Christina Masciotti’s Social Security (Bushwick Starr), and Major Bang (for The Foundry Theatre) at Saint Ann’s Warehouse. Awards include two Bessies (2010, 2002), the Jacob’s Pillow Creativity Award (2007), and the Prelude Festival’s Frankie Award (2014), as well an Obie Award for Big Dance in 2000. Steve Mellor has appeared on Broadway (Big River ), Off-Broadway (Nixon's Nixon ) and regionally at Arena Stage, Long Wharf Theater, La Jolla Playhouse, Portland Stage and Yale Rep. A longtime collaborator with Mac Wellman, Steve has appeared in Wellman's Harm’s Way, Energumen, Dracula, Cellophane, Terminal Hip (OBIE Award), Sincerity Forever, A Murder of Crows, The Hyacinth Macaw, 7 Blowjobs (Bessie Award), Strange Feet, Bad Penny, Fnu Lnu, Bitter Bierce (OBIE Award), and Muazzez . He also directed Mr. Wellman's 1965 UU. In New York City, he has appeared at the Public Theater, La Mama, Soho Rep, Primary Stages, PS 122, MCC Theater, The Chocolate Factory, and The Flea. His film and television credits include Sleepless in Seattle, Mickey Blue Eyes, Celebrity, NYPD Blue, Law and Order, NY Undercover, and Mozart in the Jungle. Chloe Claudel is an actor and director based in NYC and London. She co-founded the experimental company The Goat Exchange, with which she has developed over a dozen new works of theater and film, including Salome, or the Cult of the Clitoris: a Historical Phallusy in last year's Prelude Festival. She's thrilled to be working with Paul and Jerry on The Barbarians . Anne Gridley is a two time Obie award-winning actor, dramaturg, and artist. As a founding member of Nature Theater of Oklahoma, she has co-created and performed in critically acclaimed works including Life & Times, Poetics: A Ballet Brut, No Dice, Romeo & Juliet, and Burt Turrido . In addition to her work with Nature Theater, Gridley has performed with Jerôme Bel, Caborca, 7 Daughters of Eve, and Big Dance, served as a Dramaturg for the Wooster Group’s production Who’s Your Dada ?, and taught devised theater at Bard College. Her drawings have been shown at H.A.U. Berlin, and Mass Live Arts. B.A. Bard College; M.F.A. Columbia University. Naren Weiss is an actor/writer who has worked onstage (The Public Theater, Second Stage, Kennedy Center, Geffen Playhouse, international), in TV (ABC, NBC, CBS, Comedy Central), and has written plays that have been performed across the globe (India, Singapore, South Africa, U.S.). Upcoming: The Sketchy Eastern European Show at The Players Theatre (Mar. '24). S T A R R busby (they/she/he/we - all pronouns said with respect) is a Black experimental artist who sings, acts, composes, educates, and is committed to the liberation of all people. A recent recipient of a NYSCA grant, S T A R R leads a music project under their name which will release a debut project in 2024 - Working Up A Surrender . She is also the lead singer of dance&b band People's Champs (www.peopleschampsnyc.com ) which released their latest project, Show Up, in the Fall of 2023. S T A R R has also supported and collaborated with artists such as The Gorillaz, Esperanza Spalding, Son Lux, X Ambassadors, Kimbra, Alice Smith, and Quelle Chris. Selected credits: If You Unfolded Us (Sable Elyse Smith, MoMA); Rest Within the Wake (James Allister Sprang, Baryshnikov Arts Center, Featured Soloist); (pray) (Ars Nova and National Black Theatre, A Singer, Composer, and Music Director)*Lucille Lortel Award Winner; The Beautiful Lady (La Mama, Boris); On Sugarland (NYTW, co-composer); Octet (Signature Theatre, Paula) *Drama Desk Award Winner; Mikrokosmos, Sterischer Herbst (Graz), Nottingham Contemporary; The Girl with the Incredible Feeling , Spoleto Festival dei Due Mondi. All music available via Bandcamp and all streaming services. Love, gratitude and ashé to my blessed honorable ancestors, especially MME. linktr.ee/S_T_A_R_R Explore more performances, talks and discussions at PRELUDE 2024 See What's on

Encounter Richard Move / MoveOpolis!'s work Devrai (Sacred Grove) in Manhattan, at this year's edition of the Prelude in the Parks festival by The Segal Centre, presented in collaboration with Summer on the Hudson and Riverside Park Conservancy. Prelude in the Parks 2024 Festival Devrai (Sacred Grove) Richard Move / MoveOpolis! Dance Friday, June 7, 2024 @ 6pm and 6:30pm Riverside Park, Manhattan Meet at Riverside Drive and 79th Street. Performance on 80th St Lawn Summer on the Hudson and Riverside Park Conservancy Presented by Mov!ng Culture Projects and The Segal Center in collaboration with Presented by Mov!ng Culture Projects and The Segal Center View Location Details RSVP To Event "Devrai (Sacred Grove)” calls attention to our local ecosystems and landscapes. The Indian word “Devrai” is a compound of Dev meaning 'God' and 'Rai' meaning forest. A prehistoric tradition of nature conservation, sacred groves have long been revered as sacrosanct and imbued with the belief that no creature may be harmed within its boundaries. This performance of Devrai (Sacred Grove) is a section of Richard Move’s Herstory of the Universe series commissioned by the Trust for Governors Island as part of Herstory of the Universe@Governors Island, named “Best Dance of 2021” by The New York Times. Devrai (Sacred Grove) will be performed by Aristotle Luna (Complexions Contemporary Ballet, Richard Move / MoveOpolis!) at 6:00pm and again at 6:30pm. Featured Image Credits: Akua Noni Parker in "Devrai (Sacred Grove)" by Ben DeFlorio. Richard Move / MoveOpolis! Richard Move, Ph.D., M.F.A. is a 2023 Guggenheim Fellow, TED Global Oxford Fellow, New York Public Library Dance Research Fellow, Artistic Director of MoveOpolis! and Assistant Arts Professor at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, Department of Dance. Move's choreographic commissions include productions for Mikhail Baryshnikov and the White Oak Dance Project, two works for the Martha Graham Dance Company, a solo for New York City Ballet Principal, Heléne Alexopoulos, and a trio for PARADIGM - Carmen De Lavallade, Gus Solomons, Jr. and Dudley Williams. Visit Artist Website Location Meet at Riverside Drive and 79th Street. Performance on 80th St Lawn Summer on the Hudson and Riverside Park Conservancy Summer on the Hudson is NYC Parks' annual outdoor arts and culture festival that takes place in Riverside Park from 59th Street to 153rd Street. With a mix of music concerts, dance performances, movies under the stars, DJ dance parties, kids shows, special events, wellness activities, and more there is something for everyone! All programs and events are free to the public and registration is not required unless specifically stated in event information. The mission of the Riverside Park Conservancy is to restore, maintain, and improve Riverside Park in partnership with the City of New York for the enjoyment and benefit of all New Yorkers. We support the preservation of the park’s historic landscape, structures, and monuments, engage the community in active stewardship of the park, and provide a wide range of public programs. Visit Partner Website

Watch The Jacket by Mathijs Poppe at the Segal Film Festival on Theatre and Performance 2025. What begins as an intimate portrait of Jamal Hindawi — a Palestinian artist doing political theater in Beirut’s Shatila Refugee camp — transforms into a captivating journey. We discover a Lebanon rarely seen — one where hope persists despite hardship and where community transcends crisis. His story weaves together the profound connection to his Palestinian homeland with an intimate exploration of a country and its people learning to navigate an uncertain present.. The Martin E. Segal Theater Center presents The Jacket At the Segal Theatre Film and Performance Festival 2025 A film by Mathijs Poppe Screening Information This film will be screened in-person at The Segal Centre on Friday May 16th at 3:55pm. RSVP Please note there is limited seating available for in-person screenings at The Segal Centre, which are offered on a first-come first-serve basis. You may RSVP above to get a reminder about the Segal Film Festival in your inbox. Country Netherlands Language Arabic Running Time 71 minutes Year of Release 2024 About The Film About The Retrospective What begins as an intimate portrait of Jamal Hindawi — a Palestinian artist doing political theater in Beirut’s Shatila Refugee camp — transforms into a captivating journey. We discover a Lebanon rarely seen — one where hope persists despite hardship and where community transcends crisis. His story weaves together the profound connection to his Palestinian homeland with an intimate exploration of a country and its people learning to navigate an uncertain present. About The Artist(s) Mathijs Poppe, born in 1990 in Ghent (Belgium), graduated in 2017 with great distinction from School of Arts Ghent (KASK) with OURS IS A COUNTRY OF WORDS. For this medium length documentary, he worked together with a couple of families in Shatila, a Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon, to tell a story that balances on the thin line between fiction and documentary. The film was selected for Visions du Réel, screened at numerous international film festivals around the world and got awarded with a Wildcard by the Flanders Audiovisual Fund (VAF). Since then, Mathijs has developed several film and video projects as a director, cameraman and editor. At the moment Mathijs is working on his first feature film, THE JACKET, in which he will continue and deepen his collaboration with the Palestinian community in Lebanon. Get in touch with the artist(s) rebecca@plutofilm.de and follow them on social media https://www.plutofilm.de/films/the-jacket/0092 Find out all that’s happening at Segal Center Film Festival on Theatre and Performance (FTP) 2025 by following us on Facebook , Twitter , Instagram and YouTube See the full festival schedule here His Head was a Sledgehammer Richard Foreman in Retrospect Moi-même Mojo Lorwin/Lee Breuer Benjamim de Oliveira's Open Paths Catappum! Collective Peak Hour in the House Blue Ka Wing Transindigenous Assembly Joulia Strauss Bila Burba Duiren Wagua JJ Pauline L. Boulba, Aminata Labor, Lucie Brux Acting Sophie Fiennes; Cheek by Jowl; Lone Star; Amoeba Film PACI JULIETTE ROUDET Radical Move ANIELA GABRYEL Funambulism, Hanging by a Thread Jean-Baptiste Mathieu This is Ballroom Juru and Vitã Reas Lola Arias The Jacket Mathijs Poppe Pidikwe Caroline Monnet Resilience Juan David Padilla Vega The Brink of Dreams Nada Riyadh, Ayman El Amir Jesus and The Sea Ricarda Alvarenga Grand Theft Hamlet Sam Crane & Pinny Grylls Theater of War Oleh Halaidych Skywalk Above Prague Václav Flegl, Jakub Voves Somber Tides Chantal Caron / Fleuve Espace Danse

This installation will be open on Friday Oct 13th (6pm-9pm), Saturday Oct 14th (12pm-6pm) and Sunday Oct 15th (12pm-6pm). “Qualia” is a sensory voyage where the line is blurred between the physical and the digital world, between the real and the imaginary. The gaze is a visual poem, gravitational Qualia: anxiety shaped into Surrealism, a nightmare turned fantasy, spontaneous solidarity, feelings of solitude, suspension, an embrace, the beginning of a smile, a hand holding sand, falling and rising again. Conceived as an immersive projection mapping design using cinematographic language and interactive dramaturgy, “Qualia” explores concepts of mental states, symbolism, and hope, creating a story that unfolds across a series of immersive scenarios drawing from the body, faces, urban patterns, nature and remains of activity. Underneath these mirrored imageries lie many stories about limits, freedom, and self-perception. An ordinary tableau becomes a dreamscape; the brain is an airport, a train rail. The mind is a magician, and the body is the self, giving the audience an alternative experience where they are no longer passive spectators and actively enter the very heart of the piece where ‘universal time’ continues to exist in parallel with an inner perception of time — a back door — intimately associated with our sense of personal identity and unshakable condition that the future is still open to our chosen actions. The brain is an alchemist where memories are the bedrock of consciousness. The piece uses choreographic language, fragmentation, bioart, color, motion, music, drama, humor, light and darkness to confound expectations, dream-like scenes, and symbolic images, flattening space through animation and abstraction, or heightening the illusion of three dimensions. The immersive experience - environmental video sculpture - is designed as a large wall with white canvases spread across, seemingly in random positions, creating video spaces. Using the concept of ideasthesia, a bridge that metaphorically links rational abstractions, we open a dialogue between the different film streams - within the canvases and throughout the wall - with an original music score and sound design, extending the installation in time and space. PRELUDE Festival 2023 PERFORMANCE QUALIA – You Matter to Me Immersive Cinematic Art Installation Directed by Laia Cabrera & Isabelle Duverger Music and Sound Design by Nana Simopoulos With the participation of Catherine Correa Multimedia Non-Verbal October 13-15 at Jersey City Theater Center 6:00PM EST Friday, October 13, 2023 Jersey City Theater Center, Barrow Street, Jersey City, NJ, USA Free Entry, Open To All This installation will be open on Friday Oct 13th (6pm-9pm), Saturday Oct 14th (12pm-6pm) and Sunday Oct 15th (12pm-6pm). “Qualia” is a sensory voyage where the line is blurred between the physical and the digital world, between the real and the imaginary. The gaze is a visual poem, gravitational Qualia: anxiety shaped into Surrealism, a nightmare turned fantasy, spontaneous solidarity, feelings of solitude, suspension, an embrace, the beginning of a smile, a hand holding sand, falling and rising again. Conceived as an immersive projection mapping design using cinematographic language and interactive dramaturgy, “Qualia” explores concepts of mental states, symbolism, and hope, creating a story that unfolds across a series of immersive scenarios drawing from the body, faces, urban patterns, nature and remains of activity. Underneath these mirrored imageries lie many stories about limits, freedom, and self-perception. An ordinary tableau becomes a dreamscape; the brain is an airport, a train rail. The mind is a magician, and the body is the self, giving the audience an alternative experience where they are no longer passive spectators and actively enter the very heart of the piece where ‘universal time’ continues to exist in parallel with an inner perception of time — a back door — intimately associated with our sense of personal identity and unshakable condition that the future is still open to our chosen actions. The brain is an alchemist where memories are the bedrock of consciousness. The piece uses choreographic language, fragmentation, bioart, color, motion, music, drama, humor, light and darkness to confound expectations, dream-like scenes, and symbolic images, flattening space through animation and abstraction, or heightening the illusion of three dimensions. The immersive experience - environmental video sculpture - is designed as a large wall with white canvases spread across, seemingly in random positions, creating video spaces. Using the concept of ideasthesia, a bridge that metaphorically links rational abstractions, we open a dialogue between the different film streams - within the canvases and throughout the wall - with an original music score and sound design, extending the installation in time and space. Content / Trigger Description: The piece uses choreographic language, fragmentation, bioart, color, motion, music, drama, humor, light and darkness to confound expectations, dream-like scenes, and symbolic images, flattening space through animation and abstraction, or heightening the illusion of three dimensions. JCTC presents QUALIA – You Matter to Me Produced by Laia Cabrera & Co. Laia Cabrera (Filmmaker and video artist) Laia Cabrera a multimedia artist working in immersive content experiences and visual storytelling. Her work includes traditional and experimental filmmaking, site-specific projection mapping, visual poetry, virtual reality and immersive interactive art installations. Identity and consciousness have been a long research in her work exploring concepts of mental states, symbolism and hope, creating stories that unfold across a series of immersive interactive scenarios. Her first interdisciplinary exhibition aimed to revitalize and strengthen the intercommunication of different artistic languages. Since then, her projects are searching new ways of using the space and the visual imaginary as a tool for narrative storytelling and audience connection. Interactivity and experienceability are intrinsically part of her new work, always challenging the conventional form and designed to be native to multiple platforms and exhibitions. Sculpting time through a looking-glass and creating a sensorial experience, her quest is to establish a language that makes this relationship possible and to invent stories to be told, stories that represent a profound exploration of the human experience in contemporary artwork. laiacabrera.com laiacabreraco.com Isabelle Duverger (Visual artist) Isabelle Duverger is a French Kabyle award-winning visual artist based in Jersey City for the past fifteen years. Her work as a painter and immersive interactive installation artist has been presented throughout the US, Asia and Europe. It includes public art with projection mapping on buildings, immersive interactive video and sound installations, projection art for theater and dance, video-art and animation. She is the recipient of the 2023 Artist Fellowship Grant awards by JCAC Trust Fund, 2021 Motion Award Nominee and 2022 Hybrid Vision Panasonic Digital Art Competition Nominee. Her work has been presented in Spring/Break Art Show, St John the Divine Cathedral, Time Square Plaza in New York, Nuit Blanche Washington DC, Fabra i Coats Contemporary Art Center, Barcelona, Spain and Tempietto Di Bramante, Roma, Italy, Hong Kong City Hall among others. isabelleduverger.com Nana Simopoulos (Musician and Sound Designer) Nana has been on the forefront of world fusion music with several recordings of original music, soundtracks, music for dance and theater. CDs include Daughters Of The Sun, After The Moon, Still Waters, Wings and Air, Skins and Live at the B&W Montreux Music Festival, Vol. II. She has performed with the New York City Opera and RAI Symphony Orchestra in Torino, Italy, and with her group at the Warsaw Electronic Festival, Symphony Space, Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center and St John the Divine NYC. Her musical quartet appeared in Lykavitos and Veakeo at the 1st Cultural Capital of Europe festival in Athens in 1985. She has created dance commissions for Dance Theatre of Harlem, the Joffrey Ballet, American Dance Festival, Ballet Hispanico, and North Carolina Dance Theater. She has conducted original works at the Joyce theatre in NYC, on Broadway and her score “Vessel” was performed by Westfield Symphony Orchestra. Her film scores are for Domain of the Senses; Touch and she has made music for theatrical productions of Antigone Through Time, Conversations With the Goddesses, by Soho Repertory Theatre. Musicals include An Absolute Mystery, Matrix Maison, Studs Turkel’s American Dreams, Lost and Found. She has written music for multimedia production Turbulence’s Tilt and is currently collaborating with Laia Cabrera and Co in creating music for live interactive immersive video art. nana.net Catherine Correa (Performer and interdisciplinary artist) Catherine Correa is an interdisciplinary artist and dance dramaturg hailing from Colombia and currently based in Brooklyn. Ms. Correa's illustrious journey includes active involvement in international programs dedicated to performance development, creative movement, and theater production. Her invaluable expertise has significantly contributed to the growth of theaters, performers, and workshops on a global scale, spanning South America, the United States, and Europe. catherinecorrea.com Website: www.laiacabreraco.com Immersive Art: www.laiacabreraco.com/immersive-art Portfolio: www.laiacabreraco.com/portfolio Instagram: www.instagram.com/laiacabreraco Watch Recording Explore more performances, talks and discussions at PRELUDE 2023 See What's on

European Stages serves as an inclusive English-language journal, providing a detailed perspective on the unfolding narrative of contemporary European theatre since 1969. Back to Top Article References Authors Keep Reading < Back European Stages 20, 2025 Volume Visit Journal Homepage The Puzzle: A new musical in the Spoleto Festival, Italy presented by La MaMa Umbria By Alex Lefevre Published: July 1, 2025 Download Article as PDF The Puzzle is a new original musical with music and lyrics by Alex Lefevre, Assistant Professor of Theatre at Coastal Carolina University and libretto by Marybeth Berry, Associate Professor of Theatre at the University of South Carolina: Lancaster and received its European premiere in the Spoleto Festival in Spoleto, Italy as a part of the La MaMa Spoleto Open curated by La MaMa Umbria International in June 2025. The musical debuted in a developmental reading at Coastal Carolina University as a part of their new works series in May 2024. This production in Spoleto, Italy marked the first fully staged production of the musical. The Puzzle takes place in Berlin, Maryland and tells the story of Jenna Adams, her mother Nanette, her six-year-old son Jake, and his two aunts Erica and Susan. In the opening number, “One Day”, the characters go through their daily routines until Jake’s father and Jenna’s husband, Scott, is killed in a car crash. Jake, overwhelmed by grief, is unresponsive until Jenna creates a song to accompany an old puzzle of Scott’s which serves as a breakthrough for the young boy. Nanette, the town busybody, sets up Jenna on a blind date with Taylor, a florist new to town. All goes well until Nanette suddenly bursts into their date and proclaims that her dog Mitzi has been injured by one of Jake’s puzzle pieces striking her in the eye. As a result, Nanette throws the puzzle in the trash, sending Jenna and Taylor on a date in the dumpster to successfully retrieve it. At the town’s fall festival, Jake begins to play the puzzle song by ear at the keyboard which Jenna attributes to the musical ability of her late husband and seeing it as a sign to move on. Through the course of the song “I Can Teach You”, Jenna and Susan convince Erica to teach piano lessons to Jake and over a decade passes highlighting major events including Taylor’s proposal to Jenna, the death of Mitzi, and Jake’s acceptance into NYU. At the end of Act I, it is revealed that Susan will be taking Jake to New York City and moving there herself as a part of a separation from Erica. Act II begins with a married Taylor and Jenna now working together at the flower shop and Jenna sharing a secret passion: writing children’s books. Jake, a sophomore music major at NYU, is unsure that he wants to continue studying music as he feels he is living in the shadow of his deceased father. Susan travels with Jake to Maryland for spring break and is served divorce papers by Erica. At an explosive family dinner, chaos ensues when the impending divorce is revealed to the family along with Jake’s plan to take a gap year in Africa. Erica and Jenna storm out with Susan and Jake following behind. Susan takes responsibility for leaving and the couple vow to find a way forward, while Jake apologizes to Jenna who gives her unconditional love to her son. In the final scene, five years have passed, and Jake is now married with a child on the way. Erica and Susan are living in New York together, Jenna is a successful writer, Taylor has hired a new store manager, and Nanette has tragically passed away. Susan speaks at the opening of her latest art exhibit based on her family, gathered in support, entitled “The Puzzle”. Marybeth Berry and I began writing The Puzzle in January of 2021. COVID-19 had crippled the theatre industry, and the world, and writing this show became our creative escape. We would meet weekly on Zoom to work and create weekly writing goals. We would start by discussing the characters and what we would ideally like to happen during a scene. The next meeting, we would read through the newly written scene, and I would choose moments that I felt would “sing” and began work on crafting a song. As our show is entitled The Puzzle , we attempted to shine the light equally on our different characters so that it was a true ensemble piece with each one of the characters representing a piece of our figurative puzzle. In the words of librettist Marybeth Berry, “It had been years of laboring to create the characters, the relationship dynamics and ultimately the story. Similar to Thornton Wilder’s Our Town, The Puzzle focuses on life, loss, grief, love pain, triumph and survival. We can all see ourselves in this piece and we can all relate to a character, relationship, or simple moment because, in the words of the show, ‘it’s often in the mundane that we find the momentous.’” Songs and scenes were constantly being tweaked but by the start of 2024, we had a strong working draft of the libretto and score. Coastal Carolina University selects a new musical every May to be developed as a reading in their New Works Series and The Puzzle was honored to be the selection for 2024. Adam Pelty, Associate Professor of Theatre, helmed the reading as the director and Micah Young was the Music Director. Through the course of one week of rehearsals, new songs and scenes were implemented and seeds of ideas for the Spoleto production were planted. In the original CCU reading, the character of Scott had already passed as we started our prologue. Pelty suggested that there would be great power if the audience could experience the death first-hand. After being accepted into the Spoleto Festival, a new opening number was written with the car crash and funeral embedded in the opening number. While the original lyrics of the opening number “One Day” were kept for the start with each of the characters describing their everyday routines, it now ends after the funeral with the characters singing lines like “One Day is just like the others until one day it’s not” and “One day I will wash his coffee mug, right now I can’t put it away”. For the production in Spoleto, three new songs were implemented as well as significant cuts to the book to streamline our storytelling. While The Puzzle runs two hours and 30 minutes including a fifteen-minute intermission, with our Friday night Spoleto performance starting at 9:30pm, ensuring that we were maintaining our running time was essential. Reflecting on the process of putting up this production, Shelby Sessler who played Erica says “Watching pieces get moved, added, and cut from the reading to the production itself was fascinating to watch. We were experimenting with how each scene read even up to our opening to find the right tone to tell the story. It felt like a whirlwind of creativity.” There was no better place to experience this whirlwind than La MaMa Umbria. Full Cast of The Puzzle La MaMa Umbria is described on their website as a “non-profit cultural center and artist residence founded in 1990 by legendary theatre pioneer, Ellen Stewart.” Even with seeing all the photos available online, nothing can prepare one for the sheer beauty of this remarkable theatre space. Lisa Neal Baker who played the role Nanette shares “Every time we would return from an outing or a day of work, it felt like we were walking back into a serene fairytale- flowers blooming, birds chirping, butterflies everywhere with majestic mountains as your backdrop. With only eight days to come together to put this incredibly touching story together, having the calm, quiet serenity of La MaMa made it that much easier to focus, create and develop our characters and how their individual stories touched each other.” Actor Zach Hathaway, who played Jake, had previously performed at La MaMa Umbria in another production with Marybeth Berry. He states “Returning to La MaMa Umbria for the second time has been an incredibly special and fulfilling experience. There’s something truly magical about being in a space so deeply committed to nurturing artists and celebrating the craft of performance. Ever since my first time here three years ago, I’ve longed to return to that creative atmosphere, where collaboration and artistic exploration are at the heart of everything.” The staff of La MaMa Umbria ensured that our experience would be a positive one. They welcomed us with open arms, provided phenomenal meals with ingredients often plucked out of their on-site garden, and even splashed our bus with buckets of water as we pulled out of their driveway as a symbol of safe travel and hopefully an eventual return. Kenley Juback, who played Susan, echoes this sentiment: “Not only is the scenery irrevocably beautiful but so are the people. The love, friendship and artistry that finds you here from the La Mama Umbria staff is rare.” In fact, our performances of The Puzzle were filled with staff from La MaMa Umbria who came to support our work and promote new musical theatre. Known primarily for producing experimental theatre, La MaMa Umbria embraced our show in an astounding way. Director Jason Trucco, who was also in residence at La MaMa Umbria with us stated “I think the most experimental thing that can be done at an experimental theatre today is a Broadway musical.” Performing in a festival brings its own set of unique challenges, especially when it comes to the technical aspects of performance. In order to create the different locations, present in The Puzzle , we decided to turn to projections to set the scenes in addition to basic set pieces. According to Hans Boeschen, our stage manager and technical director, “The idea of projections arose from the challenge of visualizing the final scene which reveals an art gallery. The idea of this gallery installment is so unique that a projection was really our only option to capture the symbolism and heart of the moment. Using various A.I. tools, I worked to create backgrounds that not only helped identify the setting, but, hopefully, reflected the aspects of the characters and underlying themes of the book.” The use of A.I to create backgrounds was not a simple process as rarely did the computer outputs match what we as a team had in mind artistically. However, there were some happy accidents that occurred in the creation of the projections. Boeschen explains “Unintended interpretations from the computer could lead to some interesting deeper symbology. For example, Susan’s character struggles to connect with her art early in the production. I had asked A.I. to include blank canvases lying against the wall. Instead, it gave me an image where all the canvases were turned away and all we saw were their backs, almost as though Susan couldn’t bear to look at them.” The final projection of Susan’s art gallery display proved be the most difficult. No matter how precise the description we provided the computer, it could not produce anything with the necessary heart to culminate our piece. In the end, it was the original paintings of our cast member Shelby Sessler who played Erica, that we were able to scan into the computer to create the final images of Susan’s art instillation. Even with a simplified set, transitions between scenes still proved to be a challenge. We initially had our actors dragging tables and chairs from backstage before and after every number. Not only did this prove to be laborious, but also time consuming. Director Jared McNeill, also in residence at La MaMa Umbria, came to one of our early runs and provided the suggestion that we leave the set pieces on the side of the stage and allow our audience to see the actors putting together the set as they would put together the pieces of a puzzle. This brilliant suggestion not only helped us to facilitate our transitions in a more efficient way, but it also aided in our storytelling. Our actors began to see the transitions not just as necessary stage business but as extensions of their characters. Actor Alex Cowsert who played Taylor says “It was important for me to continue the story forward when assisting with scene transitions by remaining in the correct time period for the show. For example, if I was helping with a transition in the second act, I wanted to keep my older Taylor’s glasses on so it wouldn’t seem I was ‘out of character’.” Being at La MaMa Umbria allowed us as a creative team to get input from international directors like Jason Trucco and Jared McNeill. Their creative questions and ideas sparked many conversations about the next iteration of this musical for which we as authors are incredibly grateful. Kenley Juback performs “Something To Fix” The final piece of the puzzle of any theatrical work is always the audience, which in the case of this production, was Italian. While there is a song with a chorus in Italian, “Bambola Mia”, The Puzzle is a musical that is performed in English. Adriana Garbagnati, part of the La Mama Umbria family and an enormous supporter of our show, suggested that we write a synopsis of the show and provide copies to the audience much as one would receive at an opera. Blaize Berry, son to librettist Marybeth Berry and technical assistant for the production, wrote a thorough synopsis of the show that I then translated into Italian. Though most of our audience had a basic facility with English, the synopsis proved to be useful as we noted many of our audience members following along as the show progressed. Even with the added challenge of the show being performed in English, our audiences were still able to be moved by the show as was evidenced by the sniffles and tears present during our run. Librettist Marybeth Berry states “The themes in this show resonate with all walks of life and all cultures. The language barrier taught us that our show has more to offer than just entertainment. It touches others deeply and profoundly. Audience members recognized their own loved ones and own life experiences in our creation. It was a gift that transcends all typical barriers because of its simplicity.” Katie Gatch and Alex Cowsert perform “Dumpster Diving” The Puzzle has had an incredible journey from our living rooms in South Carolina on Zoom to the stage of La MaMa Umbria as a part of the Spoleto Festival in Italy. Actor Katie Gatch who played Jenna, said that working on a production of a new musical “felt like a door popping into existence in front of me, the threshold uncrossed, and I get to be the one to see what’s on the other side.” With the support of La MaMa Umbria, we certainly were able to see what’s on the other side, and it was thrilling. Writing and producing a new musical is a complicated process, but one that is ultimately highly rewarding. After this run, The Puzzle , or Il Puzzle as it was called in Italy, has only just begun to have its pieces assembled. Image Credits: Article References References About the author(s) Alex Lefevre (composer/lyricist The Puzzle) is an Assistant Professor of Theatre at Coastal Carolina University in Conway, SC. He has played on Broadway in the orchestras of Aladdin, Anastasia, Beetlejuice, Cats, Newsies , and White Christmas , along with work Off-Broadway including The Fantasticks and Avenue Q and on national tour with Anastasia, Hairspray, and Irving Berlin’s I Love a Piano . An avid proponent of new musicals, Lefevre has music directed productions in both the New York Musical Theatre Festival and New York Fringe Festival as well as at 54 Below, The York Theatre Company, Primary Stages, and Ars Nova. As a composer, his work has been featured in the NEO Concert at the York Theatre Company celebrating New, Emerging, and Outstanding musical theatre writers as well as in the San Diego Fringe Festival, the Scranton Fringe Festival, the New Works Series at Coastal Carolina University and La MaMa Umbria. For the past three years, Lefevre has served as an opera coach for Varna International both in the United States and Italy, working on Mozart’s Don Giovanni , Puccini’s Suor Angelica , and Weill’s Street Scene . European Stages European Stages, born from the merger of Western European Stages and Slavic and East European Performance in 2013, is a premier English-language resource offering a comprehensive view of contemporary theatre across the European continent. With roots dating back to 1969, the journal has chronicled the dynamic evolution of Western and Eastern European theatrical spheres. It features in-depth analyses, interviews with leading artists, and detailed reports on major European theatre festivals, capturing the essence of a transformative era marked by influential directors, actors, and innovative changes in theatre design and technology. European Stages is a publication of the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center. Visit Journal Homepage Table of Contents The 2025 Festival International New Drama (FIND) at Berlin Schaubühne Editor's Statement - European Stages Volume 20 Willem Dafoe in conversation with Theater der Zeit The Puzzle: A new musical in the Spoleto Festival, Italy presented by La MaMa Umbria Varna Summer International Theatre Festival Mary Said What She Said The 62nd Berliner Theatertreffen: Stories and Theatrical Spaces That Realize the Past, Present and Future. Interview with Walter Bart (Artistic Leader, Wunderbaum Collective & Director, Die Hundekot-Attacke) from the 2024 Berliner Theatertreffen Duende and Showbiz: A Theatrical Odyssey Through Spain’s Soul Previous Next Attribution: This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.

The fellowships provide theatre and performance scholars the opportunity to conduct research in New York City for a period of 3 to 6 months. Fellows are given individual work spaces in the Segal Center offices at the Graduate Center CUNY Visiting Scholars Program 2025 GLOBAL VISITING SCHOLARS PROGRAM Marvin Carlson Fellowships Call for Applications The Martin E. Segal Theatre Center at the Graduate Center CUNY is currently accepting applications for its 2025 Global Visiting Scholars Program. Ten scholars of theatre and performance who are currently working outside of the United States will be awarded our new Marvin Carlson Fellowships. This diverse group of fellows will represent communities from a range of geographical areas, including but not limited to Africa; East, South, and South-East Asia; Oceania; Eastern and Central Europe; the Americas; the Caribbean, and the Middle East. Overview The fellowships provide theatre and performance scholars the opportunity to conduct research in New York City for a period of 3 to 6 months. Fellows are given individual work spaces in the Segal Center offices at the Graduate Center CUNY, access to libraries and archives across New York City, and opportunities to share their work in a community setting through monthly salons with other fellows, faculty, and students from the Graduate Center's PhD program in Theatre and Performance. The fellowships do not include financial support from the Segal Center. Fellows are expected to secure their own resources to remain in New York City for the length of their fellowship. Visas, if needed, are processed through the Graduate Center CUNY in accordance with US State Department requirements. These requirements include proof of financial security in the form of bank statements, proof of health insurance as well as documentation of current residency.* Scholars will not be able to teach or enroll in courses at any university while in residence. Application We are accepting applications on a rolling basis. For consideration please submit the following materials via email for review. • One sentence description of project • Name and address of host institution • A 500- to 1000-word project proposal • An academic CV • A writing sample in English Please submit applications and queries to to: segalglobalscholars@gmail.com Email application materials in a single PDF. Incomplete applications will not be considered. Response time: 2-3 months. *Important: For those requiring a visa, the estimated amount of monthly financial resources each fellow is expected to have is $2,000 per month for a single person, $2,500 for a family. In addition, scholars must have $100,000 in medical insurance for each illness or accident, not to exceed a $500 deductible for each illness or accident; $50,000 for evacuation on medical emergency; and $25,000 for repatriation of remains in the event of death. For more information on the visa requirements of the CUNY Visiting Research Scholars Program, see: https://www.gc.cuny.edu/provosts-office/visiting-research-scholars .

Watch PACI by JULIETTE ROUDET at the Segal Film Festival on Theatre and Performance 2025. Choreographer and film director, Juliette Roudet returns to the Island Corsica after a long absence. She wants to question her estranged uncles about events in the past but when that doesn't work, she tries to find the truth through dance. . The Martin E. Segal Theater Center presents PACI At the Segal Theatre Film and Performance Festival 2025 A film by JULIETTE ROUDET Screening Information This film will be screened in-person at The Segal Centre on Saturday May 17th at 11am (as part of the Short Film Program) and also be available to watch online on the festival website till June 8th 2025. RSVP Please note there is limited seating available for in-person screenings at The Segal Centre, which are offered on a first-come first-serve basis. You may RSVP above to get a reminder about the Segal Film Festival in your inbox. Country France Language French Running Time 33 minutes Year of Release 2024 About The Film About The Retrospective Choreographer and film director, Juliette Roudet returns to the Island Corsica after a long absence. She wants to question her estranged uncles about events in the past but when that doesn't work, she tries to find the truth through dance. About The Artist(s) Juliette Roudet is a versatile artist. Trained at the Centre National de Danse Contemporaine in Angers, she was quick to seek out other avenues of interpretation and creation. She was admitted to the Conservatoire National Supérieur d'Art Dramatique de Paris (CNSAD), and has since performed under the direction of David Bobée, Jean Bellorini, Pierre Rigal, Laurent Laffargue, Caroline Marcadé... Since 2016, she has been teaching at the CNSAD and working with numerous artists and directors as a choreographer. In cinema and television, she has appeared in films by Alain Tasma, Manuel Flèche, Gérard Mordillat, Jérôme Cornuau and Ionut Teianu. In 2024, with “Paci”, she signed her first documentary film. Get in touch with the artist(s) dmorel@tsproductions.net and follow them on social media ✨https://www.instagram.com/julietteroudet/ Find out all that’s happening at Segal Center Film Festival on Theatre and Performance (FTP) 2025 by following us on Facebook , Twitter , Instagram and YouTube See the full festival schedule here His Head was a Sledgehammer Richard Foreman in Retrospect Moi-même Mojo Lorwin/Lee Breuer Benjamim de Oliveira's Open Paths Catappum! Collective Peak Hour in the House Blue Ka Wing Transindigenous Assembly Joulia Strauss Bila Burba Duiren Wagua JJ Pauline L. Boulba, Aminata Labor, Lucie Brux Acting Sophie Fiennes; Cheek by Jowl; Lone Star; Amoeba Film PACI JULIETTE ROUDET Radical Move ANIELA GABRYEL Funambulism, Hanging by a Thread Jean-Baptiste Mathieu This is Ballroom Juru and Vitã Reas Lola Arias The Jacket Mathijs Poppe Pidikwe Caroline Monnet Resilience Juan David Padilla Vega The Brink of Dreams Nada Riyadh, Ayman El Amir Jesus and The Sea Ricarda Alvarenga Grand Theft Hamlet Sam Crane & Pinny Grylls Theater of War Oleh Halaidych Skywalk Above Prague Václav Flegl, Jakub Voves Somber Tides Chantal Caron / Fleuve Espace Danse

The Theatre Project is home to more than 25,000 images from around the world and covering over 3,000 years of theatre history. You will find each image in the collection has a descriptive title, along with information about its period and country. Images can be browsed by collection as well with groupings including categories such as scenography, actors, etc. Theatre Image Collection Welcome to the CUNY Graduate Center Theatre Project. The Theatre Project is home to more than 25,000 images from around the world and covering over 3,000 years of theatre history. You will find each image in the collection has a descriptive title, along with information about its period and country. Images can be browsed by collection as well with groupings including categories such as scenography, actors, etc. For more than 30 years it has been maintained by Distinguished Professor Marvin Carlson and his students as an important resource for those looking for the visual materials that are a crucial part of theatrical research. Starting in December of 2012, the CUNY Graduate Center Theatre Project moved to the open source software Omeka to increase accessibility and searchability of the many images and to make uploading and cataloging of the images easier. This transition also brought the image database under the auspices of the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center's digital initiatives. The source is available for many images and a citation for each image is also provided on the item view page. Please note the collection is password protected and those interested need to get in touch to receive the login details. For queries related to database access, content and image collection, please write to Prof. Marvin Carlson at mcarlson@gc.cuny.edu or Frank Hentscher at fhentschker@gc.cuny.edu Visit Collection

PRELUDE Festival 2023 PANEL Devised Theater After COVID With Allen Kuharski and others English 60 minutes 3:00PM EST Monday, October 16, 2023 Martin E. Segal Theatre Center, 5th Avenue, New York, NY, USA Free Entry, Open to All American Devised Theater After COVID: Teaching, Archiving and the Practice The past, present, and future of devised physical ensemble theater in the US was the topic of an historic NEH Institute in Philadelphia in June. A diverse group of over 50 professors, artist/teachers, grad students, editors, and archivists from around the country as well as several foreign countries gathered for 12 days to discuss the issues of archiving, criticism, and especially the theoretical and historical teaching of this 60-year-old practice in American and world theater. This exchange was prompted by the recent proliferation of the teaching of the practice of devising in colleges, universities, and drama schools (often without a theoretical, critical, historical framing) and the larger challenges to such innovative live performance following the pandemic, Black Lives Matter, and the growing impact of climate change. The Institute was initiated by Quinn Bauriedel of Pig Iron Theatre Company's School for Devised Performance, and co-hosted by Allen Kuharski of Swarthmore College. The panel at CUNY will consist of participants in the Institute and will be a report and critical reflection on the larger issues that emerged from the Institute. With Allen Kuharski, Rye Gentleman (NYU), Tracy Hazas (CUNY-Queens College), Rebecca Adelsheim, Tom Sellar (YSD) and/or others. TBC. Content / Trigger Description: Allen J. Kuharski is Senior Research Scholar in the Department of Theater at Swarthmore College and teaches in Pig Iron Theater Company’s MFA Program in Devised Performance. Kuharski is a widely published critic and scholar on contemporary directing history, theory, and practice and on modern Polish theater and drama. He is co-editor of the 16-volume Witold Gombrowicz: Collected Writings published by Wydawnictwo Literackie in Kraków. He has served as an editor for journals such Theatre Journal, Slavic & East European Performance, Western European Stages, and Periphery: Journal of Polish Affairs. His articles and reviews have been published in Polish, French, Spanish, Norwegian, German, and Bulgarian translations. His own translations from Polish and French have been widely performed in the United States and abroad. As a dramaturg and translator, he has shared two OBIE Awards and a Fringe First Award, and the Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage has awarded him the country’s Order of Merit. Kuharski was a Fulbright Scholar in Theater to the Polish Academy of Arts & Sciences in Warsaw in 2017-18. With Quinn Bauriedel of Pig Iron, he was Co-Director of the 2023 NEH Institute in Philadelphia titled “Preserving and Transmitting American Ensemble-Based Devised Theatre.” Tom Sellar, a writer, curator, and dramaturg, is Editor of Theater magazine and Professor in the Practice of Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism at Yale University. His writing and criticism have appeared in national publications including Artforum, BOMB, the New York Times, the Guardian, 4Columns, and American Theatre. From 2001-2016 he was a frequent contributor to the Village Voice, where he covered theater and performance art nationally, serving as an Obie award judge and for two terms as chief theater critic. He has also contributed to numerous book anthologies including The Routledge Companion to Dramaturgy; Joined Forces: Audience Participation in Theater; Curating Live Arts: Global Perspectives, Envisioning Theory and Practice in Performance; and the history BAM: The Next Wave Festival. He has curated programs for American Realness, Queer Zagreb, the Institute for Arts and Civic Dialogue (with Anna Deavere Smith), Prague Quadrennial, Philadelphia Fringe Arts, and other organizations. With Antje Oegel, Tom co-curated Prelude 2015 (What Could We Build, or Is the Future Already Behind Us?) and Prelude 2016 (Welcome Failure). Rebecca Adelsheim is a doctoral candidate in Dramaturgy & Dramatic Criticism at the David Geffen School of Drama at Yale where they study queer theater and performance, and lecturer at Tufts University. As a new play dramaturg and producer, Rebecca has worked for companies including Audible Theater, Steppenwolf Theater Company, Baltimore Center Stage, the Goodman Theater, Philadelphia Theater, and Barrington Stage, among others. Recent credits include co-adapator for Affinity based on the novel by Sarah Waters with director Alex Keegan and dramaturg and researcher forsoldiergirls by Em Weinstein. Their writing has been published in Theater magazine, where they also serve as the associate editor. They have received research grants from the Beinecke Library and theFund for Gay and Lesbian Studies (FLAGS) at Yale University and is the recipient of the John W. Gassner Memorial prize and the G. Charles Niemeyer Scholarship. Rebecca is originally from Pittsburgh, PA and received their B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania and their M.F.A. from the Yale School of Drama. Rye Gentleman is the Librarian for Performing Arts in the Division of Libraries. He holds a PhD from University of Minnesota's Theatre Arts & Dance Department and an MLIS from San Jose State University. Gentleman conducts research at the intersection of performance studies, transgender studies, and new media studies. His dissertation-based book project explores the ways transgender embodiment is conceptualized in and shaped by digital media and shows how actual and imagined transgender bodies are enmeshed in digital systems that exert a normative pressure, while also offering the capacity to materialize more expansive actualizations of gendered embodiment. He is also currently working as contributor and co-editor on an anthology focused on transfeminist theatre and performance. His writing has been published in TDR: The Drama Review, QED: A Journal in GLBTQ Worldmaking, Text and Performance Quarterly, and Fifty Key Figures in Queer US Theatre (Routledge). TRACY HAZAS is an actor and movement director. She has performed at NYC theaters including New York City Center, Dixon Place, Abrons Art Center, and Theater for the New City; most recently, she was seen in Preparedness, co-produced by the Bushwick Starr and HERE Arts Center. Hazas is an affiliated artist with Counter-Balance Theater. She is the voice of the Eisenhower Memorial in Washington, D.C., and the Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation, and has appeared in commercials for Xbox, Tide and others. She made her feature debut in White Rabbit at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival. Currently she’s designing movement for The Wolves at Queens College; and developing an original work, Los Kentubanos, which reconstructs moments from her family’s history in Cuba, utilizing archival documents and her father’s digital collection of roughly 30,000 family photos dating from the early 1900s. Hazas teaches performance, movement, collaboration and voice at Queens College (CUNY). Previous academic positions include Lecturer of Acting and Movement at Stanford University, and work at Emerson College Los Angeles, Montclair State University and others. Photo credits: Allen J. Kuharski. Credit by Ted Kostans. Tom Sellar. Photo credit by the artist. Rebecca Adelsheim. Photo credit by the artist. Rye Gentleman. Photo credit by the artist. TRACY HAZAS. Photo credit by the artist. Watch Recording Explore more performances, talks and discussions at PRELUDE 2023 See What's on

European Stages serves as an inclusive English-language journal, providing a detailed perspective on the unfolding narrative of contemporary European theatre since 1969. Back to Top Article References Authors Keep Reading < Back European Stages 19, Fall, 2024 Volume Visit Journal Homepage International Theatre Festival in Pilsen 2024 or The Human Beings and Their Place in Society By Klára Madunická Published: November 25, 2024 Download Article as PDF For thirty-two years the city of Pilsen has hosted the largest international festival in the Czech Republic. In the course of three decades, from an originally smaller cultural event, show-casing theatrical works of the countries of the so-called Visegrad Four, it has developed into a festival that presents the best of theatre from all over the world - from Britain and France, through Germany, the Netherlands, Italy to America, Iceland and Israel. The year 2024 was no exception, with ensembles from all over Europe gathering in Pilsen. From 11th to 19th September, on the new and old stages of the J. K. Tyl Theatre, Alfa Theatre and Moving Station a total of thirty-one productions were presented. And although the 32nd edition of the festival had no specific overarching title, the dramaturgy’s prevalent focus on socially critical themes was evident. The main leitmotif of all the productions included in the main program was the human being's confrontation with their past - be it in personal, national, or generational terms. The Human Being as a Social Construct Human beings as social creatures and their destiny are largely co-shaped by the society in which they live – by its history, its present and the future it heads toward. And certain archetypes can be perceived on the basis of ingrained patterns of behavior that recur in society across the centuries. This was the theme raised by the opening performance of the festival - Hecuba, not Hecuba of the Paris Comédie-Française (discussed in more detail in essays on Avignon and Epidauros in this issue). The author and director of the production is the Portuguese actor, director, playwright and producer Tiag o Rodrigues - a world-renowned theatre-maker. His work blurs the boundaries between theatre and reality, questioning the viewer's perception of social and historical phenomena, finding intersections between them and presenting them as a new reality to the audience. Hecuba, not Hecuba. Photo © Christophe Raynaud de Lage Hecuba, not Hecuba is a tragedy born between the lines of another tragedy. The author wrote it directly "on the body" of the actors. The story is about a small theatre company that has just begun rehearsing Euripides' ancient drama about Hecuba, who, as the wife of a Trojan ruler, has lost everything after the fall of Troy - her husband, her property, her power and her children - and is desperate for justice. The fictional tragedy is mixed with the painful fate of the play's protagonist Nadia. She has an autistic son who has been the victim of abuse and mistreatment in a nursing home. As a mother she rebels and, in parallel with rehearsals at the theatre, pursues a lawsuit against the institution on her son's behalf. Through the gradual culmination of the plot, a synthesis transpires, a painful encounter between the world of the fictional and the real. Nadia represents the archetype of the mother who defends her children, their honour, life and rights. She invokes justice in the same way as the ancient Hecuba and achieves catharsis only when her enemies suffer. The unequal, exhausting struggle, however, must necessarily take its toll on the warrior. Tiago Rodrigues is famous for his ability to look at difficult subjects from a detached perspective and with a sensitive humor that underlines the seriousness of the topic. The affectionate humor that accompanies the uneasy fates of the individual characters from the beginning to the end of the production is interspersed with emotionally tense, dramatic scenes in dynamic pacing and abrupt interludes. Such a directorial approach places high demands especially on the acting, which dominates this production. The simple, somber set, designed by Fernando Ribeiro, is dominated only by a large, antic sculpture of a dog, which forms one of the essential elements linking the text of Euripides' play and Rodrigues' play. Basic furnishings such as a table and chairs provide only minimal support for the actors, who do not leave the stage space for a moment. Despite the complicated plot, however, the viewer is not lost - the creators punctuate the intersections between present and past, reality and fiction by multiple means. The first, most striking of these is via light: warm hues for reality and cold white light for the upcoming play. The second, perhaps even more important element, is the manner of acting. The latter teeters on a spectrum from natural civility to absolute movement and vocal stylization. The Comédie-Française had, thus, provided a unique experience for the festival visitors. This success was confirmed by their guest appearance at the Slovak National Theatre in Bratislava a few days later, where two performances of Hecuba, not Hecuba in a sold-out hall were an unprecedented success with both professional and lay audiences. The Comédie-Française production remains for me one of the highlights of this year's Pilsen festival. Dealing with the Past The theme of coming to terms with the past at different levels of human existence was subsequently developed in several other productions. The German-French co-production of the internationally acclaimed French director Julien Gosselin, Extinction , certainly deserves the title of "the most challenging performance" of all this year's productions. Extinction . Photo © Christophe Raynaud de Lage In three closed, yet interconnected parts, this five-hour long saga focuses on the search for one's own self, one's own voice in today's world, as well as on family or partnership relationships, interpersonal communication, the dreams and worldviews of an individual or an entire society and, ultimately, the direction of the world in the 21st century. The director starts the whole performance in a rather irritating way: with a forty-minute techno party, during which the audience freely comes on stage, drinks beer and has fun. Through a screen on which just-shot details of the onstage action are projected live, the audience learns about the fate of Elsa, a teacher who has abandoned her home. She does not share the views and way of life of her parents and siblings, and lives in Vienna, where she enjoys herself with her friend, the actress Aurelie. She has a film project in the making, which the audience witnesses in the second part of the production. The third part is a telling, hour-long monologue by Elsa, who has just learned that her parents have died. Gosselin looks at the exuberant artistic and intellectual life in Vienna, yet not from the perspective of a historian of the middle of the 20th century, but rather than that from the perspective of a contemporary, giving the audience on stage and in the auditorium a glimpse of its "merry apocalypse," From the party, we go straight into a house as if cut out of the Viennese underbelly of early 20th century Vienna. The engagement party, which transpires there and which degenerates into a sexual orgy, incest, rape, prostitution and anti-Semitic talk, and ends in a murderous massacre, is watched via live cinema from a house built on the stage. It is only at the end of that second, almost three-hour-long, section that Gosselin learns that this is a film set in the 1930s. The entire production is an adaptation of Thomas Bernhard's novel Extinction , which is interwoven with texts by Hugo von Hofmannstahl and plays or novels by Arthur Schnitzler. Despite the diametrically different stage treatment and semantic language of the individual parts, at the end of the production the viewer receives a coherent point formulated in an hour-long monologue by Rosa Lembeck in a close-up on the screen above the stage, paraphrasing Thomas Bernhard's text about the transience of time, the stereotypical patterns of social and human existence, or the need to find one's own way through life. The production stands between theatre, film, site-specific theatre and performance, with each of the three parts employing diametrically opposite means of artistic expression. Gosselin lets the viewer experience a five-hour journey towards the final punch-line, which ultimately turns the entire responsibility for the issues raised and the socio-critical dimension of the work onto the viewer himself. The direction that the 'merry apocalypse' is to take in the 21st century is up to each and every one of us. The Hungarian ensemble Őrkény Színház from Budapest, which performed Ibsen's drama Solness at the festival, also reported on the personal coping not only with the past, but especially with the future (See also the essay Where Comes the Sun in this issue.) The dramaturgically abbreviated text about an architect who is afraid of being replaced by younger and more talented colleagues gradually revealed the personal and family tragedies that, in a tangle of events and long years of silence, have remained embedded in the conscience of a man and which, through the influence of an innocent event, have surfaced. Solness . Photo © Judit Horvath Director Ildikó Gáspár's production took place in an arena-like space in which the boundaries between auditorium and stage were blurred. The actors entered the centre of the arena from the auditorium itself and exited it again among the audience. The chamber character of the production further underlined the heavy, psychoanalytic atmosphere of Ibsen's play, which in the Hungarian ensemble's conception took on the features of a movement and music production. Yet, it was the very text of Norway's most important playwright that became the biggest stumbling block. The narrative nature of this drama largely predetermined both the form of the production and its outcome. This Solness , thus, ranked among the weaker entries in the festival program, especially with its over-dimensioned conclusion, which seemed, in the context of the rest of this rather classic drama production, like a film about Count Dracula. National History as a Topic The Czech Republic and Slovakia seem to have a constant need to revisit their national past, its ups and downs. The Goose on a String Theatre presented a dramatization of Juan Goytisolo's novel The Marx Family Saga, directed by Jan Mikulášek. The plot intertwines the historical perspective of the 19th century with the present day, with the family portrait of the Marx family being the main subject of the confrontation of the two periods. The Marx Family Saga. Photo © Narodni divadlo Brno Mikulášek opens the production with a farce surrounding the installation of a statue of Marx, which subsequently comes to life and tries to approach or defend the meaning of its own existence. The production has a collage-like character in which the viewer meets not only Marx and Engels, but also their wives, getting to know both the light and dark sides of their personalities, worldview and politics. The past is juxtaposed with the socialist world of the second half of the 20th century and then with the present, where the phenomenon of the cult of Marx's personality is beginning to emerge under the influence of a resurgent capitalism. Mikulášek's stage composition stands on the borderline between psychological drama, comedy, metaphorical stage stylization and reportorial inquiry. On stage we see not only actors and actresses, but also footage from a street reportage on the topics like "Who was Marx? Does he deserve a statue in the city? Is communism an acceptable form of ordering society in the 21st century?" The production, thus, brought to the festival a format featuring both artistical and documentary means of expression that ultimately looks at history with both critical detachment and sarcastic humor. The Alfa Theatre in Pilsen also presented a production for which it had turned to the past: Čáslavská - Tokyo – 1964. In it they theatrically processed the memorable event when Věra Čáslavská won the Olympic gold medal in Tokyo in 1964. In the resulting fictional story based on real events, the creators present the Czechoslovak gymnast as the embodiment of the best national qualities: Čáslavská is honest, good-hearted, modest and fair. The production, which is primarily intended for children’s audience, not only brought humour, but director Jakub Vašíček also managed to achieve a truly realistic atmosphere of the Olympic Games in the 1960s through the colours, costumes, props and music. Its premiere was in Tokyo in 2024 and was created by a Czech-Japanese team of actors and creators. The authenticity with which the Alfa Theatre treated this important moment in the sporting and cultural history of Czechoslovakia captivated both young and old audiences alike. The theme of national history was also presented by the ensemble of the Slovak National Theatre with a dramatization of Pavel Vilikovský's short story Dog on the Road . This production touched me the most, but not in a generally positive sense. As a Slovak, I was sensitive to the political and social themes that are revealed in the short story. The four protagonists basically spend the whole time explaining to the audience that they are "just" Slovaks and therefore will never culturally reach the level of Germany, Austria or Scandinavia. From this starting point, the episodic etudes subsequently present various tragicomic, grotesque or downright irritating situations that reflect the history of the Slovak nation after 1989. The references to political figures, specific journalists and writers, however, took on a monstrously topical dimension after the performance, when the protagonists read the manifesto of the Open Culture movement, which is currently read by all state-established and independent theatres in Slovakia after all performances. The parallel with Vilikovsky's short story, written after the fall of the communist regime, acquired special strength at a time when the Minister of Culture is making mass personnel changes in the management of key cultural institutions in Slovakia without giving any reason and without appointing an adequate replacement. So the production Dog on the Road became a gesture of protest. It is an example of how a mediocre production in a new social and political context can become an important landmark of international significance. Dog on the Road. Photo © Slovak National Theatre The Pilsen Festival in 2024 brought forward a number of thought-provoking themes. Both the organization and the artistic level have traditionally been of a higeh standard. For me this edition of the Festival has been the best possible start of the 2024/25 theatre season, which will hopefully be full of similarly stimulating and inspiring artistic experiences. The creation of the review supported using public funding by Slovak Arts Council. Image Credits: Article References References About the author(s) Klára Madunická, AICT, Slovakia. Klára Madunická graduated in theatre studies at the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava, Slovakia. She successfully completed her PhD in Aesthetics and as a researcher at the Slovak Academy of Sciences she has been working on theatre theory, history and criticism for a long time. She has been a member of AICT since 2024, serves on several committees and editorial boards, is editor of the peer-reviewed professional journal Theatrica and is the author of several national and international studies. In 2025 she will publish two monographs on musical theatre in Slovakia. European Stages European Stages, born from the merger of Western European Stages and Slavic and East European Performance in 2013, is a premier English-language resource offering a comprehensive view of contemporary theatre across the European continent. With roots dating back to 1969, the journal has chronicled the dynamic evolution of Western and Eastern European theatrical spheres. It features in-depth analyses, interviews with leading artists, and detailed reports on major European theatre festivals, capturing the essence of a transformative era marked by influential directors, actors, and innovative changes in theatre design and technology. European Stages is a publication of the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center. Visit Journal Homepage Table of Contents Between Dark Aesthetics and Repetition: Reflections on the Theatre of the Bulgarian Director Veselka Kuncheva and Her Two Newest Productions Hecuba Provokes Catharsis and Compassion in the Ancient Theatre of Epidaurus (W)here comes the sun? Avignon 78, 2024. Imagining Possible Worlds and Celebrating Multiple Languages and Cultures Report from Basel International Theatre Festival in Pilsen 2024 or The Human Beings and Their Place in Society SPIRITUAL, VISCERAL, VISUAL … SPIRITUAL, VISCERAL, VISUAL …SHAKESPEARE AS YOU LIKE IT. IN CRAIOVA, ROMANIA, FOR 30 YEARS NOW Fine art in confined spaces 2024 Report from London and Berlin Berlin’s “Ten Remarkable Productions” Take the Stage in the 61st Berliner Theatertreffen. A Problematic Classic: Lorca’s Bernarda Alba, at Home and Abroad Previous Next Attribution: This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.

Encounter Dennis RedMoon Darkeem's work Land Connections: Reflections with Dennis in Bronx, at this year's edition of the Prelude in the Parks festival by The Segal Centre, presented in collaboration with Bronx River Community Garden. Prelude in the Parks 2024 Festival Land Connections: Reflections with Dennis Dennis RedMoon Darkeem Interactive Performance Saturday, June 8, 2024 @ 3pm Bronx River Community Garden.,The Bronx Meet at 1086 E 180th Street. Bronx River Community Garden Presented by Mov!ng Culture Projects and The Segal Center in collaboration with Presented by Mov!ng Culture Projects and The Segal Center View Location Details RSVP To Event Dennis invites the public to join him in an interactive observance to create a space filled with positive energy and reflections on our connections to the land. Participants will engage in Dennis's practices of reflection, manifestation, transformation, and holistic approaches. These practices are deeply rooted in his Black and Indigenous cultural heritage, honoring ancestors who are intertwined with the very land we live on. By participating, the community will explore ancestral connections, learn about cultural traditions, and develop a greater understanding of how these influences shape our relationship with the land. This project aims to foster a sense of unity, respect, and reverence for the earth, while also celebrating the rich cultural history that Dennis brings to his work. Dennis RedMoon Darkeem Dennis RedMoon Darkeem is an American artist and educator of Black and Yat’siminoli Creek- Seminole background, whose multidisciplinary practice spans painting, sculpture, installation, and performance art. Born in the Bronx, New York, Darkeem has rooted his artistic inquiry in the exploration of his Black/ Native American heritage, personal narratives, and the broader themes of social and environmental justice. Darkeem’s work often reflects on his experiences growing up in an urban environment and the juxtaposition of his indigenous cultural heritage within that context. He employs a variety of materials and techniques, ranging from traditional Indigenous crafts to contemporary art forms, creating pieces that are both deeply personal and universally resonant. His art serves as a bridge between past and present, aiming to foster dialogue around issues of identity, community, and the impact of societal structures on the individual and the environment. Throughout his career, Darkeem has been actively involved in community-based projects and education, using art as a tool for engagement and empowerment. He has worked with numerous organizations, schools, and cultural institutions, facilitating workshops, art programs, and exhibitions that encourage participants to explore their own identities and experiences through creative expression. Dennis RedMoon Darkeem’s contributions to the arts extend beyond his individual practice, as he is a passionate advocate for the role of art in social change. His work has been exhibited in galleries, museums, and public spaces, gaining recognition for its depth, craftsmanship, and commitment to social and environmental themes. Through his art and activism, Darkeem continues to inspire and challenge viewers, promoting a deeper understanding of the interconnectedness of all peoples and the natural world. Visit Artist Website Location Meet at 1086 E 180th Street. Bronx River Community Garden The Bronx Community River Garden is one of the oldest community gardens in the Bronx which features large productive beds and sustainable gardening practices including rainwater harvesting and composting, and provides seasonal community events for all. Visit Partner Website

721 Decatur Community Garden, 11233 Brooklyn, NY PRELUDE Festival 2023 PERFORMANCE AUTUMN Prelude in the Garden: Study for Prophecy for 22nd Century Petra Zanki Dance Company Dance 45-60 minutes 5:00PM EST Friday, October 27, 2023 721 Decatur Street, Brooklyn, NY, 11233, USA Free Entry, Open to All 721 Decatur Community Garden, 11233 Brooklyn, NY RAIN DATE: Sat. Oct 28 at 3:00 PM. In case of rain, this event will happen on Saturday 10/28 at 3:00 pm Concept: Petra Zanki Choreography: Petra Zanki in co-creation with dancers Dance interpretation: Isabelle Goodman , Luyan Li – Lili , Evelyn Tejeda . Original music composed and live performed by: Stanford Reid , SoulCODE , and Nico Tower . A garden, a countryside within a city, a train away from New York concrete, an opportunity to reconnect and gather. With ourselves, and between ourselves. That’s it, it’s ok. I can breathe. Blending different genres and styles, Zanki combines themes of art and healing with music and dance to explore the kinds of communities we want to envision in a post-Pandemic world. Working in co-creation with three New York musicians and three dancers, in the garden, Petra creates three choreographic solos using Antonio Vivaldi’s Four Seasons violin concerti as an inspiration. Each dancer together with one musician enters in dialogue with one part as an inspiration for their own contemporary version of, this time, Fall. How do dance, ambient, Hip hop, rhythm & jazz, and sound healing connect to Fall, and all of them to me and me to you? Expect soul healing, magic, and joy. Content / Trigger Description: Photo Credit: Tanya Nowossjolova @nowossjolka Watch Recording Explore more performances, talks and discussions at PRELUDE 2023 See What's on

Watch The Brink of Dreams by Nada Riyadh, Ayman El Amir at the Segal Film Festival on Theatre and Performance 2025. In a remote village in southern Egypt, a group of girls rebel by forming an all-female street theater troupe. They dream of becoming actresses, dancers and singers, challenging their families and villagers with their unexpected performances. Shot over four years, The Brink of Dreams follows them from childhood to womanhood, facing the most crucial choices of their lives.. The Martin E. Segal Theater Center presents The Brink of Dreams At the Segal Theatre Film and Performance Festival 2025 A film by Nada Riyadh, Ayman El Amir Screening Information This film will be screened in-person at The Segal Centre on Friday May 16th at 5:15pm. RSVP Please note there is limited seating available for in-person screenings at The Segal Centre, which are offered on a first-come first-serve basis. You may RSVP above to get a reminder about the Segal Film Festival in your inbox. Country Egypt, France, Denmark, Qatar, Saudi Arabia Language Arabic Running Time 101 minutes Year of Release 2024 About The Film About The Retrospective In a remote village in southern Egypt, a group of girls rebel by forming an all-female street theater troupe. They dream of becoming actresses, dancers and singers, challenging their families and villagers with their unexpected performances. Shot over four years, The Brink of Dreams follows them from childhood to womanhood, facing the most crucial choices of their lives. About The Artist(s) See Presskit Get in touch with the artist(s) sales@thepartysales.com and follow them on social media https://www.thepartysales.com/movie/the-brink-of-dreams/ Find out all that’s happening at Segal Center Film Festival on Theatre and Performance (FTP) 2025 by following us on Facebook , Twitter , Instagram and YouTube See the full festival schedule here His Head was a Sledgehammer Richard Foreman in Retrospect Moi-même Mojo Lorwin/Lee Breuer Benjamim de Oliveira's Open Paths Catappum! Collective Peak Hour in the House Blue Ka Wing Transindigenous Assembly Joulia Strauss Bila Burba Duiren Wagua JJ Pauline L. Boulba, Aminata Labor, Lucie Brux Acting Sophie Fiennes; Cheek by Jowl; Lone Star; Amoeba Film PACI JULIETTE ROUDET Radical Move ANIELA GABRYEL Funambulism, Hanging by a Thread Jean-Baptiste Mathieu This is Ballroom Juru and Vitã Reas Lola Arias The Jacket Mathijs Poppe Pidikwe Caroline Monnet Resilience Juan David Padilla Vega The Brink of Dreams Nada Riyadh, Ayman El Amir Jesus and The Sea Ricarda Alvarenga Grand Theft Hamlet Sam Crane & Pinny Grylls Theater of War Oleh Halaidych Skywalk Above Prague Václav Flegl, Jakub Voves Somber Tides Chantal Caron / Fleuve Espace Danse

Watch Maria Klassenberg by Magda Hueckel, Tomasz Śliwiński at the Segal Film Festival on Theatre and Performance 2024. The film created by the Academy Award nominees: Magda Hueckel and Tomasz Śliwiński is a biographical mockumentary about Maria Klassenberg, a forgotten pioneer of performance art. All of her life the artist has created and presented her works in her apartment in Warsaw. The action of the film takes place at the opening of an exhibition, where the artist’s radical works from the ‘70s and the ‘80s, that up to that point had been seen by the family and friends only, are presented to the wider audience for the first time. The moment Maria Klassenberg’s works finally are discovered by the art world is at the same time the culmination of her personal conflict with her daughter - Aneta Klassenberg, the curator of the exhibition. For Aneta, Maria’s exhibition is a compensation for the lost childhood and the only way to rebuild a close relationship with her mother. The unsettled past shared by the mother and daughter becomes the artist’s final work. Maria Klassenberg has never existed, which doesn’t mean she’s not real. She represents all female artists who haven’t had a chance to make their mark on the art market controlled by men. Her biography and artistic portfolio has been created by a group of Polish theatre and visual art artists: the concept and the very character of Maria Klassenberg has been created by Katarzyna Kalwat (theatre director), with the help form Anda Rottenberg (a curator and one of the protagonists of the film) and Joanna Zielińska, and the archive of the artist’s works from the ‘70s and the ‘80s has been developed by Aneta Grzeszykowska and Jan Smaga. The film features fragments of famous performances from the 20th century, that resonate with Klassenberg’s works. On the one hand this documentary is an artistic recording of the performance-exhibition directed by Katarzyna Kalwat but on the other hand it’s a provocation attempt: how will the modern world of art, which declares gender equity, react to a fictitious female artist who combines in her works feministic motifs found in the 20th century art? Feature Image Credits: Aneta Grzeszykowska, From the Maria Klassenberg archives, 1970-1980, 2019. Cooperation: Jan Smaga. Performers: Anna Rutkowska, Wojciech Żera The Martin E. Segal Theater Center presents Maria Klassenberg At the Segal Theatre Film and Performance Festival 2024 A film by Magda Hueckel, Tomasz Śliwiński Theater, Documentary, Film, Performance Art This film will be screened in-person on May 16th and also be available to watch online May 16th onwards for 3 weeks. About The Film Country Poland Language Polish, English Running Time 62 minutes Year of Release 2024 The film created by the Academy Award nominees: Magda Hueckel and Tomasz Śliwiński is a biographical mockumentary about Maria Klassenberg, a forgotten pioneer of performance art. All of her life the artist has created and presented her works in her apartment in Warsaw. The action of the film takes place at the opening of an exhibition, where the artist’s radical works from the ‘70s and the ‘80s, that up to that point had been seen by the family and friends only, are presented to the wider audience for the first time. The moment Maria Klassenberg’s works finally are discovered by the art world is at the same time the culmination of her personal conflict with her daughter - Aneta Klassenberg, the curator of the exhibition. For Aneta, Maria’s exhibition is a compensation for the lost childhood and the only way to rebuild a close relationship with her mother. The unsettled past shared by the mother and daughter becomes the artist’s final work. Maria Klassenberg has never existed, which doesn’t mean she’s not real. She represents all female artists who haven’t had a chance to make their mark on the art market controlled by men. Her biography and artistic portfolio has been created by a group of Polish theatre and visual art artists: the concept and the very character of Maria Klassenberg has been created by Katarzyna Kalwat (theatre director), with the help form Anda Rottenberg (a curator and one of the protagonists of the film) and Joanna Zielińska, and the archive of the artist’s works from the ‘70s and the ‘80s has been developed by Aneta Grzeszykowska and Jan Smaga. The film features fragments of famous performances from the 20th century, that resonate with Klassenberg’s works. On the one hand this documentary is an artistic recording of the performance-exhibition directed by Katarzyna Kalwat but on the other hand it’s a provocation attempt: how will the modern world of art, which declares gender equity, react to a fictitious female artist who combines in her works feministic motifs found in the 20th century art? Feature Image Credits: Aneta Grzeszykowska, From the Maria Klassenberg archives, 1970-1980, 2019. Cooperation: Jan Smaga. Performers: Anna Rutkowska, Wojciech Żera directors: Magda Hueckel & Tomasz Śliwiński camera: Tomasz Śliwiński, Magda Hueckel, Robert Gajzler, Bartosz Zawadka editing: Tomasz Śliwiński scenography, costumes, lighting: Anna Tomczyńska music: Wojtek Blecharz sound design: Mateusz Adamczyk sound on the set: Mateusz Adamczyk, Kuba Kozłowski graphic design: Magda Hueckel color correction: Lunapark MARIA KLASSENBERG | AN EXHIBITION direction and concept of the art performance: Katarzyna Kalwat text and dramaturgy: Beniamin Bukowski cast: Natalia Kalita, Urszula Kiebzak special appearance by: Anda Rottenberg performers: Tomasz Tyndyk, Justyna Wasilewska consecutive interpreting into English language: Artur Zapałowski production managers: Maria Herbich, Magda Igielska production cooperation: Karolina Pająk producers: Małgorzata Cichulska, Magda Igielska, Agata Kołacz, Roman Pawłowski production: TR Warszawa, 2022 director: Natalia Dzieduszycka artistic director: Grzegorz Jarzyna organizer: Capital City of Warsaw The project is produced with the support of The Foundation for Polish-German Cooperation PRODUCTION OF THE EXHIBITION AND THE PERFORMANCES “Maria Klassenberg. An Exhibition.” direction and concept: Katarzyna Kalwat text and dramaturgy: Beniamin Bukowski set design, costumes and lighting: Anna Tomczyńska music: Wojtek Blecharz cooperation: Anna Grzelewska, Joanna Zielińska venue: Raster Gallery in Warsaw date: 14.11.2020 “Mirror – reconstruction of an undocumented performance by Maria Klassenberg” direction and concept: Katarzyna Kalwat text and dramaturgy: Beniamin Bukowski set design, costumes and lighting: Anna Tomczyńska performers: Justyna Wasilewska, Tomasz Tyndyk In the film, fragments of the following works were used: “Maria Klassenberg’s Archive, 1970-1980 (MIRRORING / DRAWING CLASSES / NO / CONSUME / TRANSFER / CHEW / JAM SESSION / NO BODY)” concept, script, development: Aneta Grzeszykowska performers (archive): Anna Rutkowska, Wojciech Żera cooperation: Jan Smaga TR Warszawa would like to thank Joanka Zielińska for the artistic collaboration on te development of the project About The Artist(s) MAGDA HUECKEL: A visual artist, set designer, scriptwriter, creator of documentaries, and theatre photographer. She is a graduate of the Faculty of Painting and Graphic Design of the Fine Arts Academy in Gdańsk. Her works have been presented at over 40 individual and over 60 group exhibitions in Poland and abroad (including Tate Britain in London, Circulation in Paris, Unseen Amsterdam, Vienna Art Fair). Her works can be found in the National Museum in Wrocław and in numerous private collections. Hueckel is the author of “Anima. Pictures from Africa 2005–2013” and “HUECKEL/THEATRE” (nominations for the 2014 and 2016 Photographic Publication of the Year Awards). She has documented a few hundred theatre performances. Hueckel was awarded scholarships by the Minister of Culture and National Heritage and the City of Sopot and she’s a laureate of the Sopot Muse for Young Artists award. From 2002 until 2004 she was a part of the photographic duo known as hueckelserafin, together with Agta Serafin. She is the Chairwoman and co-founder of the CCHS Foundation of Poland “Lift the Curse”, which was awarded EURORDIS Black Pearl Award 2020. Hueckel is the curator and producer of the “Ondinata. Songs for Ondine” project. TOMASZ ŚLIWIŃSKI: a director and scriptwriter. Graduate of the Directing Department at the Warsaw Film School and Feature Development Lab Programme at the Wajda School. His short movie “Our Curse” (2013) has won many prizes at film festivals all over the world and was nominated for the IDA Award granted by the International Documentary Association. He is a laureate of the “Young Poland” Scholarship Programme (2015) awarded by the Minister of Culture and National Heritage and a scholarship awarded by the City of Warsaw (2019). Śliwiński is a member of the Documentary Directors Guild of Poland and the Vice President of CCHS Foundation of Poland “Lift the Curse”. He is the co-curator and producer of a music project “Ondinata. Songs for Ondine”. Magdalena Hueckel and Tomasz Śliwiński often collaborate on the production of films and artistic projects - Magda Hueckel writes the scripts and is the art director, and Tomasz Śliwiński is the director. Their documentary “Our Curse” was nominated for the Academy Award and won a few dozen awards at international festivals. Hueckel and Śliwiński created together a short film “Ondine” (2019) and short film series titled “Plague Chronicles” (2020). The series won the main prize at the DIG IT contest for the best theatrical activities during the COVID-19 pandemic. Their last production was “Stary” - the documentary about the National Stary Theatre in Cracow. KATARZYNA KALWAT: A director, graduate of Psychology Faculty at the Jagiellonian University in Cracow and the Directing Department at the Aleksander Zelwerowicz Academy of Dramatic Art in Warsaw, holder of scholarships granted by the French Government. Her works often originate from archive explorations and focus on researching the mechanisms of memory and postmemory. She directed a performance titled “Holzwege” (produced by TR Warszawa, 2016), which won the Grand Prix at the 22nd National Competition for Staging Contemporary Polish Plays, and “Reykjavik ’74” (The Wilam Horzyca Theatre in Toruń, 2017), which won the Second Prize at the 19th National Festival of Directing Art “Interpretations” in Katowice. The director is interested in processual forms, works that combine various fields of art, and researching the common ground between performance art and theatre. Katarzyna Kalwat has directed many theatre performances including, among others: “Landschaft. Anatomy Lesson” based on Waronika Murek’s text (The Julius Słowacki Theatre in Cracow, 2017), “Grotowski non fiction” created in cooperation with the visual artist Zbigniew Libera (Contemporary Theatre in Wroclaw and the Jan Kochanowski Theatre in Opole, 2019), an opera composed by Wojtek Blecharz, titled “Rechnitz. The Exterminating Angel” based on a drama by the Nobel Prize winner - Elfriede Jelinek (TR Warszawa, 2019), “Staff Only” project created in cooperation with foreign artists living in Poland (coproduced by Biennale Warszawa and TR Warszawa), “Return to Reims” inspired by Didier Eribon’s book and based on Beniamin Bukowski’s script (Nowy Teatr in Warsaw/Teatr Łaźnia Nowa in Cracow, 2020), and “Maria Klassenberg” (TR Warszawa in cooperation with Galeria Raster, 2020). Kalwat is a laureate of “O!Lśnienia 2021” Cultural Award granted by Onet and the City of Cracow. One of her latest performances is titled “Art of Living” and is inspired by Georges Perec’s “Life: A User’s Manual” (The Helena Modrzejewska National Stary Theatre in Cracow, 2022). ANETA GRZESZYKOWSKA: Born 1974, visual artist. She uses photography and video, focusing on their performative aspect. The leitmotif of her work is the analysis of the processes of self-creation, one of the key themes of art and a fundamental issue for the condition of today’s post-media society. Aneta Grzeszykowska examines the possibility of escaping from identity-shaping cultural and artistic stereotypes. She deconstructs her own image and manipulates it, eventually reaching for its sculptural substitutes. She thus comes closer to the conclusion that self-creation is merely another way of struggling against the mortal nature of the body. Aneta Grzeszykowska has participated in a number of important international exhibitions, such as the Venice Biennale (2022), the Berlin Biennale (2006) and La Triennale in Paris (2012). She has exhibited, among others, at the New Museum and Sculpture Center in New York, Contemporary Art Museum in St. Louis, the Folkwang Museum in Essen and the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw. Her solo exhibition at Zachęta National Gallery of Art in Warsaw earned her the renowned Polityka’s Passport award (2014). Her works are held in prestigious museum collections, including: Center Pompidou in Paris, Salomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, Fotomuseum Winterthur, Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw and Museum of Art in Łódź. She is affiliated with Galeria Raster in Warsaw and Lyles & King in New York. She runs the Performative Photography studio at the Academy of Art in Szczecin. Get in touch with the artist(s) and follow them on social media TR Warszawa international@trwarszawa.pl instagram.com/trwarszawa facebook.com/trwarszawa www.trwarszawa.pl Magda Hueckel, Tomasz Śliwiński hueckel.com.pl instagram.com/magdalena_hueckel instagram.com/tomeon Katarzyna Kalwat instagram.com/katarzyna2193 Aneta Grzeszykowska instagram.com/anetagrzeszykowska https://secondaryarchive.org/artists/aneta-grzeszykowska/ Find out all that’s happening at Segal Center Film Festival on Theatre and Performance (FTP) 2024 by following us on Facebook , Twitter , Instagram and YouTube See the full festival schedule here. "Nightshades" - Veronica Viper Ellen Callaghan Dancing Pina FLorian Heinzen-Ziob Genocide and Movements Andreia Beatriz, Hamilton Borges dos Santos, Luis Carlos de Alencar Living Objects in Black Jacqueline Wade ORESTEIA Carolin Mader Schlingensief – A Voice that Shook the Silence Bettina Böhler The Hamlet Syndrome Elwira Niewiera & Piotr Rosolowski Wo/我 Jiemin Yang "talk to us" Kirsten Burger Die Kinder der Toten Nature Theater of Oklahoma:Kelly Copper and Pavol Liska Hans-Thies Lehmann – Postdramatic Theater Christoph Rüter MUSE Pete O'Hare/Warehouse Films QUEENDOM Agniia Galdanova Snow White Dr.GoraParasit The Making of Pinocchio Cade & MacAskill Women of Theatre, New York Juney Smith BLOSSOMING - Des amandiers aux amandiers Karine Silla Perez & Stéphane Milon ELFRIEDE JELINEK - LANGUAGE UNLEASHED Claudia Müller I AM NOT OK Gabrielle Lansner Making of The Money Opera Amitesh Grover Red Day Besim Ugzmajli The Books of Jacob Krzysztof Garbaczewski The Roll Call:The Roots to Strange Fruit Jonathan McCrory / National Black Theatre/ All Arts/ Creative Doula next...II (Mali/Island) Janne Gregor Chinoiserie Redux Ping Chong Festival of the Body on the Road H! Newcomer “H” Sokerissa! Interstate Big Dance Theater / Bang on a Can Maria Klassenberg Magda Hueckel, Tomasz Śliwiński Revolution 21/ Rewolucja 21 Martyna Peszko and Teatr 21 The End Is Not What I Thought It Would Be Andrea Kleine The Utopians Michael Kliën and En Dynamei Conference of the Absent Rimini Protokoll (Haug / Kaegi / Wetzel) / Film By Expander Film (Lilli Kuschel and Stefan Korsinsky) GIANNI Budapesti Skizo, Theater Tri-Bühne Juggle & Hide (Seven Whatchamacallits in Search of a Director) Wichaya Artamat/ For What Theatre My virtual body and my double Simon Senn / Bruno Deville SWING AND SWAY Fernanda Pessoa and Chica Barbosa The Great Grand Greatness Awards Jo Hedegaard WHO IS EUGENIO BARBA Magdalene Remoundou

Is it possible for a room to be empty when your memories keep breaking through the walls? Alison Clancy’s drone-pop-psych-Americana piece So Brutal It Feels Like Home puts you in a liminal space where ghosts ricochet off every surface. This is about the same thing that makes wild dogs howl. Three dancers, Clancy’s live ethereal vocals and electric guitar, and multi-spectrum lighting and shadows transport us from ecstatic vistas to the bottom of the well. Landing somewhere between a rock show / dance concert / performance installation the work is haunting in its simple brutality, emotional intimacy and physical virtuosity. PRELUDE Festival 2023 DANCE So Brutal It Feels Like Home Alison Clancy Dance, Music English 30 min 8:00PM EST Friday, October 13, 2023 Elebash Recital Hall, The Graduate Center, 5th Avenue, New York, NY, USA Free Entry, Open To All Is it possible for a room to be empty when your memories keep breaking through the walls? Alison Clancy’s drone-pop-psych-Americana piece So Brutal It Feels Like Home puts you in a liminal space where ghosts ricochet off every surface. This is about the same thing that makes wild dogs howl. Three dancers, Clancy’s live ethereal vocals and electric guitar, and multi-spectrum lighting and shadows transport us from ecstatic vistas to the bottom of the well. Landing somewhere between a rock show / dance concert / performance installation the work is haunting in its simple brutality, emotional intimacy and physical virtuosity. This piece was created with support from Susannah Lee Griffee and the NY State Dance Force Choreogrpaher's Initiative Award Content / Trigger Description: Dreaming of beauty and collective catharsis, Alison Clancy designs projects bridging between worlds... Haunting solo music performances weave tapestries of electric guitar into expansive, brooding drone-psyche Americana. Incantatory vocals reveal delicate vulnerability and gritty volatility. Alison summons ghosts from machines. Performances often incorporate expressionistic choreography in collaboration with virtuosic dancers. Alison's choreographic work is informed by a deep relationship with classical ballet, but subverts technique in exploration of primordial sensuality. Illuminating the authority of each body's authentic story, the essence of performers are invited to burn and melt the form. Alison's approach is equal parts visceral and visual, often incorporating cinematic custom lighting and video installations. 2022 recipient of the New York State Dance Force Choreographer's Initiative Award. www.alisonclancy.com https://www.instagram.com/_alison_clancy_/ https://www.facebook.com/ClancyMedia Watch Recording Explore more performances, talks and discussions at PRELUDE 2023 See What's on

European Stages serves as an inclusive English-language journal, providing a detailed perspective on the unfolding narrative of contemporary European theatre since 1969. Back to Top Article References Authors Keep Reading < Back European Stages 20, 2025 Volume Visit Journal Homepage Interview with Walter Bart (Artistic Leader, Wunderbaum Collective & Director, Die Hundekot-Attacke) from the 2024 Berliner Theatertreffen By Steve Earnest Published: July 1, 2025 Download Article as PDF Interview with Walter Bart, Artistic Leader of Wunderbaum Collective and Director of Die Hundekot-Attacke from the 2024 Berliner Theatertreffen Wunderbaum, Co-creators of Die Hundekot-Attacke at Theaterhaus Jena Walter Bart was born in Rotterdam in 1978 and completed his training as an actor at Toneelacademie Maastricht in 2001. In the same year, he founded the collective Wunderbaum with Maartje Remmers, Wine Dierickx, Marleen Scholten and Matijs Jansen (they were later joined by stage designer Maarten von Otterdijk), and together they created more than 50 productions over the past 22 years. Wunderbaum collaborated with Johan Simon’s company Hollandia and with NTGent before the collective joined up with Theater Rotterdam in 2010. Theater Rotterdam continues to be Wunderbaum’s basis today. From 2018 to 2022, Wunderbaum formed the team of directors of Theaterhaus Jena. With Wunderbaum, Walter Bart created theatre for the main and the small stage as well as other venues across the city. They developed concepts, directed and performed. The collective’s most recent productions include “Alfa Romeo”, “Wunderbaum spielt LIVE, online läuft es schief” (both in 2024), “La Cordista”, “Der Platz” and “Die Hundekot-Attacke”, a co-production with Theaterhaus Jena that was invited to the 2024 Theatertreffen. About the Incident in Question In February 2023 Choreographer and Ballet Leader of Hannover Opera Marco Goeke walked up to critic Wiebke Hüster , confronted her about a scathing review she had published about his new work “In the Dutch Mountains” the day before. Angered about her comments, Goeke then pulled out a back of dog excrement (from his pet dachsund) and violently smeared it all over Hüster’s face. The police and authorities then got involved and Goeke, a rising star in the German dance scene, was first suspended and later removed from his post as Director of the Hannover Ballet. The incident made national news across Europe (as well as the New York Times ). The Hannover Ballet stated that Goeke’s impulsive and violent actions damaged both Ms. Hüster as well as the reputation of the company itself. The incident was universally condemned as an attack on the freedom of the press. ES: So your background, you're now the artistic director of Theaterhaus Jena? WB: No, no, I used to be, until 2020. But together with my group, Wunderbaum, we are an actors' collective from the Netherlands. And we are based in Rotterdam, in Theater Rotterdam. And then we read that this theater was looking in 2018 for a new artistic direction, or a new artistic leader. ES: And they specifically asked for a collective to apply for the leadership role? To come in as a group of people leading? WB: Yeah, a group of people. They wanted a group of people. Not just one, and that's kind of like the way this theater, the background of this theater is. They like to work as a... Yeah, and it has partly to do with the history of it, because it was torn down. I will give you a book of the history of the theater house, it's pretty interesting. It's like, after the wall came down, they... I mean, the whole East was like... Kind of like, they didn't know in what direction to go, of course. So, they were all kind of... And all the money was gone. All the money was gone, so they were really poor. And they tried to... They invited a group from the Ernst Busch, in 1990s, 91. And that's a group of actors from the Ernst Busch Schule in Berlin, and they... it was a class from the Ernst Busch who took over this theater. . So the leaders of this theater, they just drove there, and they said to a few actors, come over to Jena, you'll get the whole theater, and do what you want. ES: It sounds like an excellent opportunity for a group of young actors studying theatre to finish their last year in this situation. Was it? WB: It was okay. But there was not a lot of money. And they got a... Good luck.Yeah, good luck. And the theater was really run down. It was really terrible., like a mess. And I'll show you later the building. And then... So there is something like this situation in the DNA of the house, there's a strong collective vibe. And then it's also led by a group of... They call them... It means like some sort of a board. But in the board are also technicians, for example, from the theater. And they decide of the future, so they choose the next people. And so for that reason, I think the theater also always had like a collective background. And then they asked us to come and we... But we are an actors' collective, so we are six actors. It's funny, we worked quite a lot in the U.S. as well, as a group. ES: So has your company visited the USA? WB: We did two, three co-productions with the Red Cat Theater in Los Angeles. The Red Cat. It's Mark Murphy. There's so many theaters in Los Angeles. It's part of the Disney Theater. It's the Red Cat. And then we went to play in Austin in the Fusebox Festival a few times. And in New York also in a theater. And we did... Yeah, Detroit. We've been in the U.S. quite a while. But never in Carolina. It's a pity. No, no, no. Maybe Atlanta would be the closest. The U.S. is so huge. So the actors are also involved in decisions about how they run the theater. And now this group, the actors, and my girlfriend, who's a director, and our set designer, do it till this summer. And then we moved to Berlin. But Wunderbaum stays in Rotterdam. But I moved to Berlin. And then they asked me as a director to do this piece. So they invited me again. ES: So what about this piece? I wanted to know how you developed this project. WB: Obviously, it was a big story at first. Yeah, exactly. So it's kind of like... Why make a play out of this? I always thought... Because a lot of people didn't know how to talk about it. And I kind of liked that about it. Because you felt there was a huge insecurity. Because of course the press framed it pretty fast as an attack on the freedom of speech. And then you felt on the artistic side, people who deal with critics, they think, okay, what can I say about it? The image of somebody putting... Yeah, it's so extreme. And all the time you... I felt there was such much... People were so uncomfortable to talk about it. So, there was not an honest talking about it. t's also like... And for me that kind of fitted in the time. I think in this time there's a lot of subjects. And I think it certainly has to do with Corona. It also has to do with politics. That I felt there's a lot of topics where people don't immediately say there, open your mouth. It's like immediately... And not in the first conversation. But say, okay, are you a Trump voter? Or are you a Biden voter? Or are you a pro this or pro Corona? Believe me, that's a big problem. I know, of course. We follow the American politics day by day. I'm hooked on it, unfortunately. It's stupid. Make a play about that. Yeah. I think Americans have to do it themselves. It's already a play. ES: It is. We're living it. WB: But then I felt like this kind of discomfort, is that a word? Where you don't know how to talk. And I thought that was in this subject a lot. Because it's kind of like... You didn't know what to say about it, actually. Or you don't know. People were not like... And then I thought that... So it would be great to... Because it's so difficult to talk about it. But then theater is the best place also to talk about it. Because it happened in a theater. ES: What actually happened in the theater and how did you guys make the piece? WB: It happened in a theatre in Hanover, the incident. So, then we made the concept about the theater. And I did it before with Wunderbaum. And that piece played also in the United States. Which one now? It's called Looking for Paul . And it also won in Edinburgh. We won a big theater award for it. And it is about... It was the same concept. It is a group of actors who want to make a piece. But they end up in a fight. So they don't make it to the premiere. And they fail. So they don't... But that's in fiction. It's like... We play a group of actors. We're developing a play. And they don't succeed. And in the end, they decide to read the emails they wrote each other during the rehearsal process. So, it's like this meta. So, it's a group of actors reading emails. About why they didn't succeed. And then you follow this group of actors and all their thoughts. And I knew that this way of having more perspectives on one subject and blurring the line of fiction and reality. WB: So, it's kind of like a pseudo-documentary work. Because the actors use their own names and use real stuff and mix it with fiction. And then I thought it's also a great way to... It's on reality TV now. Everybody is so interested in that, but I don't understand that. Not, exactly. We cringe at Survivor . ES: I can't believe that. My wife likes to watch The Bachelor . WB: I would leave the room to watch The Bachelor . It's terrible. What is it? The Bachelor . This married idiot. This young single idiot wants to date all these girls. It's so stupid. And the women are like, Oh, he's so sweet. I'm like, shut up. It's funny. ES: This totally took over our culture. I wonder why. WB: Yeah, me too. I think it will go away. I hope so. It's like zombies. ES: It's like zombies. They just came and took everything. And now, please go. WB: Well, of course, in a way, I think TikTok took over. I mean, the younger generation is, of course, watching TikTok. And it's the same. What I like about TikTok is hat's reality TV. Everybody can produce it. So, it's getting easier and easier. I read this Michael Cohen thing. I read it every day. This process that's happening now. He said, no, I'm going on TikTok at night. When I'm tired and I want to lose stress, I go on TikTok. And then he goes on TikTok saying these stupid things, you know, about this process. He also has this trouble that he's saying too much about the process. I don't know. But it's legal. ES: He can do this. Yeah, he can do it. Freedom of speech. WB: Exactly. But I'm so surprised people do that. I would never, like, at night when I cannot sleep, go live. Or maybe you've been drinking or something. You say things. Yeah, I would be way too scared. But that's kind of funny as well, that these people see this reality. I don't know. They don't care. ES: So how did you develop the script? Just by improv? WB: We started writing in the reality. As a group. We wrote it together, which is the great thing about it. And then, so we knew that when we would, and we did the writing together with a reality timeline of what happened for real. So, we knew when we would do the press release of it, that there would be a lot of reactions. And we wanted to have these reactions in the writing. So we did the press release that we were going to make it. And then we, everything that happened, we used in writing. So, we had characters. And these characters, yeah, they write about their perspective, with the reality of the incident as a background. And then the joke was that they, because nobody comes to Jena, besides theatre critics. There's a lot of times we don't get a lot of critics, because it's in the province. In the story, there's only one newspaper following us. It's the local Thuringer Zeitung. And they, it's very hard to get attention from other newspapers. And then we thought if we do this topic, that's the storyline. The actors think, hey, when we make a piece with this topic, maybe more press will come. So let me ask you though, before we go forward. ES: So, who are the actors? Are they playing themselves as actors, inviting the press? Or who are they? WB: They are the actors from the theater. Actors from the company. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, they play themselves. But they play themselves. Because what they play is, they develop characters out of this. And they just decide to, as a group, they decide to take this on as a project. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And in the fiction, I'm not part of the fiction. So there is, in the fiction, there's no director. Okay. So they develop it as a collective. Okay. Because we thought it was more interesting. Not to have the dynamic of it. Not to have the director in it. But that's also how we work, in a way. Because all the material you would make. Because everybody is the director, in a way. Yeah, exactly. ES: Are you in the show? WB: No, I'm not. But that's what, Wunderbaum and my collective, we all direct. And we are all directors. So, there's no hierarchy. Maybe you, I don't know if it's... ES: No, I understand fully. I know groups like this. Yeah, it's like... And sometimes that's the best way to work. WB: But sometimes... it sucks. (laughs) But sometimes it's more efficient. You direct it. Everybody does this. We got three weeks. Shut up and listen to him. Or whatever. You do whatever. Exactly. That's exactly how we work. Exactly. It's what works best. And then, that was kind of the joke in it. That they don't have a job anymore next year. Because this is the last production they make here. Oh, I saw that in the script. Okay, this is gonna be our last show here. Yeah, so this is the last show. It's not really, it's not totally true. Because now they rehearse for another. There's gonna be one more summer production. But... We play, it's the last season. Next year they are all jobless. So, they don't have work next year. ES: Really? WB: Yes, that's the truth. So, they are all jobless next year. And that's why we thought it might be good to get as much press as possible for this thing. ES: Well, getting in the Theatertreffen is a good gig. WB: Exactly. So that's also playing with it. They also try in the script, they also say maybe if we make this, the Theatertreffen will come. So, the Theatertreffen is even part of the script. So we were kind of... And then it kind of like, how it developed. So how it developed, it developed in the best possible way. Reality. So yeah, that's it. And then we decided to dance. So there is like a dance part in it. Because it's also about the dance world. Because it's of course about a choreographer. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, there's a dance sequence, okay. We worked with a choreographer. And he taught us how to dance. Modern dance, and in their rehearsals, they dance. They work on a dancing show. And in the end of the emails, they present this dance material they rehearsed. That you will see. So, it's first emails, reading, and then dancing. And it's the idea that the dance is bad, so the critic also says, this sucks, you know, so they all want to... Well, they tried to really dance, so we worked with a real choreographer. We tried to make the dance not ironical. But of course, it's a really bad dance. I mean, to the standards of modern dance, it's not good. But they worked hard on it. And in the characters, they try to... In the dances, they also try to tell the story with dance. The story of what happened. The story of the incident. The story of the incident they try to tell in the dance. Is told in the dance. And it was good because it's way more abstract. Because of course, there's a lot of like... You cannot... The incident itself on stage would be very... I don't know, not that interesting. And also not tasteful. I mean, for the critic, it's a lot about taste as well. What words do you use if you want to... And of course, there's a lot of discussion also in German theater about reproducing things. So, you would reproduce a violent act. Do you want to do that? No. ES: Why do you think this work is important? WB: Oh, God, I really don't know. ES: Well, do you think the questions about the freedom of speech, the freedom of the press... WB: No, not totally. But I think it's very much about... Or what can the theater express? No, I think it's about the periphery and the center. So, it's like where the center is. It's in a theatre in Berlin, in Germany. And what's the periphery? How do you call it? Is that a word? What's outside the center? The work is about where the center of everything is, right? Yeah, I think that's it. And they try to get... And these actors, they are very aware that they are not in the center. ES: And they try to become the center? Okay, I understand. WB: Yeah, they try. They know that we need... And in that way, it's... Yeah, it's about where is the center and what's important and what do we think as actors or as theater makers is important. And that's, I think, the main question and how we function in this media is also a big topic because we found out when we did it that we're like... You have this DPA, Meldung , it's called in Germany. And I know it's... I think you will have it in America as well that when you do like a press thing and then it goes to all media. So, you have like, you write something, and it goes to all news channels. ES: A press release? WB: Yeah. Yeah, but then a press release... normally when we do a press release with theater it doesn't end on the front page of all newspapers. But now it did. Okay. So we got like... And then we found out how this media works. And they... Because the word dogshit is in it, people click on it because they are interested in the story of the dogshit. So people want to read that. So it's also a lot about how media functions and how attention works. It's pretty inevitable to talk about. It's like so much... about how these media function. They have this clickbait thing so that journalists also get paid for how many clicks they have. Of course, I mean, it's also this... I think it's this Trump thing. Of course, the drama. Every article where there is Trump in it, people click on it. ES: Really? People are that... You think people outside of the USA are interested to know what's going on with Trump? WB: Totally. Yeah. That's fascinating. It's like... But it's like a real-life show. It's like the biggest entertainment there is. Like the president... Wow. The porn star. It's like better than The Bachelor . I thought it was only... USA late-night talk hosts. They always talk about Trump. I'm like, what are they going to do when he's gone? Because that's where they get all their material. They're talking about Trump. ES: Yeah, yeah. I think they're happy that he's back. Because now they know what to talk about again. WB: Yeah. I mean... I mean, how are they going to talk about... I don't know. About migrants at the Mexican border. But then... Without Trump. Exactly. That's... That's the whole... I mean, you know... Because you see it here. You see a little bit in Germany. Of the migration. Image Credits: Article References References About the author(s) Steve Earnest is a Professor of Theatre at Coastal Carolina University . He was a Fulbright Scholar in Nanjing, China during the 2019 – 2020 academic year where he taught and directed works in Shakespeare and Musical Theatre. A member of SAG-AFTRA and AEA, he has worked professionally as an actor with Performance Riverside, The Burt Reynolds Theatre, The Jupiter Theatre, Candlelight Pavilion Dinner Theatre, The Colorado Shakespeare Festival, Birmingham Summerfest and the Riverside Theatre of Vero Beach, among others. Film credits include Bloody Homecoming , Suicide Note and Miami Vice . His professional directing credits include Big River , Singin’ in the Rain and Meet Me in St. Louis at the Palm Canyon Theatre in Palm Springs, Musicale at Whitehall 06 at the Flagler Museum in Palm Beach and Much Ado About Nothing with the Mountain Brook Shakespeare Festival. Numer ous publications include a book, The State Acting Academy of East Berlin , published in 1999 by Mellen Press, a book chapter in Performer Training, published by Harwood Press, and a number of articles and reviews in academic journals and periodicals including Theatre Journal, New Theatre Quarterly, Western European Stages, The Journal of Beckett Studies and Backstage West . He has taught Acting, Movement, Dance, and Theatre History/Literature at California State University, San Bernardino, the University of West Georgia , the University of Montevallo and Palm Beach Atlantic University. He holds a Ph.D. in Theatre from the University of Colorado, Boulder and an M.F.A. in Musical Theatre from the University of Miami, FL. European Stages European Stages, born from the merger of Western European Stages and Slavic and East European Performance in 2013, is a premier English-language resource offering a comprehensive view of contemporary theatre across the European continent. With roots dating back to 1969, the journal has chronicled the dynamic evolution of Western and Eastern European theatrical spheres. It features in-depth analyses, interviews with leading artists, and detailed reports on major European theatre festivals, capturing the essence of a transformative era marked by influential directors, actors, and innovative changes in theatre design and technology. European Stages is a publication of the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center. Visit Journal Homepage Table of Contents The 2025 Festival International New Drama (FIND) at Berlin Schaubühne Editor's Statement - European Stages Volume 20 Willem Dafoe in conversation with Theater der Zeit The Puzzle: A new musical in the Spoleto Festival, Italy presented by La MaMa Umbria Varna Summer International Theatre Festival Mary Said What She Said The 62nd Berliner Theatertreffen: Stories and Theatrical Spaces That Realize the Past, Present and Future. Interview with Walter Bart (Artistic Leader, Wunderbaum Collective & Director, Die Hundekot-Attacke) from the 2024 Berliner Theatertreffen Duende and Showbiz: A Theatrical Odyssey Through Spain’s Soul Previous Next Attribution: This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.

Artists and organizers from Brooklyn International Performance Art Foundation (BIPAF), PERFORMANCY FORUM, and other mutualistic NYC performance communities debate tradition, change, and the ethics and politics of making work in response and relation to racial capitalism, climate collapse, and systemic eugenics. Is performance part of "immune systems" or resilience strategies? How can both artistic works and modes of production practice response-ability? The panel features Arantxa Araujo, Ayana Evans, Hector Canonge, Lital Dotan, and zavé martohardjono, and is moderated by Esther Neff. PRELUDE Festival 2023 PANEL Performing Response-Ability Esther Neff with others 6:00PM EST Monday, October 16, 2023 Martin E. Segal Theatre Center, 5th Avenue, New York, NY, USA Free Entry, Open To All Artists and organizers from mutualistic NY performance art communities, including PERFORMANCY FORUM, debate tradition, change, and the ethics and politics of making work in response and relation to racial capitalism, climate collapse, and systemic eugenics. There will be short performances followed by discussion. Is performance part of "immune systems" or resilience strategies? How can both artistic works and modes of production practice response-ability? Featuring Arantxa Araujo, zavé martohardjono, Hector Canonge, Ayana Evans, and Lital Dotan. Organized by Esther Neff. Content / Trigger Description: Esther Neff (organizer) is the founder of PPL (est. 2006), a thinktank, performance collective, and organizational entity. They are the organizer of PERFORMANCY FORUM (est. 2009), a platform for performance art and social arts practices that has involved hundreds of artists from all over the world in conferences, thinktanks, projects, and exhibitions. PPL's 7-year project as a physical lab site in Brooklyn culminated in the book Institution is a Verb (Operating System 2021, Edited with Elizabeth Lamb, Ayana Evans, and Tsedaye Makonnen). Neff/PPL's project Embarrassed of the (W)Hole, an operating manual for performance philosophy, was recently published by Ugly Duckling Presse and their theoretical and critical writing has been including in the Routledge Companion to Performance Philosophy (with Yelena Gluzman), The Palgrave Macmillan Handbook of Queer and Trans Feminist Performance Art, and in PAJ, Performance Paradigm, CONTENT, AM Journal of Art and Media Studies, on cultbytes, culturebot, and elsewhere online and in print. Their solo and collaborative operas, performance art works, and other performance projects have been realized in NYC, across the USA, and various sites around the world. Neff is currently a PhD student at the CUNY Graduate Center in Theatre and Performance and teaches at Hunter College. Arantxa Araujo is a Queer Mexican performance artist with a background in neuroscience and arts administrator. Her work is transdisciplinary, feminist, meditative and rooted in bio-behavioral research. Through multisensorial experiences, Araujo aims to catalyze awareness which then might result in a virtuous chain reaction for social justice and personal growth. Her work has been shown in the Brooklyn Museum, at the Radical Women Latin American Art Exhibit, Leslie-Lohman Museum, Grace Exhibition Space, The Queens Museum (NYC); RAW and Satellite Art Fair (Miami); Illuminus Festival (Boston), and SPACE Gallery (Pittsburgh); ExTeresaArte Actual Museum, and La Explanada del MUAC (Mexico); and Nuit Blanche Festival (Canada). Araujo is a Franklin Furnace Fund awardee, Brooklyn Arts Council and Lower Manhattan Cultural Council grantee and has received support through numerous residencies and fellowships including Leslie-Lohman Museum Artist Fellowship, Creative Capital taller, ITP Camp and EMERGENYC. Araujo was awarded a full scholarship from Mexican Government Institution CONACYT. She holds an MA in Motor Learning and Control from Teachers College, Columbia University and a BA in Theater Studies from Emerson College. zavé martohardjono is a queer, trans, Indonesian-American artist working in performance, dance, installation, video, and poetry. Dwelling in their ancestors’ mythologies, with dreams of a more just future, they make work that contends with the political histories our bodies carry. zavé’s work is concerned with and prompted by inquiry into whether and how embodied healing, anti-colonial storytelling, and political education can de-condition the body, reconjure liberatory memory, and untangle entrenched assimilation. zavé’s dance improvisations, experimental works, multimedia works and writing address and subvert political histories. zavé has been presented at the 92Y, BAAD!, Bronx Museum of the Arts, Center for Performance Research, El Museo del Barrio, HERE Arts, Issue Project Room, The Kennedy Center, Storm King Art Center, the Wild Project, Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, Boston Center for the Arts, Tufts University, and elsewhere in the U.S. Internationally, they have shown films and performed in Amsterdam, Berlin, Glasgow, Zurich, Skopje, and Jakarta. They were a 2022 MRX/Movement Research Exchange program artist in Skopje, Macedonia, 2021 NYPL Dance Research Fellow, 2020 Gibney Dance in Process artist, 2019 Movement Research AIR, 2017-2018 LMCC Workspace Resident, and a 2011 EMERGENYC artist. Their work has been written about in BOMB Magazine, Brooklyn Rail, Culturebot, Hyperallergic, and The New York Times. Hector Canonge is an American artist of Catalan and Bolivian descent. Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Canonge spent his childhood in Bolivia and grew up in New York City where he studied and developed his interdisciplinary practice. His projects in Conceptual Art, Social Practice, Media Arts, Performance Art, and Dance treat notions related to constructions of identity, gender roles, migration politics, and ancestral heritage. His interactive projects explore the use of commercial technologies in relation to social archetypes, while his site-specific installations repurpose discarded materials and objects from everyday use. Challenging the white box settings of a gallery or a museum, or intervening directly in public spaces, his performances mediate movement, endurance, and ritualistic processes. Some of his actions and carefully choreographed performances involve collaborating with other artists and interacting with audiences. Through his investigation of somatic expression, he has developed a corporeal theory for the practice of Performance Art presenting it in workshops and conferences around the world. In New York City, Canonge’s dance and performance art projects have been featured at Triskelion Arts, Green Space, Boston Center for the Arts, Movement Research at the Judson Church, La Guardia Performing Arts Center, Queens Museum, Bronx Museum of the Arts, Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance, and La Mama among others. The artist has exhibited widely in the United States, Latin America, Europe and Asia. Canonge is the founding director of the performance art festivals: ITINERANT in NYC (2010-2019t), LATITUDES in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia (2017-present), and AUSTRAL in Buenos Aires, Argentina (2019-present). He is responsible for the initiatives: ARTerial Performance Lab (South America), TALKaCTIVE & LiVEART.US, NEXUS and IGNITION (United States), Performeando and Encuentro Latinoamericano de Performance Art Berlin (Europe), and the International Network of Performance Art, INPA. In 2020, while reflecting on the effects of the Corona pandemic, Canonge launched the virtuals program, CHRONICLES of CONFINEMENT, featuring artists from Latin America, Europe, Africa, and Asia. In 2022, Canonge launched and curated PAUSA, Performance Art USA, a new seasonal platform for live art and its various modalities of presentation. Canonge’s work has been reviewed by The New York Times, Art Forum, Art in America, Hyperallergic, Hispanic Magazine, Turbulence, Art Card Review, and New York Foundation for the Arts’ bulletin NYFA News among others. The artist is currently at work in the development of new projects and programs for the exploration and experimentation of Live Art and its various manifestations. Ayana Evans is a NYC-based performance artist. Her guerilla-style performances have been staged at El Museo del Barrio, The Barnes Foundation, The Bronx Museum, Crystal Bridges Museum, Newark Museum, Queens Museum and a variety of free public locations. Her performances have been reviewed in The New York Times, Bomb Magazine, ArtNet, Hyperallergic, and New York Magazine's The Cut. She was a 2017-2018 awardee of the Franklin Furnace Fund for performance, 2018 New York Foundation of the Arts (NYFA) Fellow for Interdisciplinary Arts, 2021-2022 Jerome Hill Artist Fellow, 2021-22 Professor of the Practice at Brown University, and 2022 Chamberlain Award winner at Headlands Art Center. Her past residencies include Yaddo, Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture, Vermont Studio Center, and Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop. Evans' most recent projects included a performance in Simone Leigh’s Loophole of Retreat at the Venice Biennale and the development of a career fair and outdoor projection series that welcomed over 150 formerly incarcerated individuals and transformed the job hunting space into a fun environment. - complete with soul food, a live DJ, and green neon t-shirts for everyone involved. Evans was also featured in or editor of the following publications: "We Are Here: Visionaries of Color Transforming the Art World," by Jasmin Hernandez with forward by Swizz Beats, 2020 - features interviews with 50 contemporary artists of color, "Institution as Verb," Edited by Elizabeth Lamb, Ayana Evans, Esther Neff and Tsedaye Makonnen, "Volume 11 Friend of the Arts" Edited by Thomas Flynn II, and "Re-Envisioning The Contemporary Art Cannon: Perspectives in a Global World" Edited by Ruth Iskin, 2017. Evans is currently a professor at Brooklyn College and NYU. Lital Dotan is a visual artist and curator. Her works include live work, video, sculpture and theater. She is the co-founder and artistic director of Glasshouse ArtLifeLab, an art-house currently based in Upstate NY. Co-founded with Eyal Perry in 2007, Glasshouse is an environment dedicated to performance in the domestic sphere, where she organizes and produces festivals, thematic exhibitions, durational performances, collaborations and residencies. In 2015 Dotan founded Que sal mah, a clothing brand that merges performance art, choreography and fashion, where clients book a one-to-one performance session culminating in a dress. Her immersive art works and performances were exhibited in museums and galleries world-wide such as the Israel Museum, National Museum Cracow, Queens Museum, Haifa Museum, Jewish Contemporary SF to name a few and was featured in magazines such as The NY Times, Hyperallergic, DNA Info, NY Mag, Paper Mag, ArtSlant, Haaretz, Huffington Post, VISION China, TAR Magazine and many more. Since early in her artistic career, she has collaborated with photographer Eyal Perry who is responsible for the photography in the majority of her work. An integration of installation, documentation and life her performance narratives examine structures and mechanisms of power across art and society; dissolving and re-imagining through harsh intimacy notions of privacy, audience, ownership, value and success. Dotan published two catalogues- The Glasshouse In Retrospective (2011) and '7 Invitations' (2014). In 2016, her essay about performance ecology in NY was published in TAR magazine, hosting artists, curators and organizers who are actively providing platforms for performance in New York. Photo credits: Building Bridges Not Walls (2018) Photo by Brandon Perdomo. Photo courtesy of Arantxa Araujo. zavé martohardjono. Photo courtesy of the artist. Hector Canonge (2023). Photo courtesy of the artist. Ayana Evans. Photo courtesy of the artist. Lital Dotan, Speaking Ice to Sheep (2023). Screenshot from videography by Eyal Perry. Esther Neff website> https://estherneff.wordpress.com/ | http://www.panoplylab.org/ - IG> @thefenserf | @panoplylab - Arantxa Araujo website> arantxaaraujo.com | IG> @ArantxaAraujo - zavé martohardjono website> https://zavemartohardjono.com/ - Hector Canonge website> www.hectorcanonge.net - Ayana Evans website> https://www.ayanaevans.com/ - Lital Dotan website> https://www.litaldotan.com/ Watch Recording Explore more performances, talks and discussions at PRELUDE 2023 See What's on

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Watch Peak Hour in the House by Blue Ka Wing at the Segal Film Festival on Theatre and Performance 2025. 《Peak Hour in the house》 illustrates a solitary woman who, while "enjoying" her private space, faces sudden surges of anxiety and learns to coexist with them. In the midnight, she enjoys her me-time, savoring moments of solitude. However, this is precisely when the hidden anxieties within her are most likely to visit. In the stillness of the night, the doorbell rings, akin to a nightmare striking during peaceful sleep. Gradually, she attempts to unveil her body like a diary, page by page. She uncovers not only the chaotic thoughts in her brain but also the internal organs carrying her personal history. The accumulated impurities over the years require her to untangle and digest them herself. By courageously confronting the sources of her anxiety and becoming someone capable of embracing negative energy, she gains the strength to make positive changes. Official selection of 《Peak Hour in the House》 - FIFTH WALL FEST Edition V (New Manila, Philippines) - Brighton Screendance Festival 2024 (Brighton, United Kingdom) - Together We Dance ! A 30-Year Journey: Dance Film Nights - PLUS by Hong Kong Dance Alliance (Hong Kong) - FIELDS by The Place and Studio Wayne McGregor (London, United Kingdom) - SHAPE 2 (Atlanta, USA) - The 5th Edition of the ROLLOUT Dance Film Festival (Macao, China) - The 43rd International Festival of Films on Art (FIFA) (Québec, Canada) - Online platform ARTS.FILMS (Québec, Canada) - Cinedans FEST '25 (Amsterdam, Netherlands) - 2025 92NY Future Dance Festival (New York, United States) Award of 《Peak Hour in the House》 - Special Mentions from The 5th Edition of the ROLLOUT Dance Film Festival (Macao, China). The Martin E. Segal Theater Center presents Peak Hour in the House At the Segal Theatre Film and Performance Festival 2025 A film by Blue Ka Wing Screening Information This film will be screened in-person at The Segal Centre on Saturday May 17th at 11am (as part of the Short Film program) and also be available to watch online on the festival website till June 8th 2025. RSVP Please note there is limited seating available for in-person screenings at The Segal Centre, which are offered on a first-come first-serve basis. You may RSVP above to get a reminder about the Segal Film Festival in your inbox. Country United Kingdom Language No Dialogue Running Time 7:19 minutes Year of Release 2024 About The Film About The Retrospective 《Peak Hour in the house》 illustrates a solitary woman who, while "enjoying" her private space, faces sudden surges of anxiety and learns to coexist with them. In the midnight, she enjoys her me-time, savoring moments of solitude. However, this is precisely when the hidden anxieties within her are most likely to visit. In the stillness of the night, the doorbell rings, akin to a nightmare striking during peaceful sleep. Gradually, she attempts to unveil her body like a diary, page by page. She uncovers not only the chaotic thoughts in her brain but also the internal organs carrying her personal history. The accumulated impurities over the years require her to untangle and digest them herself. By courageously confronting the sources of her anxiety and becoming someone capable of embracing negative energy, she gains the strength to make positive changes. Official selection of 《Peak Hour in the House》 - FIFTH WALL FEST Edition V (New Manila, Philippines) - Brighton Screendance Festival 2024 (Brighton, United Kingdom) - Together We Dance ! A 30-Year Journey: Dance Film Nights - PLUS by Hong Kong Dance Alliance (Hong Kong) - FIELDS by The Place and Studio Wayne McGregor (London, United Kingdom) - SHAPE 2 (Atlanta, USA) - The 5th Edition of the ROLLOUT Dance Film Festival (Macao, China) - The 43rd International Festival of Films on Art (FIFA) (Québec, Canada) - Online platform ARTS.FILMS (Québec, Canada) - Cinedans FEST '25 (Amsterdam, Netherlands) - 2025 92NY Future Dance Festival (New York, United States) Award of 《Peak Hour in the House》 - Special Mentions from The 5th Edition of the ROLLOUT Dance Film Festival (Macao, China) About The Artist(s) https://drive.google.com/file/d/17Gegq0SmwG6MQfWj7imX2CZ5cSxTaZsU/edit Get in touch with the artist(s) bluekawing＠hotmail.com and follow them on social media https://www.facebook.com/bluekawing/, https://www.instagram.com/bluekawing/, https://www.youtube.com/@danzrainbow Find out all that’s happening at Segal Center Film Festival on Theatre and Performance (FTP) 2025 by following us on Facebook , Twitter , Instagram and YouTube See the full festival schedule here His Head was a Sledgehammer Richard Foreman in Retrospect Moi-même Mojo Lorwin/Lee Breuer Benjamim de Oliveira's Open Paths Catappum! Collective Peak Hour in the House Blue Ka Wing Transindigenous Assembly Joulia Strauss Bila Burba Duiren Wagua JJ Pauline L. Boulba, Aminata Labor, Lucie Brux Acting Sophie Fiennes; Cheek by Jowl; Lone Star; Amoeba Film PACI JULIETTE ROUDET Radical Move ANIELA GABRYEL Funambulism, Hanging by a Thread Jean-Baptiste Mathieu This is Ballroom Juru and Vitã Reas Lola Arias The Jacket Mathijs Poppe Pidikwe Caroline Monnet Resilience Juan David Padilla Vega The Brink of Dreams Nada Riyadh, Ayman El Amir Jesus and The Sea Ricarda Alvarenga Grand Theft Hamlet Sam Crane & Pinny Grylls Theater of War Oleh Halaidych Skywalk Above Prague Václav Flegl, Jakub Voves Somber Tides Chantal Caron / Fleuve Espace Danse

European Stages serves as an inclusive English-language journal, providing a detailed perspective on the unfolding narrative of contemporary European theatre since 1969. Back to Top Article References Authors Keep Reading < Back European Stages 19, Fall, 2024 Volume Visit Journal Homepage Fine art in confined spaces By Aljoscha Begrich and Christian Tschirner Published: November 25, 2024 Download Article as PDF [Editor’s Note: The following essay appeared (in German) in the e-journal nachtkritik.de on August 29, 2024, describing the political tensions surrounding the preparations of a young East German theatre Festival in Saxony as the state was preparing for the elections of September, 2024. In those elections the far right AFD (Alternative for Germany) party won in Saxony and neighboring Thuringia its first significant elections since World War II. The efforts to maintain a liberal, international art-based cultural event under these conditions provide an important chronicle for theatre makers everywhere.] June 2023 In and around the cinema in the film city of Wolfen, which has been empty for years, our festival EAST 2023 will take place. It is a smaller edition of the festival – a weekend packed with art, performance, film and encounters and at the same time the prelude to the next, larger edition the following summer. The festival explores and celebrates "the East" as a landscape of change for people, nature and coexistence. It aims to encourage exchange about the history, present and future of "the East," even beyond East Germany. What does East mean? What is specific, what is international? What can we learn from the past? What ideas and visions are there for the future? This weekend, artists will present some of the participatory projects, recruit participants, give workshops and arrange first rehearsals. The weather is wonderful, the crowds are great, and the atmosphere is great. During dismantling, we talk to the mayor. He thanks us and at same time seems strangely powerless regarding future plans. He doubts that he will win the election. The right-wingers are simply too strong. In the evening, we hear the result of the mayoral election in the neighboring town of Raguhn-Jeßnitz: With 51 percent, the first AFD mayor in Germany is elected there. September 2023 In Bitterfeld-Wolfen, the AFD candidate is 4 percent ahead of the runner-up, the incumbent from the CDU. There will be a run-off election. Resistance is stirring among the population, and an alliance for democracy and tolerance is quickly forged to prevent an AFD mayor. The EASt Festival has supported the alliance from the very beginning. In fact, in the election of the incumbent of the CDU, the mayor, is confirmed in office with 53 percent. The joy is great. Only 47 percent of voters voted for a candidate from a party classified as definitely right-wing extremist. January 2024 We would like to use the city's former fire station as a festival center. The first inspection of this took place in the summer. The mayor welcomed the idea and hoped that it would improve the marketing of the property, which is to be sold. After that, a long back and forth begins, shifting responsibilities and delays. This situation is explained when we find out that the signing of the contract was delayed by internal city discussions about the user fees. At the meeting of the main finance committee on January24, 2024, representatives of the AFD and Pro Bitterfeld-Wolfen demanded that the city charge us a fee for the use of the vacant building. February 2024 We are in the middle of preparations for the festival, which this time will take place on the grounds of the former ORWO film factory in Wolfen. In addition to the use of the former fire station, which is owned by the city, we also want a concert in the council chamber of the Bitterfeld-Wolfen town hall, the former headquarters of the IG Farben Group. The mayor reveals to us in conversation that it was unwise for the festival to expose itself politically when he was elected. It is now much more difficult for him to support the festival. Excuse me? Without the support of the Alliance for Democracy and Tolerance, he would probably no longer be in office? True, but the situation has now become much more complicated. We don't really understand what he means. A few days earlier, there had also been a demonstration in Bitterfeld-Wolfen after Correctiv's revelations about a secret meeting of AFD politicians and right-wing extremists in Potsdam, where plans for the deportation of migrant fellow human beings were discussed. The more than 300 participants had been filmed person by person at close range by the team of the local AfD member of parliament. The member of the Bundestag himself had insulted participants on the fringes of the event, shoved them and punched the face of the mayor, threatening that there would be consequences! Now, in conversation in the town hall, we are supposed to provide assurances that the art shown at the festival will be politically neutral. We don't understand exactly what politically neutral means. The mayor explains to us that the works of art must not contain any explicit political statements. We argue that there is artistic freedom in Germany and that neither we nor he can force the invited artists to political neutrality – however understood. Everything else is censorship. The mayor also rejects censorship. A few days after this conversation, the phone rings: The mayor wants to explain himself once again: He does not want to restrict anything, but there must be no works of art that explicitly oppose certain people and parties. Especially in the council chamber of the city, which is not normally rented out for events, the city must also demand its neutrality requirement from us. We promise him that. There remains a queasy feeling about the situation here on site. March 2024 We receive the first draft of the usage contract for the former fire station. The usage fee is still open. April 2024 On April 8, one day before our program presentation, we sign the contract for the use of the fire station with the city. We pay a symbolic amount of 1 euro. At the press conference, we announce that Lord Mayor Armin Schenk will take over the patronage of this year's festival edition. On April 11, 2024, the mayor will inform the city's main and finance committee about the conclusion of the contract. May 2024 We are talking about the arrangement of the works of art on the course of the festival site. In particular, we are discussing two works by students: Mascha Breuer, from the class for photography and moving images at the Academy of Visual Arts Leipzig, would like to show a photo from her archive showing a calf with a swastika shaved into its fur. The thesis deals with the growth and the associated legitimization and normalization of fascist/racist slogans and symbols in public spaces. The artist wants to place the photo on a wall on the grounds of the film factory, which is littered with right-wing extremist symbolism and slogans, including two swastikas carved into it. Ukrainian artist Alevtyna Melnychuk from the Städelschule in Frankfurt (Main) wants to show mock-ups of Molotov cocktails and instructions on how to make Molotov cocktails, which were distributed in preparation for the imminent Russian invasion in the early Ukraine war. With the beer bottles, as distributed by a beer brewery in Kyiv, she wants to refer to the sudden collapse of normality of civilian life in her country. We are aware that both works could be controversial. We decide to show them anyway. We are now in the construction week of the festival. An employee of the Municipal House of Culture contacts us about whether a permit can be granted for a work of art on the doors of the house. A student shows the diversity of the Cyrillic alphabet – which is not, as is often assumed, only used in Russian – with the sentence "This is not Russian." The employee was afraid that the Kulturhaus will be attacked because of the artwork, since "that would also be a sign of a diverse society, that people who understand the artwork differently throw stones." June 2, 2024 The festival is open. The announced storm comes at exactly the right time, when most of the spectators are already on our guided tours and thus in the dry. As expected, the artworks of the two students are causing a sensation. Residents call the police. An employee of the neighboring kindergarten believes that the photo with the calf is a right-wing extremist provocation or a right-wing extremist work of art (and a right-wing festival in our country?). Even the fire brigade is called. They realize that the beer bottles are by no means real Molotov cocktails. Together with the residents, the police, the public order office, the fire brigade, we discuss what is art and what is not. The police certify that both works are recognizably art, and that therefore – unlike the Nazi graffiti next to the artwork – there is no need for action on their part. The swastikas and slogans are pasted over and painted over by the police. The relationship with the local police and also the kindergarten teacher next door is good and constructive, but in the conversation, it becomes very clear once again that there are no things that can be taken for granted or that communication works differently here than in places like Leipzig or Berlin. We decide – in consultation with the artist – not to show the Molotov cocktails anymore, because without her presence we lack the capacity to deal appropriately with the requests for them. The controversies generated by works of art, we think, should also be conducted responsibly. June 3, 2024 The dramaturg Carl Hegemann, who visits our festival, criticizes our decision. He speaks of increasing self-censorship in the art world and talks enthusiastically about how he brought German neo-Nazis onto the stage 20 years ago together with Christoph Schlingensief in a Hamlet production in Zurich. And how frightened the people of Zurich were. But bringing Nazis onto the stage today – in East Germany – hardly creates a contrast to reality: they are omnipresent and spread their opinions everywhere without being asked and loudly. Hegemann looks thoughtful. Aljoscha Begrich from the festival management had tried something similar with theatre director Oliver Frljić six years ago in a project at the Maxim Gorki Theater: They had dramatized the election program of the AFD. The evening only worked in the very special bubble of the Gorki Theater. Just as Schlingensief's Hamlet with neo-Nazis probably only worked against the secure background of the liberal bourgeoisie of a city like Zurich. In the Gorki Bubble, affirmative criticism worked. However, when two people came out as AFD members in an audience discussion after one of the performances and thanked them for the great production, it was us who were shocked. We were not prepared for something like that. Talk to the right? Applause from the right? The opposite had been intended. Now what? A little later, it became increasingly clear that in order to deal with right-wing extremism, it might be better to go where it is not a marginal phenomenon. In 2020, the Kulturpark e.V. association was founded by Christine Leyerle, Ludwig Haugk and Aljoscha Begrich and work on the EAST Festival began. With the move to such a socially and politically changed environment, however, the reception and entertainment patterns are changing. The reception of autonomous art presupposes a bourgeois understanding of art. And that, as we find again and again, is apparently not or no longer to be taken for granted. It is possible that the east is also a pioneer of a general development here: attempts to exert influence on art. use it or even attack artistic and scientific freedom are increasing throughout the country. They test the boundaries of what can be said and done. In the meantime, an attack on academic freedom from the Ministry of Education and Research is no longer so embarrassing that it is enough for the minister to resign. Ten years ago, this was an unthinkable process. June 6, 2024 The AFD member of the Bundestag for the Bitterfeld-Wolfen constituency files a complaint against us. He claims that the artwork by Alevtyna Melnychuk (which is no longer on display) violates the weapons law and calls for armed attack. He demands the immediate termination of the festival and the resignation of the mayor. This is completely unfounded, but since it is a member of the Bundestag, the news spreads in all media. The chairman of the Pro Wolfen citizens' association is calling for the festival center in the fire station to be vacated immediately. A day later, the AFD member of parliament publishes another statement: His complaint and his demands – as always – would probably lead to nothing. He therefore called on everyone to vote for the AFD in the local elections and the European elections scheduled for the weekend. They are able to weigh up which events belong to Bitterfeld-Wolfen, and which do not. June 7, 2024 The open discussion round "Question of the Day" is about the future of the Bitterfeld- Wolfen region. A number of citizens are speaking out. They talk about the many positive developments in the region. The moderator of the talk, Sylvie Küsten, also addresses Viviana Medina, an artist of the festival, whose Cuban father had worked as a contract worker in the GDR. For her and her son, she says, there is no future in this region, and I'm sure everyone here knows that. Then there was an embarrassed silence. We don't know what to say to that. In one fell swoop, we fell out of the positive narrative about the East that we actually wanted. But the situation is just as bleak. What does this mean for the future of our festival? What security concepts would we need in the future? And for whose future are we working here? June 8, 2024 One day before the loca l elections and the European elections, an automobile demonstration against "the traffic light" will take place in front of the Bitterfeld-Wolfen town hall and thus directly in front of the festival center. It is not registered by the AFD, but by an alliance from Dessau. We inquire in advance at the Mobile Counselling against the Right (MBR) what we have to prepare for. We learn that it is a loose alliance, "conspiracy theorists, friends of Russia, neo-Nazis."Probably not violent, but we would have to reckon with 250 vehicles. According to the findings of the Mobile Advisory Service, the festival itself is not directly targeted by the demo. We are, well, relieved. The MBR offers to be on site as an observer on this day and establishes a connection to the hotline for victims of right-wing violence just in case. The security company we are working with is not available on this day. The public order office and the police see no problem. They explain that there have been many Monday demonstrations recently and never any serious incident. We are planning a puppet parade by American artists Oscar Olivo and Elsa Saade on this day. The police promise to lead the car demo past the puppet parade without contact. So, it doesn't happen. The route is different from what the police had previously communicated and crosses the route of our parade. The parade is stopped by the police and now has to pass the line of cars on the side of the road and end crammed into a small square in front of the Kulturhaus for about thirty minutes. It's a hot day. Their own powerlessness and the sight of hundreds of vehicles – SUVs, company vehicles, cars, trucks – has something apocalyptic and thought-provoking about it. Hardly anyone calls and reacts. The musicians of the puppet parade continue to play, but they don't stand a chance against the sound of car horns and loudspeaker systems, from which aggressive, right-wing propaganda gushes incessantly. Some participants in our parade start dancing demonstratively. Most of them, however, stare stunned in the direction of the vehicles. A POC artist later rightly says that she did not feel protected by us at that moment. Other participants speak of a feeling of being at the mercy of others. We had tried to prepare for this encounter as best we could, but when it took place, we ourselves panicked ourselves and were overwhelmed. The line dancers from Wolfen-Nord, who are participating in the performance Tyrannosaurus Regina by Kolektiv hannsjana, ask us what we thought of the car demo. We tend to be rather cautious with political discussions, so we manoeuvre around; speak of democracy and freedom of demonstration. "I'm not going to let these assholes take my city away from me! You have to stop them now," suddenly shouts one of the dancers in cowboy hats. And yes, a single couple found their way from the right-wing demo to us, got a program booklet and threw money into the donation box. Nevertheless, the encounter with this motorcade and our paralysis in the process seem to us symptomatic of our dealings with the right-wing extremists in general. June 9, 2024 Parallel to the European elections, the local elections will take place in Saxony-Anhalt. The state asso ciation of the AFD, which is classified by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution as definitely right-wing extremist in Saxony-A nhalt, and the citizens' association Pro Wolfen, which is close to it, together get over 50 percent of the seats in the city parliament. Some festivalgoers are shocked and cry: "You can leave again, but we have to live here." Another says: "I'm a tradesman, but I don't want to pay taxes here if they get the money!" But what unsettles us most this weekend are some conversations with well-meaning visitors: They think our festival is great, they are grateful that something like this is taking place in their city and region. But after about 5 minutes, they use words or make statements that we find so racist that it leaves us speechless. This is obviously not done with the intention of provoking – it seems perfectly normal. Continue talking? But how? There can be no talk of a firewall against the right. We are overwhelmed. We are making a festival for mutual interest, but at what level do we actually have to be interested in primarily racist and sexist positions? It's in our statutes that we don't want that, and we didn't kick anyone out. Where does interest end and where does clear political opposition begin? Have we shown too little flag? June 11, 2024 A few days later, an appointment at the town hall: Here, too, we are overwhelmed. There is no longer a majority in the city in favor of a festival for the next five years. The use of urban areas and buildings is difficult to imagine. But also, disappointment that the festival has developed so politically. We don't understand what is meant. Yes, there was political art, but also a lot of completely non-political offerings from water slides to handicraft workshops to concerts. Too political? The works of art with the swastika and the Molotov cocktails did not have to be, says the mayor. He expects better care there. We say that these processes were supervised and that we did not want a debate about censorship under any circumstances. But the mayor's disappointment is genuine. He can no longer defend the festival in front of the city parliament, that is simply no longer possible. We ask what else would in fact be possible at all, apart from perhaps bouncy castles? Yes, that is also a problem, admits the mayor: Others hold district festivals with bouncy castles and get no money at all. This is another reason why the festival is viewed critically. The envy is already there. Even the fact that we don't get any money at all from the city and the district can be used against us in this perspective: The AFD promotes the impression that in this society certain projects "from those at the top" get money and others don't. We think: yes, in a democracy, democracy-promoting projects are more likely to be supported, while torchlight marches and solstice celebrations are not so well received. But we are not saying that, rather that it should be open to everyone to apply for funds. In our experience, the juries of the foundations are even most happy when impulses come from the regions themselves. We propose to present the festival in the city parliament, to explain once again what positive effects have already resulted for the city in recent years. "Oh, no, not reasonable!" We fall silent in horror. We see a mayor who is not sworn in even eight months after his election because the AFD contested the election. A mayor who does not have a majority in parliament, who is not sure whether his own parliamentary group is still behind him, who cannot follow his own impulses because he has been driven and cornered by the AfD for years. And just as in Bitterfeld-Wolfen, we think this will be true not only here, but also in Staßfurt, Nordhausen, Rostock, Guben, Bautzen... Much of what is discussed in the metropolises no longer arrives here. Or only as a grimace, as a grotesque alien image. June15, 2024 The last festival weekend has begun. With its nationwide forums for art, freedom and democracy, the DaKü Fund is making a stop here in Bitterfeld-Wolfen. Their motto is: “The art of remaining many.” We are proud and happy to be part of this nationwide campaign. But we also have a queasy feeling. The fund comes by with a truck that is used as a stage and is adorned with a large golden heart. They want to appear loud, colorful, glittery. But such a truck, which comes from the capital and sets up for a day as a mobile stage for speeches and workshops in an industrial wasteland, can also be misunderstood. People who drop by for a short time, for whatever purpose, are not very popular here. The DaKü Fund is faced with the challenge of creating a program that works in places as diverse as the Sophiensaele in Berlin and the town hall in Bitterfeld-Wolfen. But between the signs, words and symbols that are understood at the avant-garde Sophiensaele in Berlin and those that are understood here lie – we fear – worlds apart. Self-censorship again? Or justified caution? In addition, the Minister of Culture of Saxony-Anhalt, Rainer Robra, has announced that he will be present on this day. This visit is very important for us because, as a free project, we are dependent on state funds without continuous institution al funding. As the general tension rises, so do the temperatures. The opening of the day is nice: a lot of people from local initiatives have come. The puppet theatre Das Helmi is rehearsing a ghost train scene in cooperation with people with disabilities from the local Diakonie {A German charitable association of Protestant Churches]. The children celebrate our water slide. Speeches are held in front of the poster of the DaKü fund. “The Art of Remaining Many” is on display. But are we still The Many or is that autosuggestion? The conversation with the Minister of Culture goes well. He is very taken with the festival, emphasizes its importance and says that we saw in Sunday's election that posters "against the right" were not enough to have much effect. The inability to solidify this general feeling "against the right" into concrete political projects is certainly at the core of the problem. Otherwise, the day takes a nice course. In the evening there is a punk concert by the local punk band AbRAUM and when football fans come after the end of the public viewing and slide with German flags at midnight together with the punks, children, line dancers and queer hipsters and football fans, we have the feeling that maybe everything is not so bad, and art can be really meaningful. June 16, 2024 The festival ends with a final picnic with over 300 people from Bitterfeld-Wolfen. In many speeches, it becomes clear how important the festival is for the city right now – as a place of encounter, exchange, self-assurance. It provides a space of possibility that gives hope because it demonstrates, at least temporarily, new and different forms of community and coexistence. Sometimes that sounds almost like a moral mandate that threatens to overwhelm the festival and us. Two days later, the AFD member of the Bundestag who had reported us to the city sits in the city parliament. He has a double mandate and uses it in the first session to attack the festival. He quotes sentences from interviews that are supposed to prove that the festival's sponsoring association is not neutral and not worthy of funding. This coincides with his party's strategy of questioning the non-profit status of associations because they are politically active against the right. This is a strategy that has been successful: Many associations in the east are scaling back their political commitment because otherwise they are threatened with the withdrawal of their non-profit status. July 2024 "The most noble task of all art is to cultivate cultural identity. German identity is thus also the result of German art, especially the stage art that takes place in public space," says the AfD election program in Saxony-Anhalt. And "promoting cultural identity" is also something we try to do at our festival when people talk about East German identities, motherhood, queer history or the origin of first names. "At best," the AFD election program continues, "meaningless entertainment, off-the- beaten-path or international things without reference to our country are still shown on our stages." Yes, there may be something to that. Local references, concrete stories of the local people, that also interests us. "The AFD wants to deal with state and tax Local references, concrete stories of the local people, that's also what interests us. "The AFD wants to use state and tax money only to promote art that is fundamentally affirmative of its own German culture," it says in its election program. "As our budget applications have shown, we are willing to advocate massive cuts. Agitation against one's own people does not have to be financed by the state that consists of this people. In this respect, as well as in other points of cultural policy, the cultural-political turnaround that Hungary is making under Viktor Orban is a role model and inspiration for us." – Okay. You can prepare for the worst. End of July 2024 The curatorial team meets for a follow-up discussion. The AFD had over 20% of the votes in Bitterfeld-Wolfen when the first East Festival was held two years ago. Today it is over 40 percent. Have we achieved anything? Is the idea that art can contribute anything to the preservation of democratic structures even correct? Of course, art can't do it alone. As things stand now, it is even to be feared that it will be the first to be destroyed. On the one hand, because cuts are probably to be made again soon, and on the other hand, because it exposes itself to society. It is not only in eastern Germany that artistic and academic freedom is exposed to considerable attacks. And unfortunately, not only on the part of the AfD. Does what we are experiencing in Bitterfeld-Wolfen provide an insight into the future for Germany as a whole? And if so, how can we analyze, share and pass on our experiences? How can we develop strategies of solidarity and resistance in a highly competitive cultural sector? We probably don't have much time left. Image Credits: Article References References About the author(s) Aljoscha Begrich and Christian Tschirner both come from the GDR. Different paths led them to Frankfurt/Main, where they met at the theatre in 2001. Since then, they have worked together in various capacities, among them as dramaturgs at Schauspiel Hannover, and curators of the project "ReEDOcate me!" In the Floating University in Berlin. For the East festival in 2024, they were involved in the curatorial team. European Stages European Stages, born from the merger of Western European Stages and Slavic and East European Performance in 2013, is a premier English-language resource offering a comprehensive view of contemporary theatre across the European continent. With roots dating back to 1969, the journal has chronicled the dynamic evolution of Western and Eastern European theatrical spheres. It features in-depth analyses, interviews with leading artists, and detailed reports on major European theatre festivals, capturing the essence of a transformative era marked by influential directors, actors, and innovative changes in theatre design and technology. European Stages is a publication of the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center. Visit Journal Homepage Table of Contents Between Dark Aesthetics and Repetition: Reflections on the Theatre of the Bulgarian Director Veselka Kuncheva and Her Two Newest Productions Hecuba Provokes Catharsis and Compassion in the Ancient Theatre of Epidaurus (W)here comes the sun? Avignon 78, 2024. Imagining Possible Worlds and Celebrating Multiple Languages and Cultures Report from Basel International Theatre Festival in Pilsen 2024 or The Human Beings and Their Place in Society SPIRITUAL, VISCERAL, VISUAL … SPIRITUAL, VISCERAL, VISUAL …SHAKESPEARE AS YOU LIKE IT. IN CRAIOVA, ROMANIA, FOR 30 YEARS NOW Fine art in confined spaces 2024 Report from London and Berlin Berlin’s “Ten Remarkable Productions” Take the Stage in the 61st Berliner Theatertreffen. A Problematic Classic: Lorca’s Bernarda Alba, at Home and Abroad Previous Next Attribution: This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.

European Stages serves as an inclusive English-language journal, providing a detailed perspective on the unfolding narrative of contemporary European theatre since 1969. Back to Top Article References Authors Keep Reading < Back European Stages 19, Fall, 2024 Volume Visit Journal Homepage (W)here comes the sun? By Tamás Jászay Published: November 25, 2024 Download Article as PDF It's almost a family atmosphere: we spectators, barely a hundred of us, sit around the empty space. Office lights hang high above, from which a cheap paper screen is lowered from time to time, projecting still or moving images. This projection is one of the essential elements of this refreshed, dusted-down, updated Ibsen production, Solness , which premiered on the studio stage of the Örkény István Theatre in Budapest in autumn 2022 and, due to great interest, has been performed at the Szkéné Theatre from February 2024. On the screen, we see the building plans of the master builder and his student, which were never realised, and which are commented on with admiration or hatred. The shadows of the characters projected sharply onto the screen inadvertently add comments and stories to the projected images. If you happen to be sitting on the other side of the screen, you can see the images indelibly projected onto the desperate, pleading, explaining faces, not just their shadows. The screen becomes a time gate. Plans that never materialize transport us to an imagined, idealized futur e, but as we approach the finale, the canvas also becomes a powerful means of bringing the past to life. Suddenly we are watching a family home video, a private documentary of the past half century; the period when Pál Mácsai, playing Solness, became one of Hungary's best known and most admired actors. We peek, we peep into his life, as we have done so many times during the performance, and the (self-)ironic audio commentary is provided at this point by the video's protagonist, Mácsai-Solness himself. Finally, the screen is the "protagonist" in the bombastic finale: we see a projection of Hilde Wangel, who entered previously Solness's ordered yet infinitely lonely life, taken by the master builder as a vampire. From the short introduction, it is clear that Solness , directed by Ildikó Gáspár, plays with different stakes than the usual interpretations of Ibsen's late drama. The director can do all this here and now because the theatrical reception of Solness , written in 1892, is negligible in Hungary. This is worth emphasizing because Henrik Ibsen is clearly the most Hungarian of the Nordic playwrights. The climaxes of his extensive oeuvre are an inescapable cornerstone of the Hungarian repertoire: A Doll's House , Hedda Gabler , The Wild Duck , and even Peer Gynt , which focuses on the totality of the world rather than on a family, regularly appear on stages in Budapest and the provinces. The Master Builder Solness , considered by many to be one of the finest achievements of Ibsen’s oeuvre, is a rare visitor to our region. Yet the first Hungarian-language premiere was already in 1905, relatively early on: part of the ars poetica of the very first Hungarian independent theatre group, the Thália Society, was to introduce contemporary foreign drama to Hungarian audiences. However, theatre memory records fewer than ten (!) Hungarian-language Solness performances in the more than a hundred years that followed, and none of these became canon-shaping performances. In this way, Ildikó Gáspár's production stands lonely in Hungarian theatre history, while loneliness is a prominent theme of the production. Solness. Photo © Judit Horvath This is by no means an over-interpretation: the performance plays with the thematization and problematization of the relationship between the dramatic text written by Ibsen, translated into Hungarian and shortened by the director herself, the reality/present time of the theatrical performance and the reality off stage. We are a long way from, say, Shakespeare's meta-theatre: here, the speech about the theatre does not become a stand-alone (performable) insertion. Instead, from the first to the last moment of the performance, the theatre as a phenomenon becomes an integral part of the plot written by Ibsen. This Solness speaks about the theatre as a political institution, about the perceived or real conflicts between the different generations that run the institution, about the challenges of maintaining the influence acquired in cultural life, about the proper management of a common legacy. It speaks about the Örkény István Theatre itself, its current and renewed artistic leadership, and the chances of young theatre-makers in an unsupportive environment. And it does all this while telling the story of Ibsen's master builder Solness virtually in full. In this sense, the performance is therapy. The psychologizing of Ibsen, of the family, is somewhat relegated to the background in order to make the spectator realize that it is possible, even necessary, to reflect on certain traumas of the community space through the tools of the theatre. Readers who have not seen the show might have reason to believe that Solness in Budapest is a show for gossip-hungry "experts" who are sensitive to the internal affairs of the theatre world, but they could not be more wrong. Since the context around the performance is as important as the text of the performance in this case, some further information needs to be shared before I get to the performance itself. The director Ildikó Gáspár has evolved from a successful and remarkable dramaturg and translator into a director known mainly in Hungary, but also in German and Scandinavian-speaking countries over the last decade. In her performances, she analyses classical and contemporary dramatic texts with both insight and sensitivity, leads her actors in an inspiring way, and always with a highly emphatic and meticulously elaborated visual and musical world. It is difficult to find a common denominator between the two dozen productions of her directing career that began in 2011. Regardless of the period of the drama and its author, the problem-sensitive interpretation of the text, always carefully crafted to bring it as close as possible to the viewer of the present day, is a characteristic of each of her productions. Ildikó Gáspár is a founding member of the Örkény István Theatre, which opened in downtown Budapest in 2005. She became a key member of the theatre as a dramaturg and made her debut as a director here. Örkény's situation is unique in many respects: of all the municipal theatres in Hungary with a permanent company, repertoire and venue, we can think of no other theatre that has undergone such a significant change in profile in such a short space of time. The theatre, which for decades until the early 2000s presented solely comedy and cabaret, has now become one of the capital's most important theatres, with a highly successful ensemble working with the best directors to build a profile that is mainly, but not exclusively, prose drama. The first 'master builder' of the Örkény's image is the actor-director Pál Mácsai, who has been the theatre's director since its foundation. Pál Mácsai in 2025 will hand over his position to Máté Gáspár after 20 years of management. The latter name is familiar to many in the context of another memorable ensemble: it was he who, together with Árpád Schilling, laid the foundations for the international success story of the Krétakör Theatre as manager in the early 2000s. Alongside Máté Gáspár, Csaba Polgár, the theatre's leading male actor, will take over the artistic directorship of the Örkény Theatre from January 2025. The same Csaba Polgár who plays Ragnar, the dreaded adversary of Mácsai's title character in Solness . Ragnar's mother, Bertha Brovik (originally a male character) is played by Judit Pogány. The actress has been a major figure in Hungarian theatre and film since the 1970s and 1980s. And although she turned 80 in 2024, she is still performing in ten different productions at the Örkény Theatre. They are joined by the fourth generation: as the haunting Hilde Wangel, we see Mária Szaplonczay, who graduated from the University of Theatre and Film in 2024. Ildikó Gáspár's direction does not directly talk about this system of relations, which may seem complicated at first sight and not necessarily transparent to the outsider. At the same time, it is important to emphasize that the above-mentioned relationships are evident to the regular theatregoer in Hungary even if they are not stated. Having mentioned before projection and the different layers projected onto the screen, by bringing these relations (theatrical and generational) into play, it is as if a new filter has been added to Ibsen's drama, showing more and different aspects of the familiar story. Let's return to the starting point. We, the audience, sit around an empty office or living space. In the first few minutes, we see the same brief scene play out four times in quick succession between Ragnar and his mother Bertha, and Ragnar's fiancée Frida. The old Brovik is not feeling well, and the young people, at first gently, then increasingly irritated and impatient, want to send her home, which the old woman clearly takes as an attack: she accuses the youngsters of wanting to get rid of her for good. The playful yet nervous opening (with an annoying background noise coming from the invisible speakers: like the sound of blood pounding in your ears in a particularly tense situation) identifies and sets the main theme of the performance: the communication gap between young and old. There is, of course, no small amount of didacticism in the way Ibsen arranges his formula: Solness, at the height of his career, has once pushed Brovik from her position, and now his daily life is filled with the dread of his disciple, Brovik's son Ragnar, rebelling against him. The performance does not support the latter, however: Ragnar probably 'just' wants to work, has a family and a decent living, and does not seem to be a man with world- conquering ambitions. But then, it's not him who's important here, but Solness himself: the performance seems to take place 'inside his head', where dreams, desires, memories, visions and hallucinations are lined up in a whimsical order. Solness is the center of the universe he creates and sustains: he is the sun (cf. sol), which shines in solitude (cf. soleness). Everyone is dependent on him: old Brovik, Solness's predecessor; her son Ragnar, Solness's disciple; Frida, Ragnar's fiancée, Solness's employee and lover; Aline, Solness's wife, with whom he has never been able to come to terms with the tragedy of their loss of their children. The family doctor circulates as a lonely satellite around them. And then the asteroid Hilde Wangel unexpectedly strikes, upsetting the delicate balance. The emphasis is on making the relationships between the characters as clear as possible: this is helped by the layout of the space. The actors sit between us, next to us: when they enter a scene, they speak from an intermediate position that subtly blurs the boundaries between stage and auditorium and then return to that position at the end of the scene. We sometimes feel as if we could be the characters ourselves, if only because the problems succinctly expressed are a strong reminder of our own concerns and questions. Apart from Bertha Brovik, who only appears at the beginning of the performance, all the characters are present in the space throughout. As is often the case with Ibsen, two characters usually share their thoughts about a third. The pair then almost provocatively stand in front of the 'object' of their conversation, while (s)he listens to them with silent attention. It is worthwhile for the viewer to observe the actors who are not acting, their expressions, their gazes, to discover their small reactions to what they see and hear: it is as if they were voyeurs, like us. The performance plays with this too: the family friend, a doctor, takes (seemingly) random shots with his old camera and flash. He is the one who, already in Ibsen, Solness accuses of secretly watching his every move. Solness. Photo © Judit Horvath The creation and maintenance of an everyday atmosphere is an integral part of Luca Szabados' simple(seemingly) visual world. Solness and his successor Ragnar wear the same black leather jacket: who is copying or imitating whom, who is adapting to whom, or whether it is the 'uniform' of the architect's office, is left unclear. The basic color of the other characters' costumes is brown or drape, all of them earthy - a nice rhyme with the constant, desperate preoccupation of Solness's wife Aline with her potted houseplants. The only one who stands out is Hilde Wangel, who unexpectedly enters: a slightly worn white ballet skirt, which soon turns out to be a wedding dress, peeks out from under a bright red hoodie covering her upper body. Let's take a close look at Hilde's arrival! This is one of the first episodes where the story is emphatically out of its original flow, and the viewer becomes suspicious. There is something unrealistic and erotically exhilarating about the meeting of the grey-haired Solness and the brash young Hilde. The girl no one expects, but who is known to almost everyone in one way or another, claims and demands to be a fairytale creature: ten years to the day before, Solness promised her a kingdom, and she has come to make that promise a reality. Throughout the performance, the strictly cut text follows Ibsen's original drama, but here it is enriched with a new element. When Hilde begins to talk about Solness kissing her several times when she was twelve, the architect goes into a fit of rage. He shoves her out of the room; while looking the mute spectators in their eyes, he explains that everything the girl says is a lie: he certainly doesn't kiss children. Suddenly Hilde reappears in the space, but by then everything has changed: Solness' carefully constructed statue has been destroyed in an instant. And the sensitive viewer is left with a vivid reminder of the way in which Hungarian public discourse has (not) dealt with #metoo issues - both in and outside the theatre. A typical he said/she said situation: the performance does not clearly state who is right, i.e. what really happened between the two. The scene written by Ibsen remains intact, but thanks to the sensitive dramaturgical and directorial intervention, it is enriched with a new, touchingly contemporary layer. (And we realize too that in the late 19th century, it was not shocking for an older man to have an intimate relationship with a child. In the 2020s it is impossible to ignore it.) Solness-Mácsai is aware of us, the audience, from the very first scenes, and while we know, in the spirit of the theatrical pact, that his utterances to us are not those of the actor but of the character, the dissonance of the boundary crossing is felt early on. When Solness says he is lucky, Mácsai could say the same. Or when he gazes dreamily at the women in the audience and then admits to the doctor that he has had many women in his life, whose "line" is that? The profile of the successful master builder is not only embossed on his portrait but is inseparable from the profile of the successful actor, director, theatre manager. And when he begins to speak condemningly of the young people who are demanding space for themselves at all costs (he even gets one of the spectators out of his seat), one cannot help thinking that Solness-Mácsai is (perhaps) talking about himself. For example, that in Hungary theatre directors are not appointed for a few years, but often for decades. Consequently, entire generations are left out of the theatre cycle without having gained any experience of leadership and without realizing their own vision of how a theatre or ensemble should operate. Before anyone gets the wrong idea, this is not an accusation against Mácsai, who has built one of the country's most high-quality theatres, but merely an outline of the context. Mácsai Pál’s Solness is an acting masterpiece. He portrays a burnt-out, tired, cynical and self-reflective character who, despite his achievements and successes, lives on his enduring charm even after the age of sixty. He talks to everyone in a slightly condescending, lecturing way. He knows a lot and has seen a lot, which is why he is acutely aware that his time is coming to an end. The scapegoating, which has probably been going on for some time, has had a reassuring result: young people are to blame for everything. Solness's world is bewilderingly round: just as he got rid of Brovik, the new generation will want to get rid of him. A man of this type needs a 'court' that fears and adores him, and whose members are all weaker than he is. His narcissism knows no bounds: he even teaches the audience a song about himself. The old and sickly Brovik (Judit Pogány) is no longer a real opponent, just a toothless lion. His son Ragnar (Csaba Polgár) seems to be a more difficult case, but Solness is probably overthinking things: Ragnar does want a place for himself, but not against Solness, rather just beside him. Ragnar's fiancée Frida (Emőke Zsigmond) is impressed by Solness's interest and affection, but he sees her as a disposable object, a tool. Solness's wife Aline (Gabriella Hámori) seems to be a confused, introverted, lonely figure, but she sees and senses everything that happens around her. The loss of his children is the great tragedy of her life, which she tries in vain to explain away as God's will, but in reality, she blames herself. At the moment of the children's death, the relationship between Aline and Solness is at a standstill, and they are unable to move on from there: they have nothing more to say to each other. The doctor (Sándor Terhes) observes and registers: Solness considers him both his confidant and his enemy, sent by Aline to kill him. Young people are dangerous, Solness repeats again and again, and the most beautiful illustration of the theme is the intrusion of Hilde Wangel (Mária Szaplonczay) and her attempt to break the equilibrium. Yet she does nothing but take seriously an irresponsible statement, a promise made to a child ten years earlier. In his eyes, Solness is a hero, whom he endows with supernatural powers and from whom he expects to enliven his own ordinary, boring life. But Hilde can not only be a new beginning for Solness's empty marriage, she can also replace his dead children. Solness, a great manipulator, effectively involves his wife, Aline, in this game, who takes care of the girl immediately after Hilde's arrival and puts her in one of the old children’s rooms. In the first half of the hundred-minute performance, the sensitive relations of the Solness- universe are sharply depicted, before the focus narrows to the internal conflicts of the Solness-Mácsai figure and Solness's relationship with Hilde. The home video, mentioned at the beginning of the text, thus becomes a memorable inset to the performance. Selections from the video archive of the Mácsai family show Pál Mácsai's parents, his brother and, of course, himself as a child and young adult. And so we arrive at the spring of 1994, when Pál Mácsai recited the poem Highly Esteemed Overlords by the 19th century revolutionary poet Sándor Petőfi in front of 10,000 people in the Budapest Sports Hall. It is without exaggeration that this is the emblematic material of the Hungarian- language YouTube, which has more than one and a half million views, and Mácsai adds a self-deprecating audio commentary to his own recital from 30 years earlier. Hilde literally walks into the picture: she clicks repeatedly, the recording stops, starts again, while she re-enacts Mácsai's (Solness’s?) striking gestures in front of the screen. In the finale, when Solness, who has a fear of heights, climbs to the roof of the house to place the wreath, against the strong protests of her relatives and Hilde's insistence, the girl and the master builder are also placed in the center. The video spins again: climbing a ladder to the rooftop above Budapest, Hilde in her wedding dress and (Solness-)Mácsai, wearing a costume and make-up clearly evoking Bela Lugosi's iconic Dracula. The old master, terrified of the power of youth, yet morbidly attracted to it, sucking the blood of youth and drawing strength from it, reaches the top - but at what cost? The sun, known to have a harmful effect on vampires, shines over the rooftops at dawn, and the cast choruses the re-envisioned Beatles song—here comes the sun... Solness. Photo © Judit Horvath Image Credits: Article References References About the author(s) Tamás Jászay (45), theatre critic, editor, university lecturer, curator. Since 2003 he's been working as a freelance theatre critic: in the last 20 years he published more than 1200 articles (mostly reviews) in more than 20 magazines all around the world. Since 2008 he is co-editor, since 2021 editor-in-chief of the well-renowned critical portal, Revizor ( www.revizoronline.com ). Between 2009 and 2016 he was working as the co-president of the Hungarian Theatre Critics' Association. In 2013 he defended his PhD thesis on the history of Krétakör Theatre (Chalk Circle Theatre). He regularly works as a curator too: Hungarian Showcase (Budapest, 2013), Szene Ungarn (Vienna, 2013), THEALTER Festival (Szeged, since 2014), dunaPart (Budapest, 2015, 2017, 2019, 2023). Since 2015 he's been teaching at Szeged University, since 2019 as an assistant professor. European Stages European Stages, born from the merger of Western European Stages and Slavic and East European Performance in 2013, is a premier English-language resource offering a comprehensive view of contemporary theatre across the European continent. With roots dating back to 1969, the journal has chronicled the dynamic evolution of Western and Eastern European theatrical spheres. It features in-depth analyses, interviews with leading artists, and detailed reports on major European theatre festivals, capturing the essence of a transformative era marked by influential directors, actors, and innovative changes in theatre design and technology. European Stages is a publication of the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center. Visit Journal Homepage Table of Contents Between Dark Aesthetics and Repetition: Reflections on the Theatre of the Bulgarian Director Veselka Kuncheva and Her Two Newest Productions Hecuba Provokes Catharsis and Compassion in the Ancient Theatre of Epidaurus (W)here comes the sun? Avignon 78, 2024. Imagining Possible Worlds and Celebrating Multiple Languages and Cultures Report from Basel International Theatre Festival in Pilsen 2024 or The Human Beings and Their Place in Society SPIRITUAL, VISCERAL, VISUAL … SPIRITUAL, VISCERAL, VISUAL …SHAKESPEARE AS YOU LIKE IT. IN CRAIOVA, ROMANIA, FOR 30 YEARS NOW Fine art in confined spaces 2024 Report from London and Berlin Berlin’s “Ten Remarkable Productions” Take the Stage in the 61st Berliner Theatertreffen. A Problematic Classic: Lorca’s Bernarda Alba, at Home and Abroad Previous Next Attribution: This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.