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Fecund Error is a spoken word choral music-theater piece constructed according to a procedure of repeated mistranslations of an invented hieroglyphic alphabet. The play embodies a process of trying to speak and think that which is unspeakable and unthinkable. It is an invitation to deep listening, a ritual of unknowing. PRELUDE Festival 2023 PERFORMANCE Fecund Error Ashley Kelly Tata, Jerry Lieblich, Robert M. Johanson Theater, Multimedia, Opera, Music, Choral English 20 Mins + Chat 4:30PM EST Saturday, October 21, 2023 The Tank, West 36th Street, New York, NY, USA Free Entry, Open To All Fecund Error is a spoken word choral music-theater piece constructed according to a procedure of repeated mistranslations of an invented hieroglyphic alphabet. The play embodies a process of trying to speak and think that which is unspeakable and unthinkable. It is an invitation to deep listening, a ritual of unknowing. Content / Trigger Description: Language may break down. Pictures may be language. Gesture may be implemented. Ashley Kelly Tata (they/ze/she/tata) makes multi-media works of theater, contemporary opera, performance, cyberformance, live music and immersive experiences. They have been called“fervently inventive,” by Ben Brantley in the New York Times, “extraordinarily powerful” by the LA Times, like something that “reaches out across the centuries and punches you in the throat” by Alexis Soloski in the New York Times and Tata’s production of Kate Soper’s Ipsa Dixit was named a notable production of the decade by Alex Ross in The New Yorker. These works have been presented in venues and festivals throughout the US and internationally including at Theatre for a New Audience, Ars Nova, PS21, LA Opera, Austin Opera, The Miller Theater, National Sawdust, EMPAC, BPAC, The Crossing the Line Festival, the Holland Festival, The Big Ears Festival, The Big Sing Festival, The Prelude Festival, The National Centre for the Performing Arts in Beijing, and the Fisher Center’s Summerscape Festival at Bard. Tata is currently Visiting Assistant Professor of Theater & Performance and Artistic Producer of Theater & Performance at Bard College, NY. Jerry Lieblich (they/them) is the founder and lead artist of Third Ear. Their plays include D Deb Debbie Deborah (Clubbed Thumb – Critic’s Pick: NY Times, TimeOut NY), Tongue Depressor (The Public Theatre, Brooklyn College), Everything for Dawn (Experiments in Opera), Nostalgia is a Mild Form of Grief (Playwrights Horizons, Vineyard Theater), Ghost Stories (Cloud City - Critic’s Pick: TimeOut NY), Your Hair Looked Great (Abrons Arts Center), and The Barbarians (New York Theatre Workshop, Dixon Place, PRELUDE), and A Discourse on the Method… (Ensemble Studio Theatre). Their poetry has appeared Foglifter, Grist, SOLAR, Pomona Valley Review, Cold Mountain Review, and Works and Days. Jerry has held residencies at MacDowell, Mass MOCA, Blue Mountain Center, SPACE on Ryder Farm, Millay Arts, UCROSS, NACL, and the Edward F. Albee Foundation. They have received a Martha Boschen Porter Fund Fellowship, Wallis Annenberg Helix Fellowship from Yiddishkayt, EST/Sloan Commission and the Himan Brown Creative Writing Award (twice), and are an alum of the Soho Rep Writer/Director Lab, Page 73's I-73 Writer's Group, and Pipeline Theater’s Playlab group. BA: Yale, Philosophy; MFA: Brooklyn College (Mac Wellman and Erin Courtney, chief instigators). Robert M. Johanson is a freelance performer/composer/director in New York City. He is a founding member of Nature Theater of Oklahoma, and has performed with them in No Dice, Poetics: a Ballet Brut, Romeo and Juliet, No President, and composed music for and performed in their epic cycle Life and Times: Episodes 1-9, and Burt Turrido: an Opera. Robert has created and composed his own pieces in collaboration with both students and professionals including Life is Hard with Von Krahl Theater and The Loon with Witness Relocation. He has worked with many companies in New York City and abroad including: Elevator Repair Service, 7 Daughters of Eve, Radiohole, The Civilians, Jim Findlay, Morgan Green, Lithuanian National Drama Theatre, and Spreafico Eckly. He is a frequent guest teacher at the Norwegian Theatre Academy, and has given workshops and master classes at Rutgers, Columbia University and MIT. www.tatatime.live ; www.thirdear.nyc ; www.robertmjohanson.com 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 (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.

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 18, Fall, 2023 Volume Visit Journal Homepage “Regietheater:” two cases By Ivan Medenica Published: November 26, 2023 Download Article as PDF It is well known that the main characteristic of Middle and East European theatre during the past century has been the so-called “directorial theatre” (the most familiar formulation being in German,“Regietheater”), quite unlike the mainstream of British and American theatre. In this text I review productions of two highly regarded directors from this part of Europe, whose work is clearly in this tradition: Czech director Dušan David Pařízek and his Bulgarian colleague Alexander Morfov. The Moscoviad . Photo: Patrik Borecký. The performance The Moscoviad , based on Yuri Andrukhovych’s novel and staged by Dušan David Pařízek, was performed within the PQ+, a show-case of contemporary Czech theatre offered as a side program to the 2023 Prague Quadrennial. Andrukhovych is a contemporary Ukrainian writer, and this novel about the collapse of the Soviet Union was written in 1993. Pařízek is one of the foremost Czech directors of the middle generation, mostly working in German speaking countries. Unlike other performances in the PQ+ program, all of which were productions of leading Prague institutional theatres, The Moscoviad was produced by an independent platform,Theatre X10, which seeks to create critical thinking that reflects social reality. Audiences familiar with Pařízek’s earlier work will most certainly recognize the main features of his directorial poetics in The Moscoviad. In terms of stage design, and in general, in terms of its visual aspects the performance is marked with noticeable minimalism and reduction of stage devices. In the middle of the non-theatre space of TheatreX10 (originally a gallery in the basement of a modernist high-rise built in 1936) Pařízek put a wooden platform resembling a stage on a stage. The actors play around it, on it and, also, with it—transforming it, moving it and rearranging its densely arranged planks which cover and thus bridge the desks. When put together, the desks and the planks form the said platform which is at the same time the functional space of the performance and an independent visual installation (Pařízek himself is credited for the stage design). Visual, performative, but most of all, metaphorical climax in space utilisation happens when the actors disassemble the platform energetically and vociferously, leaving just separated desks as performance space. They then stab the planks between the desks, amplify them with light, projecting their shadows on the walls, thus creating a stunning abstract installation. However, the installation is not as abstract as it seems at first, because it can be interpreted as a rather direct and blunt metaphor. The collapse of the stage world is equivalent to one of the central topics in Andrukhovych’s novel which Pařízek himself dramatized: the equally vociferous and violent collapse of the Soviet Union. Those familiar with his much awarded production of Wolfram Lotz's The Ridiculous Darkness at the Burgtheater Vienna will recognize his directorial signature: a wooden wall composed of planks which disintegrates vociferously at the most important moment in the performance and is scattered across the stage. The Moscoviad . Photo: Patrik Borecký. The novel The Moscoviad seems realistic at first. It is about a day in the life of a young Ukrainian poet Otto von F. who is spending the last weeks of the Union in an “artists’ residence” at the institute of Soviet writers in Moscow. There, he is in the company of equally drunk and disheartened writers from other regions of the dying empire. They spend their time arguing and quarrelling about nationalism, communism, democracy, god and all else that preoccupies Slavs’ poetic souls. The context of the literature institute, vivid descriptions of Moscow and, as we shall later see, certain fantastic elements—all form intertextual links with another novel by another renowned writer also originating from the Ukraine, Mikhail Bulgakov and his famous novel The Master and Margarita . The story is only just realistic. In essence, it is really a foundation for a grotesque, fantastic, macabre parable, including the descent into the underground world, concerning Russia’s profound blindness regarding the direction in which the whole of Europe was heading at the beginning of the 1990s. One of the main topics in both the novel and the performance are Russian political and police elites’ insincere and unsuccessful attempts to adapt to these circumstances, while in reality they continue to fantasize about not only of upholding the Soviet/Russian empire but also of expanding it westwards, to Western Europe. One needs not emphasize how strikingly real and painful this story is today, even more so at the time of Russian aggression against Ukraine. Yet, in my opinion, the real value of both the novel and the performance lies elsewhere, in something just a shade different. Despite being uncompromisingly criticizing of Russian imperialism, neither Andrukhovych’s novel nor Pařízek’s production are mere propaganda. Quite the contrary, they are interwoven with subtle (auto)irony and genuine humanity. The auto-irony stems from, most of all, the text itself. In his letters/dreams the main character, already mentioned (fictional) Ukrainian poet Otto von V., addresses the, also fictional, heir to the throne of what one might call the “Ukrainian world.” This, in itself, may not be significant to Anglo-Saxon audiences. Yet, those from Central and East Europe are all too familiar with these national confabulations and cannot but at least smile (if not laugh due to respect for the tragedy happening in Ukraine) upon recognizing them. This subtle irony is maintained in Pařízek’s work with four great actors appearing in different roles: Gabriela Míčová, Stanislav Majer, Václav Marhold and Martin Pechlát. Besides the ironic and grotesque, their amazing performances showcase other registers as well: strong emotionalism, igneous energy, clearly differentiated characters and their relationships, skillful improvisation … Such an acting approach combined with fitting poetics employed by both the writer and the director result in an artistically relevant and politically balanced performance. In conclusion, I would like to stress that although uncompromisingly critical towards Russian imperialism, the performance of The Moscoviad does not fall into the trap of Russophobia, which today is, sadly, often the case even in the matters of arts. The 70th anniversary of the Montenegrin National Theatre in Podgorica was celebrated with a premiere of The Visit , a performance based on a well-known play by Swiss playwright Friedrich Dürrenmatt, The Visit of the Old Lady (Der Besuch der alten Dame) , written in the 1950s. The performance was directed by one of the foremost Bulgarian, and European directors Alexander Morfov. The Visit . Photo: Dusko Milhanic. Although it belongs to what one might call “contemporary classics,” Dürrenmatt’s play is not so well known today, thus requiring further illumination before proceeding to the analysis of the performance itself. The play may be classified as “theatre of the absurd,” “tragic farce” or any similar genre in which, as Dürrenmatt himself points out, the tragic stems from the comic, surfacing as “a moment of utter despair, a gaping abyss.” The story is comical in the sense that one economically and in every other way devastated town is expecting a visit from its most affluent citizen ever, and in doing so they perceive her visit as their last chance of salvation. Clara Zachanassian, living abroad for decades and changing husbands (at the beginning of the play she has seven ex-husbands, but as the play progresses the number increases) has become a billionaire. Her appearance is comical, with her entourage of bizarre servants, a litter, a panther, ever new husbands, cynical and eccentric behavior, but also comical are the citizens of Güllen in their cowardice, servility and readiness to do anything to improve their conditions. The tragic begins to surface with her request that in view of her willingness to donate a billion to her hometown, she wants “one head” to be delivered to her: she wants her once lover, grocer Alfred, to be killed because after he had impregnated her and ascribed his responsibility to others, he forced her into a vagabond lifestyle which started with prostitution. The feeling of the tragic is crystalized in the theme of “buying justice,” and in succumbing to the criminal demands of big capital. Although the offer is at first rejected with strong moral indignation, the citizens of Güllen, including Alfred’s own family, will, quite expectedly, finally accept paying for a higher standard of existence (loans are being taken before the billion is deposited) with somebody’s life. When writing about two performances in one review, points of comparison impose themselves as a sort of tedious itching even if, as is the case here, there are no real grounds for them. In that respect, while Pařízek’s production features strong visual symbolism, minimalist staging and is charged with energy, Morfov’s is visually decorative, marked with lushness of stage and energetically diluted. Without radical adaptation, Dürrenmatt’s text requires the presence of a large number of actors and stand-ins on stage. Morfov skilfully groups, moves, and rearranges numerous actors, as if making a composition for a painting or a film shot. His “stage stills” are based upon actors’ playing in several planes and levels for which effect he uses stage technology (stage podium drops), elements of stage design (the balcony of Clara’s hotel room), separating close-ups from wide-shots by light, and shaping choreographically particular scenes (Alfred’s murder, for example). Such combining of stage elements creates the association—maybe because we know subconsciously that The Visit of the Old Lady has been turned into a musical—that we are watching a Broadway spectacle that requires skillful technical and artistic orchestration of a large number of actors, dancers and singers. Just to make things clear: from my aesthetic perspective, this Broadway association--and which is highly conditional—is not a compliment. Still, as if all of that were not enough for Morfov, to this densely packed stage he adds full-size mannequins that sometimes appear in isolation or are scattered, and at times are densely grouped. The use of mannequins representing citizens of this small town is both redundant and unjustified simply because there already is a large enough number of live performers. In terms of their symbolic meaning, it is superficial if the objective was to signify loss of individuality, transformation of people into big capital’s marionettes or anything similar. That said, I do not reject the possibility that the use of mannequins is purely decorative in purpose and holds no special meaning. Considering all of the above, one gets the impression of an old-fashioned and somewhat conventional theatrical style, and not just a self-complacent one. Scenes with mannequins are a good illustration of the performance’s central feature: stage attractiveness overshadows dramatic action, thereby glossing over feelings and meanings that this action should incite. In addition, one of the consequences of the underdeveloped dramatic action is the overwhelming feeling of boredom. All of this is the result, at least one gets such an impression, of the director’s greater focus on stage stills instead of on his work with actors who seemed as if left to themselves. For this reason, Clara, played by a leading Montenegrin actress, Varja Djukić, lacks that sharp transformation of a comic, grotesque character into a mythical revengeful figure that looks as if she is appearing out of a tragedy. Throughout her performance the actress is shaping and developing her character, emphasizing psychological motifs and thus totally missing the point of both the play and her character. Such an approach dilutes the very comicality of the first part of the play, but also the anxiety and tragic perception of the world when Clara asks the citizens to sell her justice which, she believes, belongs undisputedly to her. The comic effect is subdued further by the fact that the actors, it seems, have either failed to recognize the very lucid and bitter humor of the play or they just lacked confidence in it. Because of this they “covered” it with their own forced, and thereby, unconvincing comical skills. However, the tragic and critical view of the world ensuing from the awareness that money is the absolute ruler of our lives—which is the point that makes this 1956 play relevant today and the reason why it is still played—is clearly delivered at the end of the performance. The performance ends with a bleak song that through association links the citizens of Güllen with today’s populist and right-oriented forces. The Visit . Photo: Dusko Milhanic. It is a pity that this disquieting, critical attitude is just “glued on” at the very end of the performance by a directorial intervention. Pity, because this attitude should have been present and readable throughout the entire performance, and especially throughout its second half. Yet, in terms of production and artistic choice, including the financial investment, this project of Montenegrin National Theatre in Podgorica deserves to be supported. It suggests that in the seasons to come this theatre will try to raise its artistic ambitions and step out of its local context. Image Credits: Article References References About the author(s) A native of Belgrade, Ivan Medenica studied at the Faculty of Philosophy and the Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Belgrade, where he completed his PhD thesis entitled “Actualization and Deconstruction as Models of Directing Drama Classics.” He is an associate professor at the FDA, where he teaches history of world drama and theatre. He regularly publishes articles in national and international journals. He chaired or co-chaired three of the international symposia of theatre critics and experts organized by the prestigious Serbian theatre festival Sterijino Pozorje in Novi Sad and the International Association of Theatre Critics (IATC). He has participated in a number of international conferences, such as in St. Etienne, Moscow, Vienna, Budapest, Avignon, Thessaloniki, Sofia and Lisbon. He has received a number of national awards for his theatre criticism and was the artistic director of Sterijino Pozorje. Medenica is one of the editors of the theatre magazine Teatron, and he holds the post of Adjunct General Secretary at the IATC. 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 Report from London (December 2022) Confessions, storytelling and worlds in which the impossible becomes possible. The 77th Avignon Festival, July 5-25, 2023 “Regietheater:” two cases The Grec Festival 2023 The Festival of the Youth Theatre of Piatra Neamt, Romania: A Festival for “Youth without Age” (notes on the occasion of the 34th edition) Report from Germany Poetry on Stage: Games, Words, Crickets..., Directed by Silviu Purcărete 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 SPIRITUAL, VISCERAL, VISUAL … SPIRITUAL, VISCERAL, VISUAL …SHAKESPEARE AS YOU LIKE IT. IN CRAIOVA, ROMANIA, FOR 30 YEARS NOW By Kalina Stefanova Published: November 25, 2024 Download Article as PDF A Story of Will and Love of Will (Shakespeare) Yes, We Will was the motto of the International Shakespeare Festival in Craiova this year. It could well have been the same one 30 years ago, in 1994, when the Festival took off to a daring start. The incredible will to make Craiova a city of Shakespeare – on an international scale at that! – belonged then, as well as ever since, to Emil Boroghina – the irresistibly charismatic actor, director and manager of the Craiova National Theatre, who exudes the special aura of modesty characteristic only of the truly wise. Importantly, in the beginning of the 1990’s, it was in Craiova and at its National Theatre “Marin Sorescu,” where the Romanian theatre at large could dream big and could turn its dreams into reality. It was there and then, where the director Silviu Purcarete, now an artist of highest world renown, started his career. His second show, Ubu Rex with Scenes from Macbeth (1990), got invited to the Edinburgh Festival, in 1991, and became such a hit there that was immediately invited to Japan, Germany and Israel. “All of a sudden, Purcarete’s name became known, respected, sought after,” as the critic and scholar Octavian Saiu notes his essay on the director in the 2021 collection 20 Ground-Breaking Directors of Eastern Europe. Purcarete’s next productions – Titus Andronicus (1992) and Phaedra (1994) – followed suit, bringing high acclaim to him, to the Craiova National Theatre, and to the Romanian theatre alike, both at home and around the world. It was exactly during the tour of that Titus Andronicus in Tokyo, in 1992, where Emil Boroghina first shared in public, and on the international arena, the ambitious goal that the Craiova National Theatre had set up for itself: to organize an international festival devoted to Shakespeare. Very symbolically, this announcement transpired in no other place but the local Globe theatre. Mind you, this was a time, when nearly everywhere in Eastern Europe theatre was losing ground. On multiple levels at that: in terms of its audiences, status, repertoire, and, most importantly, main focus. It was in search for a new face – a process which took, in some countries, nearly half a decade to be completed. The Craiova National Theatre obviously stood out as a glaring exception in this overall rather bleak picture and, thus, presented the most propitious conditions for putting into practice Boroghina’s conviction, as stated in the 1994 Festival Program, that “as actors test their mettle by doing Shakespeare, so do theatres.” As You Like It. Photo © John Haynes The first edition of the Festival was rather cautious: it consisted of six productions only, of which just one was foreign. However, the latter was no other but the all-male As You Like It of the British Cheek by Jowl Theatre – one of the hottest shows of the time which was in a process of traveling and introducing to the audiences around the world the typical finesse and inconspicuousness of Declan Donnellan’s directing signature style. It was not going to be a one-off visit of Donnellan and his Cheek by Jowl in Craiova. He remained truly involved with the International Shakespeare Festival there throughout the next decades. In 2006, he brought to Craiova his ephemerally beautiful Twelfth Night , done as a co-production between Cheek by Jowl and the Moscow International Chekhov Festival. The 2008 edition featured his Troilus and Cressida and the 2018 one – his Measure for Measure , another co-production between Cheek by Jowl and a Russian theatre institution, this time the Pushkin Theatre. And now, the Festival’s jubilee 30th year had as one of its highlights his Hamlet , done especially for the occasion with the cast of the very host – the Craiova National Theatre. Meanwhile, in 2014, one of the productions included in the “Shakespeare’s Contemporaries” line of the Festival was Donnellan’s too: ‘ Tis a Pity She’s a Whore , by John Ford. In 2008, the Festival cracked its door open for exceptional fully non-Shakespearean productions, not related to his time either. And the two exceptions then were, indeed, exceptional: Peter Brook’s The Grand Inquisitor , after Dostoyevsky’s novel (with Bouffes de Nord Theatre), and Robert Wilson’s Lady from the Sea , by Ibsen (with the Berliner Ensemble). Appropriately, the edition was entitled Great Shows, Great Directors. The brilliant late Romanian-French critic George Banu had remarked earlier that the Craiova Festival was “extremely courageous and extremely radical” and suggested that “if the festival in Sibiu were one of opening, the one in Craiova was one of focus.” The two aforementioned “detours” did not at all mean that the Festival had betrayed its focus. They rather indicated that there was already a two-way focus phenomenon: i.e. in five editions only, the Craiova Festival had managed to draw the attention of the biggest names in the world theatre. In the next editions, Robert Lepage, the Quebec director- extraordinaire, was the other rare exception in the program: with his Needles and Opium , in 2018, and with his stunning one-man show 887 , in 2022. The 2008 edition introduced yet another novelty: the International Shakespeare Festival Prize. Unsurprisingly, it went first to Declan Donnellan, and then, over the next years, has gone to the directors Silviu Purcarete (in 2010), Eimuntas Nekrosius (in 2012), Krzysztof Warlikowski (in 2018) and Robert Lepage (in 2022). So far the only non-directors among the Prize recipients have been Sir Stanley Wells (2014), the Shakespearean scholar and Honorary President of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, and Michael Dobson (2020), director of the Shakespeare Institute, Stratford-on-Avon. These choices are not surprising either. For, the Festival is not only an artistic endeavor but is also a platform for critical and scholarly discourse, focused, naturally, on Shakespeare. The high-level conferences, gathering Shakespearean scholars from around the world in Craiova, have become a part of the Festival’s trademark and have acquired the patronage of the UNESCO chair of the International Theatre Institute (ITI). In 2010, the Shakespeare in Performance Seminar was launched there and later on it got the aegis of the European Shakespeare Research Association (ESRA). In addition to all that, in 2010, the Festival became a co-founder of the European Shakespeare Festivals Network whose meetings regularly take place there. And, in 2016, its high-level international status was further asserted by the fact that the one week of events accompanying the Europe Theatre Prize, the most important theatre award on the whole continent, was organized in the framework of the 10th Festival edition. Given all these developments, high-end additions, and already fully cemented reputation as a the atre institution of world-wide clout, a question naturally arises: could the Craiova International Shakespeare Festival get possibly further enriched in terms of content and format? The 2024 jubilee edition provided a firmly positive answer. 2024: New Entries in the Festival’s Profile The Festival celebrated its jubilee with several substantial innovations which – notably! – were organically intertwined. In the first place, it acquired a new co-organizer: The National University of Theatre and Film Arts (UNACT) “I. L. Caragiale” (based in Bucharest), in addition to the Shakespeare Theatre Foundation, established by Boroghina in 1994. This enforcement of the organizers’ ranks has brought a whole new strand to the program, so far routinely consisting mainly of indoor and outdoor parts: UNITER performances and events. Their number was, indeed, startling: 106 altogether, ranging from theatre to film, to installations, research workshops, exhibitions, etc., and mounted in 22 alternative spaces throughout Craiova. An interesting detail of the jubilee Festival edition was that some of the participating students were accommodated in a camping place, especially created for them in the biggest park of the city. This was not an ordinary camping place per se but part of another major new development of the Festival: the Shakespeare Village. Built as a traditional Elizabethan-era village, it was an alternative place for performances, workshops, children’s activities during the day, and concerts and parties during the night; with overall 70 events happening there during the 11 festival days. In turn, the Shakespeare village was not just a new entry in the jubilee program. It was a part of the most important change of the Festival that transpired already on a conceptual level. Namely, the very scope of the Festival’s audiences, or rather addressees, was substantially expanded to encompass not just the spectators of the invited shows but, in an equal measure, the local communities of Craiova. As Vlad Dragulescu, the person to whom Boroghina has meanwhile handed the baton – the current director of the Festival – put it in the catalogue: “This time, perhaps more than ever, we will understand that most of all, Shakespeare is not about theatre, but about people. A Shakespeare for everyone.” Lady from the Sea. Photo © A.J. Weissbard The emphasis on the local communities’ involvement and on the two-way relations between the festival and the people outside of the theatre halls was best reflected in the Pop-Up Shakespeare strand of the program. “Festival Communities Build the Festival” was its motto. Together with the Outdoor strand, they involved 50 locations in the city, where shows and improvisations took place. As the catalogue described it, “Our actors have the mission, at this edition, to talk to the people who live there and to involve them with the actual production. With a ladle, with a pot, with a chair, with a table, with a hanger. This year, the whole of Craiova is a stage and all the people are actors.” In brief, the aim was to transform Craiova from a city with a festival to a full-scale fes tival city. The new, communities-oriented, concept was actually put into practice long before the Festival started, in something like a prelude to it, with the so- called Shakespeare caravan. It brought for the first time The Complete Works of Shakespeare (in the shape of a 45-minute open-air show) to 30 cities in Romania and drew over 1200000 spectators. After all this, how could one not eagerly anticipate what the Craiova Festival had prepared for the audience for its jubilee? The 2024 Highlights Out of the overall more than 300 events and nearly 30 main indoor shows, the Festival organizers had taken out of the brackets several names: Peter Brook, Robert Wilson, Declan Donnellan, Robert Lepage, Andrei Serban. It was with Wilson’s Tempest , a production of the National Theatre “Ivan Vazov” of Bulgaria, the jubilee edition took off. The show met the expectations of all the incorrigible fans of the famed director’s oeuvre. It is a manifestation of impressive moving images, created with impeccable taste, in terms of colors and composition, and animated via stylized acting, where actors are more like puppets, clad in correspondingly imposing costumes and bringing in a pinch of a special humor – somewhat from a distance and, to be frank, not readable to everyone. In brief, beauty as from another planet, to a la rge extent warmth-free, and humor that is rather a form of a shield lest we dare try to penetrate underneath the striking surface of all we see on stage in search for something else there. While Wilson’s show could not be considered a surprise either for better or for worse, Donnellan’s Hamlet with the Craiova National Theatre was, for me, a true disappointment. Although I was in fact somewhat prepared by his Spanish Life Is a Dream , which visited Sofia a year ago and which was not a sample of his best directorial work. The springboard concept of Donellan’s Hamlet is actually very worthy. The action takes place in a very intimate environment. The spectators are seated on two parallel amphitheatre constructions on the big stage itself. The space for the actors’ movement is further narrowed by placing of several sorts of cubes between them and the audience. It is on one of these cubes where Hamlet’s Father sits throughout the action, thus, becoming a witness of everything. The other characters who meanwhile pass away, sit then on the other “chairs,” forming altogether a special territory in-between the living in the real world – the viewers – and the living in the play. i.e. there is a two-layer audience of what transpires in this Hamlet . Importantly too, the living in th e real world are at an arm’s length from both the alive and the dead of the characters. Yet, it is this very closeness that proves to be a double-edged weapon, as most of the acting is, alas, very superficial, which could hardly be hidden at such a short distance. So, most of the time, the characters seem like computer-generated, i.e. without true emotions, trepidations, development. That applies especially to Hamlet himself who gets mad rather abruptly, almost within a second, and the expression of his madness is via a quite worn-out cliché – he puts on red high-heel shoes and bright red lipstick, and stays like that nearly throughout the action. The madness of Ophelia is not very persuasive either: she bangs with a spade on the metal wall on the side of the back wings. Polonius, in turn, inexplicably is played by an actress in a tremendously padded man’s suit and with a moustache. All of this doesn’t mean that Donnellan’s Hamlet doesn’t have its concrete excellent moments too. Such is the genuinely moving first encounter of Hamlet with the ghost: he touches his hands, shoulders, head, in an attempt to find out if his father is real, and then, being happiness itself, he embraces him. Gertrude slapping Hamlet is also in a very truthful scene which, alas, gets spoiled quickly by the manner in which he gets mad. Then, his smelling of the poison on the tip of the sword and in the wine is an interesting detail. There are other powerful moments, yet, on the whole, as the case with the bulk of conceptual theatre, this show gets exhausted quite early on, since it is not persuasive on the level of human presence, relationships, and emotions. So, in the end, I didn’t feel touched or transformed by it. Much more integral was Twelfth Night , created by the Romanian director of world fame Andrei Serban with the actors of the State Theatre of Constansa, Romania. It was a sample of a fully organic mix of an unobtrusive, yet very clever and elegant, directing style and a very functional set-design (a small and narrow stage, turned into a shiny box by the fringe curtain that surrounded it). Talking about the Romanian highlights of the Festival, I will take the liberty to include among them a book that was launched there and that is dedicated to the National Theatre of Craiova, to Boroghina and Purcarete. These three names form its title, while the subtitle tells the rest: Pilgrims of the Great Theatre of the World. Created by Ljudmila Patlanjoglu, the doyen of the Romanian theatre critics and scholars, this book was the best present to the Festival for its jubilee. An equally awesome and elegant volume, it contains all the important data about the main developments of this remarkable institution as well as splendid large photos of the main productions, events, and the champions of the Festival. The Romanian connection was also to be traced as far as to one of the highly acclaimed Asian entries in the main indoor program: a non-verbal King Lear of Tang Shu-wing Theatre Studio from Hong Kong, with a mixed local and Romanian cast, which, alas, I didn’t get to see. From among the shows I did see, I was most struck by The Tempest Project of Peter Brook and Marie-Helene Estienne, the Spanish Hamlet, the Dance of the Melancholic of the Jesus Herrera Flamenco Ballet, and The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark , staged as a ballet by Robert Lepage and Guillaume Cote. They were actually more than merely distinctive. They were rather the most spectacular and unforgettable theatre fireworks in tribute to the Festival’s jubilee. Moreover, they rather complemented each other as an overall effect bringing out three aspects of Shakespeare’s oeuvre: its profound spirituality, its visceral side, and its strong potential for visual expressiveness. The Tempest Project of Peter Brook and Marie-Helene Estienne or When Theatre Transcends Theatre The thrill of expecting an encounter with the extraordinary charged the air around the National Theatre of Craiova already before the show. The building was as if under siege: there were more than twice as many people in front of it as there were seats inside its main hall. And, as the routine practice is in this part of the world, all students and ardent theatre aficionados, who hadn’t managed to get hold of a ticket, were let in and allowed to sit on the steps of the rather large and steep staircase-aisles on the two sides of the seats. In the end, the hall was literally full to the brim. Still, at the moment the lights started to go down, an extraordinary silence fell over the packed theatre, as if all these people, like one, held their breath in awe of the greatest theatre maestro of our time, humbled by the privilege to see his last work. When the lights were fully dimmed, the silence became even more special, as the stage responded in the same language of quiet – like an echo that can not be heard but can be felt with both body and soul. Prospero, standing on a Persian carpet on the proscenium, started slowly to twist and turn in his hands a big wooden stick, slightly curved at one of its ends, like a shepherd’s crook. In full quiet. It was as if time slowed down and stopped. Our time, the time we know, that is. And the space too started to change. As if, with every move of this crook, the very air around it, around Prospero, and around us, was changing: like its invisible molecules were getting rearranged and, at the end of the next several fully quiet minutes, the hustle, the vanity, the pettiness of our life not simply disappeared, but rather got cleaned up, as mere spots get cleaned up, and everything around us and even in us became crystal and clear, and full of tranquil joy. And this purity felt so natural as though we were back to normal, back to where we belong. The next hour and twenty minutes of this unique theatre piece transpired in this other, yet so naturally ours time and space. No matter that speech makes its appearance too, soon after the beginning. The atmosphere on and off stage retain that extraordinary blissful charge of peace and harmony – the feeling of becoming freed from the ordinary and of recognizing the extraordinary as our natural home. Importantly, the arrival of speech was not followed by any special effects, already so inseparable from theatre today. Until the end of The Tempest Project, on stage there are only several more carpets and several more sticks – only smaller than that in Prospero’s hands and some of them being in small piles on the floor. Magic carpets and magic wands? This thought may cross one’s mind, but only briefly. To me, they were much more than that. And this became crystal clear in a scene that was a stroke of genius. Ferdinand takes several of the small sticks and lays them out on the floor, forming a line – a path – between himself and Miranda. Then he carefully puts one stick on her head and one on his own, and they start treading the path towards each other very carefully, lest the sticks fall down. So, maybe the carpets and the wooden crook in Prospero’s hand are, indeed, the well known symbols of the fairy tales. We are humans, after all, and are in need of familiar vehicles for our imagination to take off. Yet, here the “flight” is not to somewhere distant else but it is rather the “flight” of a revelation – of getting to see through about the essence of here and now, and realize how different this here and now is, in effect, from our usual perception of it. And that it takes only one thing for our eyes to get open for this other reality: to get to follow the paths set up for us and enshrined within us. Which is to say: to see the here and now with “the eyes of the heart.” From that scene with the path outlined with the sticks on, I couldn’t stop thinking about several lines from Psalm 25 of the Book of Psalms : “Show me your ways, Lord, teach me your paths.” (Psalm 25: 4) And then: “All the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth.” (Psalm 25:10) Of course, minimalism in terms of stage means of expression is not at all a surprise in Brook’s theatre. I will never forget The Valley of Astonishment , again created by him and Marie-Helene Estienne. It had the effect of a drawing by a genius painter, made on a napkin – just few strokes and the essence of a face, person, relations… is there. Yet, in The Tempest Project this utmost simplicity that zeroes in on the quintessential is on a much deeper level: about our communion with the other world – the invisible one which resides both outside and inside us, and which, for centuries already, has been sneered at and entirely dismissed as non-existent. No wonder Brook went back exactly to The Tempest (for a third time) when the end of his life was approaching. “There is a word that chimes through the play: free”, he wrote about the play. “…As always in Shakespeare, the meaning is never pinned. It's always suggested like in an echo chamber. Each echo amplifies and nourishes its sound. Caliban wants his freedom. Ariel wants his freedom, but it's not the same freedom. For Prospero, freedom is undefinable. It is what he is looking for throughout the play. The young Prospero, plunged into his books, searching for the occult, was a prisoner of his dreams. On the island, we may think he became free because he had acquired all the magical powers a man can acquire. But a magician plays with powers that do not belong to humanity. It is not for a man to darken the midday sun, nor to bring the dead out of their graves.” With The Tempest Project Brook dispenses nearly fully from the material, from nearly everything that constitutes what we accept now as ordinary, both in life and in theatre. As a result, we can fully concentrate on the nature of freedom as the first and foremost prerequisite for our communion with the invisible – the world of the Spirit. The show italicized in my mind yet another line of the sacred texts which, paraphrased, reads like this: all the taking care of the material life has chased us from paradise. The Tempest Project also reminded me of something another great director of our time, the late Eimuntas Nekrosius of Lithuania, said, “We have empty years, empty days and empty months alike in our lives. We only have a handful of real life. Almost everything is wasted time. However, we all imitate that we are in a hurry, that we do not have time, and that we are and will be very busy for a few years ahead. This is not true. This is how we deceive ourselves and others.” The Tempest Project of Brook and Estienne is, to me, exactly about that “handful of real life” – life that is free from the material, from the imitation of substance via its so contemporary substitutes – the haste, the cult for adrenalin, and the ubiquity of many-ness. In brief, life that is sync with the Spirit, and is, thus, harmony and peace itself. A distant serene song resounds from one point on in The Tempes t Project – coming and going, as if in waves; a song, which at times seems as simply part of the air. The people on stage – and I deliberately don’t say actors, lest I ruin the wonder – are somewhat like that song: at times they talk, at times they are simply there, yet, apart from the rare funny scenes, they too feel like a part of the air. You can probably say that Brook and Estienne have managed to bring us as closest as possible to one of the core themes of the play: “We are such stuff/ As dreams are made on, and our little life/ Is rounded with a sleep.” I dare say again that The Tempest Project is much more than that: it rather makes us feel like in heaven, or, even more to the point, in what heaven could feel like here on Earth – during the “handful of real life.” Actually, Nekrosius himself tried to create Paradise on stage, in his adaptation of Dante’s Divine Comedy at his Meno Fortas Theatre in Vilnius, Lithuania. And he did manage to a large extent. Yet there were some illustrative moments there which grounded the overall effect of the show. While seeing The Tempest Project is truly like experiencing a life-changing revelation. Joe Martin begins his essay on Peter Brook “The Invisible Made Visible” in the 2015 SUFI “Peter Brook's life work for theatre constitutes a journey on a path upon which the spiritual traveler's quest is inseparable from that of the artist.” Indeed, experiencing The Tempest Project is equally an eye- opening experience in terms of theatre too, i.e. of what theatre could be like. In the 2023 program of the Hong Kong Arts Festival, Peter Brook wrote, in reference to the Tempest Project: “Today, Western actors have all the qualities necessary to explore in Shakespeare's plays; all that concerns anger, political violence, sexuality, introspection. But for them it is almost impossible to touch the invisible world. To play a character who is not real, for a Western actor, requires real acrobatics. For the actor who has been raised in a world of ceremonies and rituals, the way that leads to the invisible is often direct and natural . The Tempest is an enigma. It is a fable in which nothing can be taken literally, because if we stay on the surface of the play, its inner quality escapes us. For the actors as well as for the audience, it is a play that reveals itself by playing it. It's like music.” In The Tempest Project the actors not only do manage to touch the invisible. They manage to become humble mediums between it and us, willfully dispensing from everything acting is usually associated with. The whole Tempest Project feels like being set free from everything ordinary theatre is associated with. It is a genuinely extraordinary piece – a piece of theatre that transcends theatre. It is as if, with this last show of his, Brook nods us from heaven and, by letting us experience a feel of it, reminds us that both life and theatre could be indeed holy. Hamlet “Translated” into the Language of Flamenco Another extraordinary prism for viewing, or rather feeling, Hamlet in Craiova was offered by the Spanish Jesus Herera Flamenco Ballet. Entitled Hamlet, the Dance of the Melancholic , this show is, to a large extent, at the other end of the pure spirituality of The Tempest Project: it dwells in the territory of the visceral, having simply skipped the one of the merely physical. All the same, it is an equally unforgettable and truly unique experience, as the work of Brook and Estienne. Indeed, as the Festival catalogue assured us, “For the first time ever, one of Shakespeare’s most iconic tragic plays is being turned into a Flamenco production.” The very logical motivation for this so unlikely undertaking was immediately pointed out there: “Hamlet is a tale of family, revenge, power and murder – and it is these aspects that make the story perfect for a Flamenco adaptation with their intensity and passion.” Importantly, in Hamlet, the Dance of the Melancholic , the passion of the Flamenco language is not limited to the well-known ingredients – the dancing, the singing, the live music (here provided by a guitar,drums, flute and sax) and the rhythm of hands-clapping and feet-tapping. On stage, there are also a piano with a piano-player and a six-person choir. The choristers are in cloaks with hooks and with painted white faces, as if with masks. All the participants in the show are all the time on stage but, in effect, we rarely do see them altogether. Because of the light – another major partner in this stunning dance of passion: it brings in and out of the action not only the concrete characters and musicians, but also the choir. So it is a surprise when we first get to see it and it continues to be so further on in the action. The choir not only adds the might of an oratorio type of a recital to the whole sound texture of the show but it does dance too – with the main dancer and artistic director of the company Jesus Herrera. Herrera’s performance is literally a tour-de-force. An unlikely Hamlet – very tall and solid – he manages to transform his body into a whirl of passion. So it is not anymore human flesh but the very energy of all the extreme emotions that take hold of the character – and human beings at that matter. Interestingly, but at once rather appropriately to the language of the show, the familiar plot is not followed in its entirety. Rather than that only separate lines unfold and not so much in an intertwined manner but one after another until each one exhausts itself. Thus, Hamlet’s mother (as Gertrude is billed) – the mesmerizing Lola Jaramillo – when taking center stage, plays the part from the beginning to the end, with the poisonous wine, before, for instance, Ophelia’s plot line starts unfolding. It is a part played at one gulp – one impossible gulp, that is– and one holds one’s breath, amazed by the energy of the passion Jaramillo exudes and also, from one point on, by how she doesn’t drop down fully exhausted. Although of a lesser overall might, the performance of Ophelia – Begona Arce – is also very persuasive. Only her drowning in a small pool is rather illustrative and, to me, unnecessary. Her dance there right before that, making the flying splashes of water become part of the show’s rhythm and dense texture, would have been a much more impressive end of her plot line. The figure of The Death – Hugo Sanchez – most of the time literally in the shadows or in a hook, charges the three-dimensional darkness on stage with sinister vibrations and, thus, with another layer of figurative blackness, and makes one palpably feel the threat for light to be overwhelmed. “The culmination of any dancer, of any performer, is when they know that choreography is no longer necessary,” the catalogue quotes Juan Vergillos. This fully applies to the whole stunning piece too. It takes a few minutes at the beginning, so that the viewer stops being preoccupied with the ingenuity and precision of the movement itself, with the overall dance of the bodies, light, shadows, melodies, and rhythm. Then, I dare say, all this becomes one entity – a bigger pulsation of the air in the theatre – and we, the spectators, get drawn into it and transformed into a part of it. This pulsation has nothing to do with the one experienced at contemporary concerts or anything of the kind. It doesn’t “erase” your ability to think. On the contrary, while your body and feet move in rhythm, in an inexplicable way, with your cells vibrating, you get not only to experience the exaltation of passions but you also realize what they mean in terms of temptations, downfall, disaster… This Hamlet causes an unlikely catharsis reverberating in the spectators long afterwards. There was yet another surprise show in Craiova that Shakespeare’s main masterpiece had inspired, an unexpected and surprising contribution by Robert Lepage: a ballet version of Hamlet . Lepage has created for himself a reputation of a stage sorcerer who mixes with ease theatre genres and forms, traditional means of expression and new technologies, but – more importantly! – manages to always subject all this amalgam to a truthful and emotional storytelling having at its core the human being. I have been following his oeuvre, since his first international break-through with Seven Streams of the River Ota back in the mid 1990’s, and as a critic I’ve never stopped being amazed by Lepage’s impeccable professionalism and ingenuity. Again more importantly, though, I’ve never felt failed by him in my capacity as a human being. Not only hasn’t he succumbed to the ills of our time theatre wise, like letting multimedia overwhelm and dehumanize his shows, but he’s never let the ubiquity of egocentrism take over his stage stories. An excellent example of the latter is his solo piece 887 which I have had the delight to see many a time. Although formally devoted to his growing up, it is, in effect, the least about his own persona. He acquaints the audience with a diverse range of people who inhabit his childhood and teenage years, as well as his nowadays. We get to know his relatives, his neighbors – the world around himself, what the society in Quebec experienced over the years he grew up, while he retains the position of a witness-narrator who, despite being all the time there, is rarely in the limelight. This stands out so much at the background of all the one-actor shows which are usually predominantly about their creators. In Craiova, however, I have to admit, I was initially rather disappointed, as The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark , staged by Lepage and Guillaume Cote, was more or less just a ballet and, to a large extent, illustrative at that. Namely, it was by and large following the plot and the canon for the characters, without ingenious “tricks” that would cast a new light on some familiar details and relations, and, thus, inspire startling insights. It looked like an abridged and illustrated Hamlet with no words but few sparse surtitles, as if in a silent movie, just announcing the main scenes that would follow by indicating who of the main characters is about to enter. Only in the very beginning and few times later on, the surtitles were more complex and formed ingenious pans, when the places of words or letters got to be written and changed in front of us. In the same vein, the ballet dancing seemed to be only slightly enhanced by a pinch of modern dance elements. All in all: nothing to do with the Lepage who has changed the face of world theatre with his panache, inventiveness and so fine and profound understanding of the human nature. However, more and more time has been passing since I saw this Hamlet, I’ve come to realize I can’t stop thinking of it. Moreover, it has very often been coming to my mind during other shows, where deliberate ugliness and/or repugnancy is being manifested on stage – a rather strong trend on the festival circuit and on main European stages too for the last several seasons. So not only have I changed my initial opinion of Lepage’s and Cote’s Hamlet, but it has become like a life-belt for me, charging me with its beauty as a shield against the arrogant march of physiology against spirituality on stage. There are three scenes in this Hamlet which are at once paragons of beauty, of profundity of the meaning and of ingenuity embedded in simplicity. The first one is of the very process of Ophelia’s getting mad – something which we rarely do get to see anyway in the interpretations of the play. Lepage and Cote place her in front of three mirrors, where she starts getting confused by seeing herself threefold. The rest of the characters too are around her and around the mirrors, and the feeling of her losing touch with reality becomes truly palpable: the integrity of her mind and her body starts falling apart in all these pieces of her in the mirrors, she tries hard to keep herself whole, but soon stops being in control altogether. And the next scene, right afterwards: her drowning. A blue curtain falls down and whirls and curls around her, moved by the other characters. She dances towards it, “diving” in and then managing to get out, and taking a breath, and then back into it, and again “to the surface”, and then again, until the vertical blue waters engulf her. The third scene is the duel at the end of the play: the swords of Hamlet and Laertes end with long, red and white ribbons respectively, like those of the gymnasts. So the fight becomes like a beautiful 3D painting, drawn and changing in front of us. These ribbons reminded me of the long sleeves of the characters in traditional Chinese operas that fly away and draw curved strokes in the air, creating an ephemeral feeling, as if the action takes place between the earth and the sky. So, has Craiova, with the 30th anniversary of its main theatre event over, been definitely transformed from a city with a festival into a festival city, and a city of Shakespeare at that? Here is a true story instead of an answer: With Spectators Like That… (a true story) At the Lepage show, the staircases were again packed with students and theatre-lovers, who were not among the lucky ones with tickets but were magnanimously allowed inside the theatre. When the show was about to begin, the seat next to me was miraculously still empty. One of the men standing on the staircase parallel to my row made a sign to me, asking if I was still expecting someone there. I nodded negatively and, as the lights started to dim, made a sign back to him to quickly get in and sit there. After the show I realized that I had spotted his face either in the audiences or among those eagerly waiting to get in despite the tickets were sold-out. I told him so and he answered that, yes, indeed, he was trying to make sure he wouldn’t miss a show. Naturally, I asked him if he was connected with the theatre by his profession. “Not at all,” he answered and told me he’s a math’s teacher but he’s infatuated with Shakespeare. He went on to share with me that, some years ago, when he unexpectedly got some inheritance money, he went to London and spent most of it for some very old editions of the Bard’s plays, which later on he lent to the Festival for a special books exhibition. I expressed my amazement and admiration, to which he responded that this was simply normal – why would I go from my country and as far as from Sofia, at that, to Craiova if it were not worth it?! With spectators like that and with the genuine respect and interest among the world-wide theatre brethren, it is then no surprise that the International Shakespeare Festival in Craiova, that took off as a triennale and went on to be a biennale for a while, will start its fourth decade in a new, denser rhythm: it will become an annual event from 2025. Moreover, another anniversary is approaching exactly then: the National Theatre of Craiova will celebrate 175 years of its opening - on the 29th of June 1850. So we don’t have to wait for a long time for our next helping of this truly special Shakespearean theatre feast – only till next June. Image Credits: Article References References About the author(s) Kalina Stefanova , PhD, is author/editor of 14 books (12 books on theatre, four of which in English, launched in New York, London and Wroclaw; and two fiction ones, published in nine countries, in two editions in China). She has been a Visiting Scholar/Lecturer world-wide. In 2016 she had the privilege to be appointed as Visiting Distinguished Professor of the Arts School of Wuhan University as well as a Distinguished Researcher of the Chinese Arts Criticism Foundation of Wuhan University. She served as IATC’s Vice President for two mandates (2001/2006) and as its Director Symposia for two mandates (2006-2010). Since 2001 she has been regularly serving as an evaluation expert for cultural and educational programs of the European Commission. Currently she is Full Professor of Theatre and Criticism at NATFA, Sofia. 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.

In conversation about past and upcoming projects PRELUDE Festival 2023 ARTIST TALK Annie-B Parson Dance, Discussion English 30 minutes 3:30PM EST Saturday, October 14, 2023 Elebash Recital Hall, The Graduate Center, 5th Avenue, New York, NY, USA Free Entry, Open To All In conversation about past and upcoming projects Big Dance Theater Content / Trigger Description: Annie-B will give an artist talk. Choreographer Annie-B Parson is the artistic director of Obie award-winning Big Dance Theater, which she co-founded in 1991 with Paul Lazar and Molly Hickok. Parson has co-created over twenty large-scale works for such venues as the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Old Vic/London, Saddler’s Wells/London, The Walker, The National Theater/Paris, Japan Society and The Kitchen. Outside of her company, some of the artists she has worked with include David Byrne, David Bowie, Lorde, St. Vincent, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Wendy Whelan, Anne Carson, Esperanza Spalding, Suzan-Lori Parks, Laurie Anderson, Salt n Pepa, Jonathan Demme, and the Martha Graham Dance Company. Parson choreographed and did musical staging for American Utopia, and she choreographed Byrne’s musical Here Lies Love which is currently on Broadway; as well as his tours with Brian Eno, and St. Vincent. Parson recently choreographed two operas: Candide at the Lyon Opera, and The Hours at The Met. Parson’s writing has been published in The Atlantic, and The Paris Review; her book The Choreography of Everyday Life is published by Verso Press. Upcoming, with Thomas F. DeFrantz, she is co-editing a book entitled: Dance History(s): Imagination as a Form of Study. bigdancetheater.org anniebparson.com Watch Recording Explore more performances, talks and discussions at PRELUDE 2023 See What's on

One-person show about queerness, camp, and our obsessive fascination with film divas. PRELUDE Festival 2023 PERFORMANCE Would you be shocked if I put on something more comfortable? Fernando Vieira Theater, Film, Multimedia English 30 minutes 7:30PM EST Friday, October 20, 2023 Torn Page, West 22nd Street, New York, NY, USA Free Entry, Open To All One-person show about queerness, camp, and our obsessive fascination with film divas. Content / Trigger Description: PG/ mention of gender identity Fernando Vieira is an Ecuadorian-born New York-based writer, director, and performer. Vieira debuted as a playwright and stage director with the one-person monologue “Me Voy Porque Puedo” in 2016. Other projects include starring in and directing “The Maids” in 2017 and “Las Mártiras” in 2022. Recent playwriting works include two stage plays that explore queerness, violence, and the quest for freedom: “Goodbye, Little George'', which takes place in Florida between the mid- 1960’s and early 1980’s and “Anormales”, a play about queerness in Ecuador during the early 1990’s. In 2021, Vieira created the ¡Bótate! Latinx Performance Festival. Screen work includes the documentary “Unlabeled” (2021) and experimental film “Snippets.” (2023). Fernando has been part of artistic cohorts at NYFA, Creative Capital, and Leslie-Lohman Museum. Fernando has a Bachelor of Arts in Latin American Studies and is a candidate for a Master of Arts in Liberal Studies-Film Studies concentration. www.fernando-vieira.com Watch Recording Explore more performances, talks and discussions at PRELUDE 2023 See What's on

Watch Conference of the Absent by Rimini Protokoll (Haug / Kaegi / Wetzel) / Film By Expander Film (Lilli Kuschel and Stefan Korsinsky) at the Segal Film Festival on Theatre and Performance 2024. There is a crisis! And in times of global crisis, it's all about global cooperation. Nevertheless, this time the crisis is being dealt with locally - on behalf of the world: at a conference that no one needs to book a flight or mount a train for. A performance to which the invited experts and speakers do not appear physically, but are represented by local people who only receive their script at the beginning of their presentation. In CONFERENCE OF THE ABSENT, the audience observes people from their own city as they take on the identity of an absent conference speaker. Completely without CO2-emissions and bad Skype or Zoom connections, but with all the performative means of the theater, the contributions and contradicting theses on the consequences of globalization will be delivered into the theater space - and settle them within it. The advantage of not being there - not having to be everywhere at all - becomes a joint play that can be experienced anew every evening. At the center of this game are people who become carriers of ideas and playfully acquire both biographies of experts as well as their thoughts. In this way, absence becomes an added value because it creates space for new enrollments and unexpected perspectives. Ghostwriters and speechwriters, co-authors and directors at the same time, Rimini Protokoll turns documentary co-authorship into remote directing. Concept / Text / Direction: Helgard Haug, Stefan Kaegi, Daniel Wetzel Video- and Light design: Marc Jungreithmeier Sound design: Daniel Dorsch Research / Dramaturgy: Imanuel Schipper, Lüder Pit Wilcke with the voice of: Nadja Stübiger and thee prompting voices of: Henriette Hölzel, David Kosel, Hans-Werner Leupelt und Karina Plachetka Cooperation political-cultural education: Dr. Werner Friedrichs Production Management: Epona Hamdan Production Management touring: Vera Nau, Monica Ferrari Dramaturgy Assistance: Sebastian Klauke Directing Assistance: Lisa Homburger and Maximilian Pellert Stage Assistance: Maksim Chernykh Production Assistance: Federico Schwindt Technical Director Touring: Joscha Eckert, Bodo Gottschalk, Marc Jungreithmeier Sound Operator Touring: Aaron Ghantus, Fabian Tombers A production of Rimini Apparat In co-production with Staatsschauspiel Dresden, Ruhrfestspiele Recklinghausen, HAU Hebbel am Ufer (Berlin) and Goethe-Institut. The concept creation was funded by the Federal Agency for Civic Education. The Martin E. Segal Theater Center presents Conference of the Absent At the Segal Theatre Film and Performance Festival 2024 A film by Rimini Protokoll (Haug / Kaegi / Wetzel) / Film By Expander Film (Lilli Kuschel and Stefan Korsinsky) Performance Art This film will be available to watch online on the festival website May 16th onwards for 3 weeks. About The Film Country Germany Language French, German, Portuguese and others, with English subtitles Running Time 107 minutes Year of Release 2021 There is a crisis! And in times of global crisis, it's all about global cooperation. Nevertheless, this time the crisis is being dealt with locally - on behalf of the world: at a conference that no one needs to book a flight or mount a train for. A performance to which the invited experts and speakers do not appear physically, but are represented by local people who only receive their script at the beginning of their presentation. In CONFERENCE OF THE ABSENT, the audience observes people from their own city as they take on the identity of an absent conference speaker. Completely without CO2-emissions and bad Skype or Zoom connections, but with all the performative means of the theater, the contributions and contradicting theses on the consequences of globalization will be delivered into the theater space - and settle them within it. The advantage of not being there - not having to be everywhere at all - becomes a joint play that can be experienced anew every evening. At the center of this game are people who become carriers of ideas and playfully acquire both biographies of experts as well as their thoughts. In this way, absence becomes an added value because it creates space for new enrollments and unexpected perspectives. Ghostwriters and speechwriters, co-authors and directors at the same time, Rimini Protokoll turns documentary co-authorship into remote directing. Concept / Text / Direction: Helgard Haug, Stefan Kaegi, Daniel Wetzel Video- and Light design: Marc Jungreithmeier Sound design: Daniel Dorsch Research / Dramaturgy: Imanuel Schipper, Lüder Pit Wilcke with the voice of: Nadja Stübiger and thee prompting voices of: Henriette Hölzel, David Kosel, Hans-Werner Leupelt und Karina Plachetka Cooperation political-cultural education: Dr. Werner Friedrichs Production Management: Epona Hamdan Production Management touring: Vera Nau, Monica Ferrari Dramaturgy Assistance: Sebastian Klauke Directing Assistance: Lisa Homburger and Maximilian Pellert Stage Assistance: Maksim Chernykh Production Assistance: Federico Schwindt Technical Director Touring: Joscha Eckert, Bodo Gottschalk, Marc Jungreithmeier Sound Operator Touring: Aaron Ghantus, Fabian Tombers A production of Rimini Apparat In co-production with Staatsschauspiel Dresden, Ruhrfestspiele Recklinghausen, HAU Hebbel am Ufer (Berlin) and Goethe-Institut. The concept creation was funded by the Federal Agency for Civic Education. Film By Expander Film (Lilli Kuschel and Stefan Korsinsky) About The Artist(s) Rimini Protokoll: Helgard Haug, Stefan Kaegi and Daniel Wetzel founded the theatre-label Rimini Protokoll in 2000 and have since worked in different constellations under this name. Work by work they have expanded the means of the theatre to create new perspectives on reality. Rimini Protokoll often develop their stage-works, interventions, performative installations and audio plays together with experts who have gained their knowledge and skills beyond the theatre. Furthermore, they like to transpose rooms or social structures into theatrical formats. Many of their works feature interactivity and a playful use of technology. Expander Film Lilli Kuschel and Stefan Korsinsky are co founder of the internationally operating Berlin based film label Expander Film. They aim is to produce documentaries and artistic projects which explore new paths in form and content. Besides their film and music video productions Expander works in close collaboration with various artists for video and film projects shown in exhibitions and museums around the world, accompanies projects for cultural institutions, contributes features for television, develops stage design and video in theatre plays. Get in touch with the artist(s) ferrari@rimini-protokoll.de and follow them on social media https://www.rimini-protokoll.de/website/de/ 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

Watch Interstate by Big Dance Theater / Bang on a Can at the Segal Film Festival on Theatre and Performance 2024. Notes from the Choreographer: When I first heard Interstate by David Lang, it immediately conjured images in my mind-- images of steps, stairs, locomotion-- a sense of on-going-ness and infinity that stairs imply. I heard the music in parts-- six parts, and thought of the dancer/ filmmaker Jennie Liu as the right collaborator, and her family as part of the film. As the invitation to work on Lang'sInterstate was during the heart of Covid, working virtually was the only possibility, so the fact that Jennie lived in LA was fine; we could work on Zoom. The world was slowed down, and our process was a slow one taking place over an eventful year. The domesticity of Covid, the home entering our work was inevitable, and we welcomed it, so when I asked Jennie to show me some staircases in her neighborhood, Jennie zoomed me in to some around her home in LA, and we presumed these staircases would be our stage. But a few months into our process, Jennie traveled to England, to her mother's home, wondering if she should stay there with her children, and we started to reimagine the piece danced on a long, narrow carpeted staircase in her mother's home in England, and it felt warm, nostalgic and domestic. Then suddenly, Jennie moved to Hong Kong and the visual plot thickened for Interstate. Interstate was now set in Hong Kong, and the dance was on an entirely different world of staircases, a completely different urban landscape-- literally around the world from the original site of LA. Inevitably, to deepen the truth of the film, Jennie's family became the cast. So like most things made during the pandemic, making Interstate is a story of adaptation, family and distance, and of course, music and dance. Annie-B Parson, April 2022 The Martin E. Segal Theater Center presents Interstate At the Segal Theatre Film and Performance Festival 2024 A film by Big Dance Theater / Bang on a Can Theater, Dance This film will be available to watch online May 16th onwards for 3 weeks, and it will also be screened in-person on May 20th. About The Film Country United States Language English Running Time 6 minutes Year of Release 2021 Notes from the Choreographer: When I first heard Interstate by David Lang, it immediately conjured images in my mind-- images of steps, stairs, locomotion-- a sense of on-going-ness and infinity that stairs imply. I heard the music in parts-- six parts, and thought of the dancer/ filmmaker Jennie Liu as the right collaborator, and her family as part of the film. As the invitation to work on Lang'sInterstate was during the heart of Covid, working virtually was the only possibility, so the fact that Jennie lived in LA was fine; we could work on Zoom. The world was slowed down, and our process was a slow one taking place over an eventful year. The domesticity of Covid, the home entering our work was inevitable, and we welcomed it, so when I asked Jennie to show me some staircases in her neighborhood, Jennie zoomed me in to some around her home in LA, and we presumed these staircases would be our stage. But a few months into our process, Jennie traveled to England, to her mother's home, wondering if she should stay there with her children, and we started to reimagine the piece danced on a long, narrow carpeted staircase in her mother's home in England, and it felt warm, nostalgic and domestic. Then suddenly, Jennie moved to Hong Kong and the visual plot thickened for Interstate. Interstate was now set in Hong Kong, and the dance was on an entirely different world of staircases, a completely different urban landscape-- literally around the world from the original site of LA. Inevitably, to deepen the truth of the film, Jennie's family became the cast. So like most things made during the pandemic, making Interstate is a story of adaptation, family and distance, and of course, music and dance. Annie-B Parson, April 2022 Choreographed by Annie-B Parson in collaboration with Jennie MaryTai Liu Music by David Lang Video by Jennie MaryTai Liu Camera by Richie Fowler and Adam Ruszkowski Performed by Jennie MaryTai Liu Special appearances by Lavender, Orlando, and Andrew Gilbert Costumes by Suzanne Bocanegra Hong Kong Video Producer- Nelson Ng Chak-Hei Produced by: Bang on a Can and Big Dance Theater About The Artist(s) Jennie MaryTai Liu (filmmaker/Annie B Parson) is an artist working across performance, video, writing, and education. She has recently received commissions and presentations from Portland Institute of Contemporary Art, New York Film Festival/Currents section, Crossroads/San Francisco Cinematheque, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Human Resources LA, The Mistake Room, Bushwick Starr, HERE Arts Center, Dance Theater Workshop, and Incubator Arts Center. She has been a resident artist at Headlands Center for the Arts, Bogliasco Foundation, Yaddo Arts Colony, EMPAC, and Brooklyn Arts Exchange, and has received grants from the Foundation for Contemporary Art Emergency Grant, MAP Fund, Jerome Foundation, and Center for Cultural Innovation. She co-founded and edited Riting.org, an experiment in writing that engages with performance being made now in LA. Funded by the Mike Kelley Foundation and in collaboration with The Box and Pieter Performance Space, she curated Knees, Schools, Urges - an exhibition and performance program engaging ten LA based artists to respond to histories of 20th century modern dance and embedded embodied histories. Jennie frequently collaborates as a performer in the work of Big Dance Theater, Adam Linder, and Poor Dog Group. Since 2021 she is based between Los Angeles and Hong Kong where she runs Center for Artists in the Making, an art education program engaging young people in methods and practices from multidisciplinary art making towards the development of their own work and platforms. Annie-B Parson is the artistic director of OBIE and BESSIE award-winning Big Dance Theater, which she co-founded in 1991. Outside of her company, some of the artists she has worked with include David Byrne, David Bowie, Lorde, St. Vincent, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Wendy Whelan, Anne Carson, Esperanza Spalding, Suzan-Lori Parks, Laurie Anderson, Salt n Pepa, and Jonathan Demme. Additionally Parson has created two large scale works for the Martha GrahamDance Company, and for the Sadlers Wells Company of Elders.. Parson choreographed and did musical staging for David Byrne’s American Utopia, a world tour that ran on Broadway and won a Tony, and was made into a film by Spike Lee. She choreographed Byrne’s musical Here Lies Love, on Broadway, as well as his tours with Brian Eno, and with St. Vincent. She also choreographed two concert tours for St. Vincent. Parson recently choreographed two operas: Candide at the Lyon Opera, and The Hours at The Met. Parson’s writing has been published in The Atlantic, and The Paris Review; her recent book The Choreography of Everyday Life is published by Verso Press. Her awards include a Guggenheim Fellowship, Bessie Awards, The Jacobs Pillow Dance Award, a USA Artist Award, The Doris Duke Artist Award, The Foundation for Contemporary Art, two Lucille Lortel nominations, and an Olivier nomination. She has been honored by Danspace and by PS122. With Thomas F. DeFrantz, she is co-editing a book entitled: Dance History(s): Imagination as a Form of Study. Founded by Molly Hickok, Paul Lazar, and Annie-B Parson in 1991, Big Dance Theater is known for its inspired synthesis of dance, music, text, and visual design. The company’s work ranges from pure dance pieces, to dance/theater works with sources from found text, literature, plays, or an alchemy of wildly incongruent source material, weaving and braiding disparate strands of text and theatrical elements into multidimensional performance. Big Dance has delved into the literary work of such authors as Twain, Tanizaki, Euripides and Flaubert, and dance is used as both frame and metaphor to theatricalize these writings. For 32 years, Big Dance Theater has worked to create over 25 large-scale dance/theater works, generating each piece over months and years of collaboration with its associate artists, a long-standing, ever-evolving family of actors, dancers, composers, and designers. Big Dance Theater has been presented at venues including Brooklyn Academy of Music, Dance Theater Workshop, The Kitchen, New York Live Arts, The Chocolate Factory, Classic Stage Company, Japan Society, Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, The Museum of Contemporary Art (Chicago), Walker Art Center, Yerba Buena, On the Boards, UCLA Live, Spoleto Festival USA, and Tanz Im August, Berlin. Internationally, the group has performed in France, Italy, Belgium, The Netherlands, Brazil, Germany, and the Georgian Republic. Commissions have come from Les Subsistances in Lyon, Chaillot Theater in Paris, The Brooklyn Academy of Music, The Walker Art Center, Wexner Arts Center, Carolina Performing Arts, American Dance Festival, Spoleto Festival USA, The Kitchen, La MaMa, Onassis Foundation, Center for Ballet and the Arts at NYU, NCCAkron, Carolina Performing Arts, and the Old Vic/Dance Umbrella, London. 7 Most recently, the company premiered The Mood Room at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, and will tour this work to The Walker in 2024. Other works for BAM include Supernatural Wife, which played at the National Theater in Paris, and Alan Smithee Directed This Play which premiered at Les Subsistances in Lyon, France in 2014. The BDT production, Man in a Case, featured Mikhail Baryshnikov and premiered at Hartford Stage and toured to Berkeley Repertory Theater, Broad Stage in Santa Monica, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago. Big Dance Theater received two New York Dance and Performance “Bessie” Awards in 2002 and 2010, and the company was awarded an OBIE in 2000. Additionally, BDT company members have received 5 distinct “Bessie” Awards and an OBIE award for their work with Big Dance. In 2007 the company received the first-ever Jacob’s Pillow Dance Award. In 2024, Big Dance is co-publishing Dance History(s): Imagination as a Form of Study with Wesleyan Press and Dancing Foxes, co-edited by Thomas F. DeFrantz and Annie-B Parson. Get in touch with the artist(s) Big Dance Theater and Bang on a Can and follow them on social media https://www.bigdancetheater.org https://www.jennieliu.com 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

I DIGRESS, written and performed by Sauda Aziza Jackson, is a 4 episode, transmedia, performance memoir exploring the weight of inheritance and the recollection of memories and material things once lost to time. Jackson weaves together fifteen personal tales from her childhood with the media and memorabilia that defined her past. Episodes 2 and 3 will be showcased during the performance. By fusing theatrical performance, song, music, and projection design with archival materials, animation, filmmaking, and video art, TEAM I DIGRESS sifts through the weight and consequences of grief by taking us down a hilarious and heartfelt coming of age journey from a young girl in 1980s Chicago, through her adolescence and the death of her mother, to her own discovery of how absence, family narratives, and the legacy of history shape us—making us who we are and who we are not. ​ PRELUDE Festival 2023 PERFORMANCE I DIGRESS: The Intimate Insights of a Childhood Weirdo Sauda Aziza Jackson & April Sweeney Theater, Film, Multimedia, Performance Art English 60 minutes 3:00PM EST Thursday, October 12, 2023 Martin E. Segal Theatre Center, 5th Avenue, New York, NY, USA Free Entry, Open To All I DIGRESS, written and performed by Sauda Aziza Jackson, is a 4 episode, transmedia, performance memoir exploring the weight of inheritance and the recollection of memories and material things once lost to time. Jackson weaves together fifteen personal tales from her childhood with the media and memorabilia that defined her past. Episodes 2 and 3 will be showcased during the performance. By fusing theatrical performance, song, music, and projection design with archival materials, animation, filmmaking, and video art, TEAM I DIGRESS sifts through the weight and consequences of grief by taking us down a hilarious and heartfelt coming of age journey from a young girl in 1980s Chicago, through her adolescence and the death of her mother, to her own discovery of how absence, family narratives, and the legacy of history shape us—making us who we are and who we are not. New York State Council of the Arts, New York City Women's Fund for Media, Music, and Theatre award by the City of New York Mayor's Office of Media and Entertainment in association with the New York Foundation of the Arts, Arts at the Palace, and Colgate University Content / Trigger Description: Strong Language. Sauda Aziza Jackson (Writer & Performer) has performed in many theater productions during her twenty plus years in New York City. The Chicago native has had the opportunity to perform in Now is the Time with Little Lord, Iona Flies Away with Tanisha Christie, Expense of Spirit & Limitless Joy with International Wow (Josh Fox), Sponsored by Nobody’s The Arts & Behind the Bullseye and The Making of King Kong by Lisa Clair at Target Margin. This past May she had the opportunity to work with Lisa Clair again in her premier of Willas Authentic Self. Her autobiographical project I DIGRESS started as two stories and a song. It has screened at Hi-Arts Outdoor Film Festival, New York City Independent Theater and Film Festival, and Theater Revolution’s Glass Ceiling Breakers Film Festival winning laurels for best writer. April Sweeney (Director) is an actor, director of theater and film, and Professor of Theater at Colgate University. Her performance work includes collaborations with directors of distinct and diverse methods of performance making, moving between intimate immersive theater, (re)drawing and complicating “classical” heroines, plays in translation, hybrid performance works exploring the language of film and stage simultaneously, devised theater, and improvised film. She has performed in theaters and festivals in Argentina, Bolivia, Belgium, Colombia, Costa Rica, France, Hungary and in theaters across the U.S. As a director she has created intimate chamber works in NYC, an immersive play in Maine, a 4 episode transmedia performance memoir, staged readings for regional theater, large scale new works with college students, created theater with communities in Patagonia and the Bolivian selva, and curated theater engagement projects with Central New York audiences. She is co-translator and co-editor (with Brenda Werth) of the volume, Fauna and Other Plays by Romina Paula, forthcoming with Seagull Press in 2023. Her work has been supported by the National Endowment of the Arts, National Endowment of the Humanities, New York State Council for the Arts, and the NYC Women's Fund for Media, Music, and Theatre award by the City of New York Mayor's Office of Media and Entertainment in association with the New York Foundation of the Arts. https://www.idigress.info ; http://aprilsweeney.com Watch Recording Explore more performances, talks and discussions at PRELUDE 2023 See What's on

Watch Snow White by Dr.GoraParasit at the Segal Film Festival on Theatre and Performance 2024. In Snow White, director Dr. GoraParasit presents a powerful and healing interpretation of the Brothers Grimm’s fairy tale set against the backdrop of glacial mythology. BDSM aesthetics allow us to question human nature while simultaneously highlighting the everyday myopia of society, our naivety, and social prejudices. Dr. GoraParasit’s performance explores a range of themes, including glacial ecology, the climate crisis, multilingualism, migration, hate, and social-gender dynamics. It also invites us to contemplate broader existential questions of the present and the future. By seamlessly combining different media – such as twerk dancing, video game logic, soundscapes by composer Sandra Kazlauskaitė, and club music – the director exposes her own psychological vulnerabilities and those of contemporary society. With this production, Dr. GoraParasit invites the audience on a journey through the melting glaciers, using green screen techniques to prompt a transformative experience. We are encouraged to reflect upon ourselves through a magic mirror that unveils the reality of a world in the process of melting. And the heat is bound to intensify from here on... Erik Zielke (Theater Critic, Germany): The mirror still speaks at the Lithuanian National Theatre in Kaunas, director Dr. Gora Parasit attempts to disenchant and re-enchant the world with "Snow White" It is a long-standing misunderstanding: the old German fairytale treasure trove has made it into reading material for the youngest children. Blood, sex and crimes at the children's bedside. Attempted murders by jealous stepmothers, banishment of one's own children, secret visits from lovers, open-belly operations – all of them presented as bedtime stories. And yet what the bourgeois linguists Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm compiled in the 19th century is only the censored version of the stories that circulated among the population. All that remains are the traces of the metaphor-enriched, sexually charged tales of castrated folk literature. The announcement of the theatrical adaptation of "Snieguolė", as Snow White is called in Lithuanian, is marked "18+". No, we are not dealing with children's theater here. But it is good that art is still taken so seriously that moral guardians ponder whether it is reasonable for an underage audience. In Germany, after all, such age restrictions in the theater are virtually unknown. Nevertheless, here too, art is sometimes the victim of prudery. We are in Kaunas, the old capital of Lithuania, which, unlike the current seat of government Vilnius, does not flaunt with baroque impressions, but instead witnesses pan-European modernism – between Art Deco and Bauhaus. The local National Theatre, the oldest professional theater in the country, has its venue in the former "Metropolitan" cinema, an Art Nouveau building that – renovated in a socialist-realist style – is itself a reflection of an unsettled history. The National Theatre in Kaunas was able to recruit Dr. Gora Parasit, who comes from Lithuania yet chooses her working environment freely between London and Berlin, North America and old Europe, as a director of the two-hour production of "Snow White". She alternates no less freely between theater and performance, installation art and photography. However, her striking, radical formal expression is set. The visual impression is incredibly strong, without losing the sound and the movement, the language and the content behind it. She enriches the Grimm fairy tale "Snow White" with mythical motifs from all over the world – and of course with contemporary legends. As with folk tales from the past, we are still trying to come to terms with reality through stories. Mirror, mirror on the wall. The theater evening begins – white as snow – with a journey to the glaciers. The unmanageable landscape, itself a source of numerous legends, is disenchanting itself in the Anthropocene: The melting of the glaciers makes us all eyewitnesses to climate change. The unmanageable landscape is being conquered by man against his will. And suddenly not only the world but also mankind becomes smaller than it ever has been. This way, the staging rehearses the disenchantment and re-enchantment of the world – and vice versa – with the audience and leaves them, trained by the fairytale, enlightened at best. Snow White is born, not through the devout wish of her mother, who dies during the birth of the child, but by means of medical technology. The last mysteries and wonders of mankind disappear and what remains is the barely explicable presence of modern man. Just as the evil queen looks into the mirror, all the actors in Dr. Gora Parasit's production look at the audience or into the camera, which uses green screen technology to send the players around the world and projects them oversized in the theater. Here, everyone speaks only to themselves and yet, painfully enough, to the audience. The fairytale adaptation is full of Chekhov moments: communication as an interweaving of different monologues. Everyone on stage is talking – in Lithuanian, German and English – yet seemingly only to each other; the addressee of their speech remains unclear. The director is above all an outstanding visual composer. Tableaux vivants emerge and dissolve. Quotes from pop culture and art history appear without imposing themselves upon the audience. The temporary freezing of the actors and the sequence of images become paradoxically dynamic. The scenic power is created not least by Sandra Kazlauskaitė's electronic soundscapes, which create atmospheres and transform them into club-capable music. Dr. Gora Parasit's artistic signature includes her latex costumes, which are more than mere accessories. The conservative audience – and there are quite some in Kaunas –, which can only be anaesthetized by tabloids, naturally takes offence at such stage performances. For them, sexual motifs should rather remain fabulously hidden. The highly artificial costume design reveals human nature more than any other material. The tension between art, artificiality and human nature becomes clearer in "Snow White" than in any other work of Parasit. Through the strangeness of her artistic language and the fantastic nature of the fairy tale, she comes astonishingly close to questions about what it means to be human. The Martin E. Segal Theater Center presents Snow White At the Segal Theatre Film and Performance Festival 2024 A film by Dr.GoraParasit Theater, Film, Performance Art This film will be available to watch online on the festival website May 16th onwards for 3 weeks. About The Film Country Lithuania Language English/Lithuanian Running Time minutes Year of Release 2023 In Snow White, director Dr. GoraParasit presents a powerful and healing interpretation of the Brothers Grimm’s fairy tale set against the backdrop of glacial mythology. BDSM aesthetics allow us to question human nature while simultaneously highlighting the everyday myopia of society, our naivety, and social prejudices. Dr. GoraParasit’s performance explores a range of themes, including glacial ecology, the climate crisis, multilingualism, migration, hate, and social-gender dynamics. It also invites us to contemplate broader existential questions of the present and the future. By seamlessly combining different media – such as twerk dancing, video game logic, soundscapes by composer Sandra Kazlauskaitė, and club music – the director exposes her own psychological vulnerabilities and those of contemporary society. With this production, Dr. GoraParasit invites the audience on a journey through the melting glaciers, using green screen techniques to prompt a transformative experience. We are encouraged to reflect upon ourselves through a magic mirror that unveils the reality of a world in the process of melting. And the heat is bound to intensify from here on... Erik Zielke (Theater Critic, Germany): The mirror still speaks at the Lithuanian National Theatre in Kaunas, director Dr. Gora Parasit attempts to disenchant and re-enchant the world with "Snow White" It is a long-standing misunderstanding: the old German fairytale treasure trove has made it into reading material for the youngest children. Blood, sex and crimes at the children's bedside. Attempted murders by jealous stepmothers, banishment of one's own children, secret visits from lovers, open-belly operations – all of them presented as bedtime stories. And yet what the bourgeois linguists Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm compiled in the 19th century is only the censored version of the stories that circulated among the population. All that remains are the traces of the metaphor-enriched, sexually charged tales of castrated folk literature. The announcement of the theatrical adaptation of "Snieguolė", as Snow White is called in Lithuanian, is marked "18+". No, we are not dealing with children's theater here. But it is good that art is still taken so seriously that moral guardians ponder whether it is reasonable for an underage audience. In Germany, after all, such age restrictions in the theater are virtually unknown. Nevertheless, here too, art is sometimes the victim of prudery. We are in Kaunas, the old capital of Lithuania, which, unlike the current seat of government Vilnius, does not flaunt with baroque impressions, but instead witnesses pan-European modernism – between Art Deco and Bauhaus. The local National Theatre, the oldest professional theater in the country, has its venue in the former "Metropolitan" cinema, an Art Nouveau building that – renovated in a socialist-realist style – is itself a reflection of an unsettled history. The National Theatre in Kaunas was able to recruit Dr. Gora Parasit, who comes from Lithuania yet chooses her working environment freely between London and Berlin, North America and old Europe, as a director of the two-hour production of "Snow White". She alternates no less freely between theater and performance, installation art and photography. However, her striking, radical formal expression is set. The visual impression is incredibly strong, without losing the sound and the movement, the language and the content behind it. She enriches the Grimm fairy tale "Snow White" with mythical motifs from all over the world – and of course with contemporary legends. As with folk tales from the past, we are still trying to come to terms with reality through stories. Mirror, mirror on the wall. The theater evening begins – white as snow – with a journey to the glaciers. The unmanageable landscape, itself a source of numerous legends, is disenchanting itself in the Anthropocene: The melting of the glaciers makes us all eyewitnesses to climate change. The unmanageable landscape is being conquered by man against his will. And suddenly not only the world but also mankind becomes smaller than it ever has been. This way, the staging rehearses the disenchantment and re-enchantment of the world – and vice versa – with the audience and leaves them, trained by the fairytale, enlightened at best. Snow White is born, not through the devout wish of her mother, who dies during the birth of the child, but by means of medical technology. The last mysteries and wonders of mankind disappear and what remains is the barely explicable presence of modern man. Just as the evil queen looks into the mirror, all the actors in Dr. Gora Parasit's production look at the audience or into the camera, which uses green screen technology to send the players around the world and projects them oversized in the theater. Here, everyone speaks only to themselves and yet, painfully enough, to the audience. The fairytale adaptation is full of Chekhov moments: communication as an interweaving of different monologues. Everyone on stage is talking – in Lithuanian, German and English – yet seemingly only to each other; the addressee of their speech remains unclear. The director is above all an outstanding visual composer. Tableaux vivants emerge and dissolve. Quotes from pop culture and art history appear without imposing themselves upon the audience. The temporary freezing of the actors and the sequence of images become paradoxically dynamic. The scenic power is created not least by Sandra Kazlauskaitė's electronic soundscapes, which create atmospheres and transform them into club-capable music. Dr. Gora Parasit's artistic signature includes her latex costumes, which are more than mere accessories. The conservative audience – and there are quite some in Kaunas –, which can only be anaesthetized by tabloids, naturally takes offence at such stage performances. For them, sexual motifs should rather remain fabulously hidden. The highly artificial costume design reveals human nature more than any other material. The tension between art, artificiality and human nature becomes clearer in "Snow White" than in any other work of Parasit. Through the strangeness of her artistic language and the fantastic nature of the fairy tale, she comes astonishingly close to questions about what it means to be human. Producer - National Kaunas Drama Theatre, Lithuania Director, playwright, set designer and costume designer - Gintarė Minelgaitė-Duchin Composer - Sandra Kazlauskaitė The artist of lights is Paulius Varonenka Videographer - Edgaras Jocius Choreographer - Ema Senkuviene Camera and editing assistant - Laura Pociūtė Curator and costume - Birutė Jašinskaitė Producer and directors assistant - Rokas Naudžius Directors assistant - Asta Mačiulytė Performing : Susana AbdulMajid, Dainius Svobonas, Agnieška Ravdo, Indrė Patkauskaitė, Mantas Bendžius, Miglė Navasaitytė, Motiejus Ivanauskas, Goda Petkutė, Ugnė Žirgulė, Povilas Jatkevičius, Pijus Narijauskas, Kamilė Lebedytė, Andrius Alešiūnas, Marius Karolis Gotbergas, Artūras Sužiedėlis, Ema Senkuvienė, Eva Kisieliūtė, Ignė Birškutė, Livija Andriuškevičiūtė, Karolina Jablonskytė, Gabrielė Bartkutė, Saulė Zokaitytė, Greta Balčiūnaitė, Daiva Kvedaravičiūtė, Ugnė Vasiliauskaitė, Edvinas Siurblys, Lukas Šimelis, Roberta Lukaševičiūtė, Viktorija Kuzabavičiūtė, Saulė Šeputytė, Kotryna Markevičiūtė, Monika Kvainickaitė About The Artist(s) Theatre artist, experimental filmmaker and designer Gintarė Minelgaitė (b. 1984) is better known by the pseudonym Dr. GoraParasit. The Kaunas-born artist graduated from the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre in 2005 with a degree in acting, after which she went to London, where she changed her sphere of interest and undertook his second bachelor, this time in graphic design studies at School of Art, Architecture and Design, part of the London Metropolitan University. While studying design, Minelgaitė worked extensively with various publications, books and their restoration. She also applied her knowledge while working as an art director on the projects “Future Shorts” and “Secret Cinema”. However, soon Minelgaitė returned to the theatre and in 2013, graduated with a master’s degree in directing from the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama at the University of London. During her studies, she repeatedly participated in an international summer program at the Watermill Center founded by Robert Wilson in New York, USA. Dr. GoraParasit has already created and presented more than two dozen installations, theatre, film and other works, such as the performances 1001 Nights in America (2014), Tuk Tuk Anamnesis (2017), SELF-FLES (2017), the first part of “Kaip kine” (“Like in films”) series PSYCHO (2017), comic book opera Alfa (2018), live sculpture-performance Pipe Dreaming (2018), live sculpture Tristan and Isolde (2020), performance Tik Tok Shakespeare (2020). Apart from Lithuania, her works have already been presented in the United Kingdom, the United States, Italy, Israel and Germany. Get in touch with the artist(s) tarpdury@gmail.com and follow them on social media https://www.instagram.com/dr.goraparasit/ 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

Watch "talk to us" by Kirsten Burger at the Segal Film Festival on Theatre and Performance 2024. Hardly anyone speaks in 'speak to us of'. It is rather the eyes and gestures of the 4 protagonists that speak, like in the finest silent film tradition. Their natures seem isolated, their actions form a kind of fabric. It seems as if they are the sum of a single soul in its longing, its love lust, its loneliness. "No one hears me scream, my fears are discreet, but now, in the midst of the strongest of ocean swells, I keep my eyes wide open, and under the spray, I can make out shapes, then I am the medusa, the little daughter of the earth and the sea.“ Many stories from two world wars have not been told until today. And yet they are inscribed in the deep tissues of the body, are passed on and want to be explored. A journey of images that invites us to wander through this landscape of souls. My grandfather is a Stalingrad survivor. In 1945 he escaped from the encirclement of the embattled city and made his way back to Vienna on foot. For the rest of his life, he not only had to cope with physical war wounds, but also suffered from the mental consequences of the war: he hardly spoke to people and only communicated with his horses. This pain and the great silence was transferred to my father, who also has difficulties talking about it to this day. And this in itself has an impact on me and my life. In "Talk to us", I have tried to explore these transmissions and the unspeakable, the barely comprehensible. The Martin E. Segal Theater Center presents "talk to us" At the Segal Theatre Film and Performance Festival 2024 A film by Kirsten Burger Theater, Circus / Movement, Film, Mime, Performance Art, Other This film will be available to watch online on the festival website May 16th onwards for 3 weeks. About The Film Country Germany Language German Running Time 93 minutes Year of Release 2022 Hardly anyone speaks in 'speak to us of'. It is rather the eyes and gestures of the 4 protagonists that speak, like in the finest silent film tradition. Their natures seem isolated, their actions form a kind of fabric. It seems as if they are the sum of a single soul in its longing, its love lust, its loneliness. "No one hears me scream, my fears are discreet, but now, in the midst of the strongest of ocean swells, I keep my eyes wide open, and under the spray, I can make out shapes, then I am the medusa, the little daughter of the earth and the sea.“ Many stories from two world wars have not been told until today. And yet they are inscribed in the deep tissues of the body, are passed on and want to be explored. A journey of images that invites us to wander through this landscape of souls. My grandfather is a Stalingrad survivor. In 1945 he escaped from the encirclement of the embattled city and made his way back to Vienna on foot. For the rest of his life, he not only had to cope with physical war wounds, but also suffered from the mental consequences of the war: he hardly spoke to people and only communicated with his horses. This pain and the great silence was transferred to my father, who also has difficulties talking about it to this day. And this in itself has an impact on me and my life. In "Talk to us", I have tried to explore these transmissions and the unspeakable, the barely comprehensible. "TALK TO US" a Film by Kirsten Burger / Aska: Laura Vogel / Alina: Cox Ahlers / Zola: Franziska Pack/ Lola: Clara Gracia / Directed by Kirsten Burger /Screenplay by Kirsten Burger / Produced by Cox Ahlers / Editor Daniela del Pomar /Cinematographer Anne Braun/ Music Composition Mabe Fratti / Production Manager :Cox Ahlers, Kirsten Burger, Alice Greenhill / Sound Design Olaf Giesbrecht / Voices: Laura Vogel, Cox Ahlers, Olaf Griesbrecht /Sound Recordist:Milian Vogel /Sound Editing : Milian Vogel, Matias Santos /Set Design and Costumes Franz Reimer /Set design and Make-up Adriana Fiedler /Colorist Till Beckmann /Title Design Alessandra Leone/ Text inspired by: Aglaja Veteranyi, Kahlil Gibran, Adelaide Bon / „Supported by Fonds Darstellende Künste with funds from the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media." 2022 About The Artist(s) Kirsten Burger, born 1975 in Heidelberg, works as an experimental filmmaker, theatre director, author and actress in Berlin. From 1996 -1998 she studied free arts and graphics with Prof. Adolf Frohner in Vienna and interdisciplinary studies in Hamburg with Johannes Süttgen, a student of Joseph Beuys, among others. The idea of Beuys' 'expanded concept of art' and 'social sculpture' still influence her work today. Influenced by Viennese Actionism as well as by works by Grotowski and other performative and political forms of expression in public space, she became increasingly interested in theatrical interventions. 1999 - 2002 she completed her Bachelor's degree in Physical Theatre in Berlin. 2003 -2006 she worked as an actress, among others: Schaubühne am Lehniner Platz, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Deutsche Oper, Haus der Berliner Festspiele, Berlin and at the Bayerische Staatsoper, Munich. From 2006 she was a founding member & conceptual director of the collective 'Oper Dynamo West', which staged new music theatre in the public space of Berlin's City-West. Within the collective, Burger created numerous productions of her own in public space until 2011. From 2012 onwards, Burger created theatrical interventions, experimental and essay films in various contexts and with people from a wide range of backgrounds. She won several international prizes for her cinematic work, including for her film 'Das Große Glück'. In 2022 she directed her debut feature film 'Speak to Us of' wich was planed to be a thetaer peace. The main feature of her artistic work in film is an examination along the border between reality and fiction and their overlapping. Her entire work is characterised by relating this to different forms and media of artistic expression. Since 2022 she has directed the young Rambazamba Theater Berlin, which is the most important inclusive theater in Germany. In 2023 she founded the young ensemble there, which celebrated its first premiere in 2023 with "raving" in the Humbold Forum Berlin. Get in touch with the artist(s) mail@kirstenburger.de and follow them on social media www.kirstenburger.de 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

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.

Caitlin George, Violeta Picayo and Jonathan Taikina Taylor from the The SuperGeographics Ensemble Theatre will present excerpts from and talk about their upcoming production of HELEN. presented by La MaMa in association with En Garde Arts (October 13-29, 2023). Presented by La Mama in Association with En Garde Arts HELEN. Written by Caitlin George Directed by Violeta Picayo With The SuperGeographics Ensemble Theatre PRELUDE Festival 2023 PRESENTATION Helen. The SuperGeographics English 60 minutes 1:00PM EST Saturday, October 14, 2023 Elebash Recital Hall, The Graduate Center, 5th Avenue, New York, NY, USA Free Entry, Open To All Caitlin George, Violeta Picayo and Jonathan Taikina Taylor from the The SuperGeographics Ensemble Theatre will present excerpts from and talk about their upcoming production of HELEN. presented by La MaMa in association with En Garde Arts (October 13-29, 2023). Presented by La Mama in Association with En Garde Arts HELEN. Written by Caitlin George Directed by Violeta Picayo With The SuperGeographics Ensemble Theatre Content / Trigger Description: Caitlin George (Playwright) (she/her) is an Australian playwright, actor, and theatre-maker based out of Melbourne. Drawn to theatre by its collision of the possible and the practical, her work is driven by a compulsion for gender equality and a love for the explosive potential of language. As a playwright, her curiosity lies in reshaping our inherited narratives to examine cultural assumptions of gendered social roles. Through investigating myth, storytelling structures, and unsung histories, her plays question where we are and where we can go next. She has worked across south-eastern Australia, within the United States, and internationally in India, Mexico, and Canada. Jonathan Taikina Taylor (he/she) (Actor) is an actor, director, and movement artist working cross-culturally in the Americas, Asia, and Europe. Most recently performed in Illusions by Ivan Viripaev (NY) and danced for choreographer Wendy Jehlen in Conference of the Birds (NY, Bejing, Palestine). Film Credits include Venci D. Kostov’s Una Mujer Despreciable. Directing credits include, Medea Refracted (Getty Villa, LA) Un Castillo De Cartas (Santiago, Chile), Moving Mouths (Goteborg, Sweden), La Casa Azul (Kathmandu, Nepal). He is Artistic Director of The SuperGeographics and Associate Artist of SITI Company. Violeta Picayo (she/her), is a bilingual Cuban-American director, actor, and choreographer. A born and raised New Yorker, she is passionate about creating works of and for her home city. Guided by a deep interest in the inherited body, Violeta has made her artistic home with some of New York’s most dynamic theater companies. She is a company member at Bedlam, OYL, The SuperGeographics, and an associate artist of SITI Company. Recent directing credits include the world premiere of The Strangers Came Today by Emily Zemba (Society/The New Ohio). Violeta has worked at NYC venues including BAM, The Public, Second Stage, the Gym at Judson, La MaMa; regionally at the American Repertory Theater, Portland Center Stage, City Theater, the Fisher Center; and internationally in Argentina, England, Greece, India, Scotland. Violeta is a proud graduate of Vassar College, the National Theater Institute, and the SITI Conservatory. www.supergeographics.org/helen, www.jonathanttaylor.com , www.caitlingeorge.website , www.violetapicayo.com Watch Recording Explore more performances, talks and discussions at PRELUDE 2023 See What's on

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 .

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

an in-process performance of Michael McClure's absurdist anti war"gargoyle cartoon." Directed by Dan Safer. With Tony Torn as "Spider Rabbit", and Lee Ann Brown as "A Vision." PRELUDE Festival 2023 PERFORMANCE Spider Rabbit Dan Safer/Tony Torn Theater, Multimedia English 45m 7:30PM EST Saturday, October 14, 2023 Martin E. Segal Theatre Center, 5th Avenue, New York, NY, USA Free Entry, Open To All an in-process performance of Michael McClure's absurdist anti war"gargoyle cartoon." Directed by Dan Safer. With Tony Torn as "Spider Rabbit", and Lee Ann Brown as "A Vision." Content / Trigger Description: Grand-guignol style cartoon violence Dan Safer is the Artistic Director of dance/theater company Witness Relocation (www.witnessrelocation.org ) and has directed/ choreographed all of their shows, ranging from fully scripted plays (including world premieres by Chuck Mee, and an English language premiere by Toshiki Okada) to original dance/theater pieces, to many things in between, all over the place, from the back rooms of bars in NYC to Théâtre National de Chaillot in Paris to a giant leaky warehouse at a dance festival in Poland where a light fell off the grid halfway thru a show and almost killed him. WR is a resident company at LaMama in NYC. Dan recently choreographed “Jedermann”, at the Salzburg Festival in Austria. His work has been at Brooklyn Academy of Music, Dance Theater Workshop, Danspace, Les Subsistances (Lyon, France), and many other places. In 2011, he choreographed Stravinsky's RITE OF SPRING for Philadelphia Orchestra with Obie-winners Ridge Theater. Artforum Magazine called him "pure expressionistic danger" and Time Out NY called him "a purveyor of lo-fi mayhem.” He has choreographed plays, fashion shows, operas, music videos, films, flash mobs and more, got kicked out of high school for a year, used to be a go-go dancer, and once choreographed the Queen of Thailand’s Birthday Party. Tony Torn is an actor and director with over a hundred professional credits in film, television and theater since 1985. Recently he was featured on stage in Bedlam's FALL RIVER FISHING, Mabou Mines' MUD/DROWNING and DOM JUAN at Bard's Fisher Center. Tony is known for working extensively with experimental theater makers Reza Abdoh and Richard Foreman, as the founding director for Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping, playing Rusty Trawler in Breakfast at Tiffany’s on Broadway opposite Emilia Clark, and creating and starring in Ubu Sings Ubu with Dan Safer. He manages Torn Page, a private event space named in honor of his parents Rip Torn and Geraldine Page. @dansafer, @t0nyt0rn Watch Recording Explore more performances, talks and discussions at PRELUDE 2023 See What's on

Forms of Restraint will manifest both as a static installation—composed of paintings, photographs and sculptures—and as an immersive work of live performance, in which the sculptures double as restraining devices. Aesthetically, the work will synthesize two tendencies: the sense of cool ambivalence exacerbated by the technology of classical lines and minimalist forms in minimalist space; and the heat of the sex-danger phantasm that haunts the live performance scenes and images. More philosophically, it will engage topics such as time, the relationship between dance and visual art, gender and sexuality, partnering, representation and self-identification and the mechanics of the gaze. The ensemble performance focuses on Rope bondage and elements of the slow-moving dance technique known as Butoh. These forms will be intertwined and further merged with visual art, music, and dramaturgy. As a whole, the performance will function as a research laboratory for exploring these practices’ possibilities of cross-pollination and the opening of questions around entangled identities. Furthermore, it will establish a field in which to raise questions, challenge established binaries (such as dominance and submission), subvert normative expectations, and explore issues of agency, consent, and the fluidity of identity. The creators are interested in two modes of presentation for this work: 1) within an event structure that includes performance dates and times; 2) as emergent from within the unmediated temporality of an exhibition PRELUDE Festival 2023 PERFORMANCE Forms Of Restraint David Michalek and Ensemble Performance Art, Theater, Other English 60 minutes 11AM EST Sunday, October 22, 2023 The Club at LaMaMa; 74A East 4th Street, 2nd floor Free Entry, Open to All Forms of Restraint will manifest both as a static installation—composed of paintings, photographs and sculptures—and as an immersive work of live performance, in which the sculptures double as restraining devices. Aesthetically, the work will synthesize two tendencies: the sense of cool ambivalence exacerbated by the technology of classical lines and minimalist forms in minimalist space; and the heat of the sex-danger phantasm that haunts the live performance scenes and images. More philosophically, it will engage topics such as time, the relationship between dance and visual art, gender and sexuality, partnering, representation and self-identification and the mechanics of the gaze. The ensemble performance focuses on Rope bondage and elements of the slow-moving dance technique known as Butoh. These forms will be intertwined and further merged with visual art, music, and dramaturgy. As a whole, the performance will function as a research laboratory for exploring these practices’ possibilities of cross-pollination and the opening of questions around entangled identities. Furthermore, it will establish a field in which to raise questions, challenge established binaries (such as dominance and submission), subvert normative expectations, and explore issues of agency, consent, and the fluidity of identity. The creators are interested in two modes of presentation for this work: 1) within an event structure that includes performance dates and times; 2) as emergent from within the unmediated temporality of an exhibition Content / Trigger Description: David Michalek was born and raised in California. He lives and works in New York City. Michalek's body of work ranges from photography, drawing, video/sound installations and live performance to site-specific works of public art. His focus over the past ten years has been closely tied to his interest in the contemporary person, which he explores through the use of performance techniques, storytelling, movement and gesture. His work in video has been focused on capturing marginal moments —carefully staged — that with minimal action develop density through the interplay of image, sound and most especially time. Exploring notions of durational and rhythmic time (as opposed to the referential time used in cinema) in both form and content, his works engage in intimate yet open narratives. His recent work considers the potentiality of various forms of slowness alongside an examination of contemporary modes of public attention. https://tdm.fas.harvard.edu/people/david-michalek Watch Recording Explore more performances, talks and discussions at PRELUDE 2023 See What's on

Lisa Fagan and Lena Engelstein interrupt this broadcast to bring you a site specific, physically maximal performance work for any room with a podium that takes place in the few seconds between an interruption and the actual thing that happens in which the perf-Lisa Fagan, Lena Engelstein, and Marianne Rendón PRELUDE Festival 2023 DANCE Untitled Lisa Fagan/Lena Engelstein/Marianne Rendón Theater, Dance English 30 mins 7:00PM EST Wednesday, October 11, 2023 Martin E. Segal Theatre Center, 5th Avenue, New York, NY, USA Free Entry, Open To All Lisa Fagan, Lena Engelstein, and Marianne Rendón interrupt this broadcast to bring you a site specific, physically maximal performance work for any room with a podium that takes place in the few seconds between an interruption and the actual thing that happens in which the perf- Content / Trigger Description: LISA FAGAN is a choreographer, dancer, and director based in NYC whose work has been called “The High Weird” by critics. She is also the director/choreographer and a practicing member of the experimental performance company CHILD. UPCOMING: HILMA (choreographer), premiering June 2024 at The Wilma Theater, 2024 Baryshnikov Arts Center Artist in Residence, Deepe Darknesse (creator/performer) in New York Live Arts’ Live Artery 2024. Fagan’s work has been presented in NYC by: Immediate Medium, Mercury Store, Radiohole, LifeWorld, Target Margin (2019/20 Artist in Residence with composer Catherine Brookman), HERE Arts, Bard College (Choreographer: Promenade, Dir. Morgan Green), The Exponential Festival (2019/20 Exponential Fellow), Mabou Mines (Resident Artist Program), Ars Nova (ANT FEST), New York Live Arts (2017/18 Fresh Tracks Artist), Movement Research, Gibney, Roulette, The 92nd Street Y, and others. She collaborates with many artists across disciplines supporting their shows choreographically and as movement director. On-screen choreography credits include the TV pilot THESE DAYS, premiering at Sundance 2021, and various music videos. www.lisafagandanceproblems.com @lfdanceproblems LENA ENGELSTEIN is a dancer, performer, and choreographer. She has collaborated with and performed in work by director Lisa Fagan since 2017, and is currently part of the interdisciplinary performance collective CHILD, headed by Fagan. Since 2020, Engelstein has collaborated with Jo Warren, Miguel Alejandro Castillo, and Magda San Millan on new works. Other recent performance credits include: Alexa West, Barnett Cohen, Falcon Dance (company member, 2018-present), Third Rail Company’s Then She Fell (company member, 2019-2020), and Brendan Drake (company member, 2017-2020). She directed movement for the Lou Tides visual album Sense of Touching, and currently performs live with the band. She has taught dance and choreography at SUNY Brockport, Bard College, and The Field Center. Lena holds a B.A. in Mathematics from Colorado College. @lenaengelstein MARIANNE RENDÓN is a Brooklyn based actor, musician, and performer. Theater: Plot Points in Our Sexual Development (Lincoln Center), Lazarus (NYTW), Who Left This Fork Here (Baryshnikov Arts Center). Film: Patti Smith in Mapplethorpe, Charlie Says, One Day As A Lion, The Kill Room, Summer Solstice. TV: “Imposters”, “In the Dark”, “Extrapolations”. Education: Bard College, Juilliard. https://www.lisafagandanceproblems.com/ @Lfdanceproblems @lenaengelstein Watch Recording Explore more performances, talks and discussions at PRELUDE 2023 See What's on

DANCERS 4 PALESTINE + THEATER WORKERS FOR A CEASEFIRE presents Building Cultural Power through Organizing at the PRELUDE 2024 Festival at the Martin E. Segal Theater Center CUNY. PRELUDE Festival 2024 Building Cultural Power through Organizing DANCERS 4 PALESTINE + THEATER WORKERS FOR A CEASEFIRE 3-3:50 pm Thursday, October 17, 2024 Elebash Recital Hall RSVP Organizers from two Palestine solidarity formations in the arts will dialogue about the obstacles and opportunities related to organizing within the arts, specifically as it relates to the current struggle for building solidarity for Palestine today. Topics of discussion will include strategies and tactics, building cultural power, an overview of actions, and provocations for others to develop or join organizing efforts from wherever they are. This event will be livestreamed via Howlround Theatre Commons . Building Cultural Power through Organizing is presented in partnership with ASAP/15: Not a Luxury 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). Theater Workers for a Ceasefire exists to organize U.S.-based theater workers in solidarity with the people of Palestine. We aim to use our bodies and talents in pursuit of a comprehensive ceasefire, which we understand is merely the first step among many in realizing a Free Palestine. Dancers for Palestine (D4P) is an autonomous group of dance workers who organize in solidarity with the global movement for Palestinian liberation. Formed during Israel’s genocidal attack on Gaza beginning in 2023, D4P seeks to both cohere and create a dance community which is vocal and active in its support of the Palestinian people. D4P is a local and international endeavor with a core organizing group in NYC and an ever expanding network of dancers and organizers working toward a dance field free from complicity in genocide, imperialism, white supremacy, and all systems of oppression. D4P’s work has included protest and direct action, political education events, art-based fundraising, and campaigns in alignment with the Palestinian Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) and against repressive anti-boycott policies. D4P works alongside with other arts and culture-based groups organizing for Palestine, including Artists Against Apartheid, Theatre Workers for a Ceasefire, and Writers Against the War on Gaza, and aligns strongly with labor organizing movements in the arts. Explore more performances, talks and discussions at PRELUDE 2024 See What's on