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A Panel Performance Next to developing and presenting the work of pioneering emerging artists and career experimenters The Brick Performance Space actively support global artists without work permits or permanent visas in their dream to live and work in New York City. Now Theresa Buchheister turned the work-in-process into a panel performance. Artist will apply during the session for their visa, panelist will talk about the impossible procedure of obtaining a visa, work permit or a green card for global artists. Audiences will get a close look at the the innumerable complex challenges diaspora artists face in New York City. The panelists are M. Can Yasar, Lianne Elsouki, Rawya El Chab, John Phillip Faienza and HanJie Chow. Moderated by Karuna Shinsho. Produced by Theresa Buchheister and The Brick Theater With Performances from the Panelists Theresa Buchheister will receive their PRELUDE’23 Award after the VISA — Mon Amour presentation. PRELUDE Festival 2023 PERFORMANCE VISA - Mon Amour Theresa Buchheister, The Brick, Karuna Shinsho Theater English 60 Mins 7:00PM EST Thursday, October 19, 2023 Elebash Recital Hall, The Graduate Center, 5th Avenue, New York, NY, USA Free Entry, Open To All A Panel Performance Next to developing and presenting the work of pioneering emerging artists and career experimenters The Brick Performance Space actively support global artists without work permits or permanent visas in their dream to live and work in New York City. Now Theresa Buchheister turned the work-in-process into a panel performance. Artist will apply during the session for their visa, panelist will talk about the impossible procedure of obtaining a visa, work permit or a green card for global artists. Audiences will get a close look at the the innumerable complex challenges diaspora artists face in New York City. The panelists are M. Can Yasar, Lianne Elsouki, Rawya El Chab, John Phillip Faienza and HanJie Chow. Moderated by Karuna Shinsho. Produced by Theresa Buchheister and The Brick Theater With Performances from the Panelists Theresa Buchheister will receive their PRELUDE’23 Award after the VISA — Mon Amour presentation. Content / Trigger Description: HanJie Chow (he/him/his) Multidisciplinary theatre artist: Webster’s Bitch (Playhouse on Park), Boxes (Creating Apart ’21, London), Sky of Darkness (TheatreLab), Bike America, The Richard Project, Lady Lucy, “Virtual Love in Lockdown” (Fentress Films), “Ondeh Ondeh". American Academy of Dramatic Arts, Company 2019. Collaborates behind-the-scenes in costuming and as a photographer: Merrily We Roll Along (Broadway & NYTW), POTUS (Broadway), KPOP (Ars Nova), Underground Railroad Game (Ars Nova), hanjiechow.com M. Can Yasar is a New York based Turkish actor, writer, and singer/songwriter. His shows written and performed by him include, "A Hundred Dollar Bill,” at the United Solo Festival at Theater Row, received the “Best Autobiographical Show” award; "Smoke Point" performed at Interrobang!? at The Brick; an extended draft of "A Hundred Dollar Bill," part of the New Works Series at TADA Theatre; "Master of Time", including Yasar’s original songs, at the New York Theatre Festival at Theater Latea, where he was nominated as "Best Singer." Yasar most recently created “Only Place I Belong”, an autobiographical musical written and composed by him and opened at The Tank. Later the musical had the following concert performances at the Brick Theater. He graduated from Marymount Manhattan College in Theater Arts, and received his MFA from University of South Carolina where he also taught beginning acting for two years. Lianne Elsouki is an actor, theater maker and teaching artist based in Brooklyn. Hailing from Beirut where she innately found herself indulging in surrealist and absurdist theater, her approach of working with youths and teaching theater sharpened her psychological lens and influenced her artistic process. Her most recent work-in-progress that previewed at the Brick’s :?!New Works Festival was a psychomagic act titled PANICMOM. Lianne has performed in One Night at the Target Margin theater. For the Exponential Festival, she collaborated in creating Epikononia as well as staged managed The Gambler. Rawya El Chab is a theater maker and teaching artist based in New York City. Growing up in post-Taef accord Beirut following the civil war, Rawya recognizes the role of art as a critical space for suspending states of emergency and fostering social, ethical, and aesthetic reflections. She values art as a means to generate an oral history that escapes the control of power. Since relocating to New York, Rawya has been actively engaged with Target Margin Productions, contributing both as a performer and a dedicated teaching artist. Additionally, she has co-created three notable productions: "The Meltdown," featured in the Global Forms Fest, "The Gambler," and "Epikoinonia," both integral parts of The Exponential Festival. Currently, Rawya is in the process of developing her inaugural solo piece titled "Loula, The Pearl of the Bekaa," scheduled for presentation at La Mama Theater in February 2024. In her continued artistic journey, Rawya El Chab remains committed to pushing the boundaries of storytelling and performance, offering unique insights and experiences to her audiences. John-Philip Faienza is a Canadian theatre and video artist of Argentinian and Italian settler descent living and working in NYC. His performance work has been included in the SummerWorks and Rhubarb festivals for contemporary performance in Toronto, and the Exponential Festival in Brooklyn. He’s spent a lot of time supporting new artistic works as a technician and Production Manager, including as an Associate Producer for the Performa Biennial, Production Coordinator for LMCC’s River to River Festival, and as Technical Coordinator at Rooftop Films. In Toronto, he’s worked with companies Aluna, Crow’s, Obsidian, Nightswimming, ARC, Public Recordings, the Theater Centre, and at the gloriously dead Videofag. He’s a member of the Lincoln Center Theater Directors Lab. He likes to walk, drive, and bike long distances, often in search of really good food. Karuna Shinsho is an award-winning broadcast journalist that has worked for various international news organizations throughout Asia and the United States. From 1989 to 2001, she was anchor and/or reporter for NHK Television, Japan and New York, Asia Business News, Singapore and CNN International, Hong Kong, then in 2004 for Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Singapore. Her writing on "Japanese Management" has been published in Asia's New Crisis: Renewal Through Total Ethical Management (Asia: John Wiley & Sons Pte Ltd., 2004). After her career in journalism, Karuna pivoted to focus on her passion for music. She released her debut album of jazz standards and bossa nova classics in 2021. Her album, To Love Again, with songs in English, Portuguese, and Japanese, was nominated for Best Jazz Album at the 2022 WAMMIE Awards in Washington, D.C. She is currently working on her second album of bossa nova tunes which will be dedicated to the Brazilian composer Antonio Carlos Jobim. Karuna obtained a Master of Arts degree in International Affairs with a regional concentration in East Asia from the School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University in New York and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science from the Department of Comparative Culture, Sophia University in Japan. Theresa Buchheister is the Artistic Director of The Brick Theater, Co-Artistic Director of Title:Point, Founder and Co-Curator of The Exponential Festival. In addition to writing, directing, performing and producing theater, Theresa works as a voice over director, performer, engineer and teacher. Theresa has directed hundreds of audiobooks (How Music Works by David Byrne, Leaving the Sea by Ben Marcus, The Short Stories of Lydia Davis, The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky) and some fun cartoons (BoyGirlDogCatMouseCheese, Pokemon, Winx Club, Denver), as well as narrating spicy novels and voicing villains. Theresa teaches at HB Studio. https://www.bricktheater.com/ Watch Recording Explore more performances, talks and discussions at PRELUDE 2023 See What's on

Directors of Nature Theater of Oklahoma Kelly Copper and Pavol Liska discuss their work, past and present. PRELUDE Festival 2023 ARTIST TALK Nature Theater of Oklahoma Theater English 60 minutes 4:00PM EST Friday, October 13, 2023 Martin E. Segal Theatre Center, 5th Avenue, New York, NY, USA Free Entry, Open To All Directors of Nature Theater of Oklahoma Kelly Copper and Pavol Liska discuss their work, past and present. Content / Trigger Description: Discussion about their work Kelly Copper and Pavol Liska began their collaboration in 1997, and together founded Nature Theater of Oklahoma in 2006. The company is committed to “making the work they don’t know how to make,” an approach yielding new amalgams of opera, dance, and theatre, combined with popular culture and humor. Their work has been commissioned by theaters and festivals around the world, including Rhurtriennale, Hebbel Theater, Wiener Festwochen, Burgtheater Wien, Mousonturm, Schauspielhaus Frankfurt, Zürcher Theater Spektakel, Festival d'Avignon, Kampnagel Hamburg, and Salzburger Festspiele. Copper and Liska have each been recipients of the Guggenheim Fellowship, the Doris Duke Performing Artist Award and the Alpert Award in the Arts. They have received two OBIE Awards for their work on No Dice and Life and Times, and were recipients of the Salzburg Young Directors Award in 2008 for Romeo and Juliet. In 2018 they received the Nestroy Speical Prize in Theater for their work on Die Kinder der Toten. www.oktheater.org Watch Recording Explore more performances, talks and discussions at PRELUDE 2023 See What's on

Back to Top Untitled Article References Authors Keep Reading < Back Robert Wilson Yearbook Volume 1 Visit Journal Homepage Thinking in Structures: Working as a Dramaturg with Robert Wilson Konrad Kuhn By Published on September 1, 2025 Download Article as PDF Thinking in Structures: Working as a Dramaturg with Robert Wilson As a longstanding collaborator of Robert Wilson in the field of dramatic theatre and opera, I have always been amazed by his special approach to a given subject. Whether it be a classical or modern drama, a production based on a theme to be developed freely, or an opera, the first thing Bob examines or invents is the structure. One example is when Bob started working on Einstein on the Beach together with Philip Glass in the spring of 1975. All they had was the title. An intriguing title. It was clear that in some way this “opera” (I’ll come back to what the term opera means for Bob) was going to deal with Albert Einstein as a seminal figure. Einstein’s discoveries about the relation between time and space, known as the “theory of relativity,” undoubtedly changed the world. Among their consequences were the invention of the atomic bomb and the Apollo mission to the moon. Einstein would be the subject. Einstein was also a musician. There was no text, no plot, no biographical storyline. The character of Einstein was to be represented as a solo violinist in the orchestra pit. The role has often been interpreted by a woman, wearing a wig and mustache. The violinist, regardless of gender, would always be recognizable as Albert Einstein. The first thing Bob and Philip Glass did was set up a structure, asking “How many parts is our opera going to have? What will be the duration of each part?” They ended up with a design for the time structure, giving each part a precise length—the first act was to be, for instance, forty-two minutes long, the second one fifty-three minutes, etc. There would be what Bob called “knee plays” in between, which were short scenes that served as junctions between the acts. The next step would be for Bob to draw sketches of the set. Glass would then put the sketches on the music stand of his grand piano and start composing. Still no lyrics, no libretto, nor anything resembling the two. In fact, at some point in the completed score, the chorus was given only numbers to sing. No other text was available: “one, two, three, one, two, three, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. . . .” It is only at this point that Christopher Knowles came into play, improvising stretches of text for certain scenes. They were cascades of words sounding much like the ones pioneering Dadaists like Hugo Ball or Kurt Schwitters invented. Another element that was added was choreography by Lucinda Childs. The result of all of these elements was a landmark production that would have a tremendous impact on western theatre. A word about the term opera : Bob would say: “ Opera comes from the Latin word for ‘work’: ‘opus.’ That’s what theatre is for me.” When Bob started creating his first works, they had no text nor music. He would call them “silent operas” An example is his Deafman Glance , which premiered in 1971. When describing this form of opera, he would quote John Cage: “The most beautiful music can be found in silence.” During this period of Bob’s work, he declined all offers to stage existing plays. When he met Eugène Ionesco in Paris after the Deafman Glance made a splash in France (titled in French Le regard du sourd ), Ionesco asked Bob to stage his Rhinoceros . It would be forty years later that Bob would take up the proposal: a production in the Romanian city of Craiova in 2014. It was a production I had the privilege to be part of as a member of the team. To avoid what Bob would call “ping-pong dialogue,” he introduced the figure of a narrator who recited most of the text. Simultaneously, the actors played the scenes in silence. The desired result was a Brechtian Verfremdungseffekt or “distancing effect.” Brecht had always been a strong influence for Bob. It was not, therefore, unusual that he did so many productions at the Berliner Ensemble, the theatre Brecht founded in Berlin. Among these productions was his acclaimed The Treepenny Opera . A narrator figure breaks the fourth wall: he addresses the audience directly and doesn’t try to be in character. The same applied to another production I collaborated with Bob on: Sophocles’ Oedipus . The special challenge was to bring this ancient Greek tragedy to the Teatro Olimpico, the first roofed indoor theatre of the modern age, built by Italian architect Andrea Palladio in the city of Vicenza. The theatre opened in 1585 with a production of this very play by Sophocles. The set represented the city of Thebes with its seven gates—a set which is still in place. Of course, this set is now a museum; you are not permitted to come any closer to it than one meter. Bob staged a completely new version of Sophocles’ play on another stage that was positioned in front of the 1585 set. Since the Palladio theatre is modeled on the ancient Greek amphitheater, the decision was made to present the production first at the Teatro Grande of Pompey–a performance space dug out of the ashes of the Vesuvian eruption in 79 C.E. Later it was transferred not only to Vicenza, but also to the ancient amphitheater of Epidaurus in Greece. In order to avoid dialogue, I proposed reversing the dramaturgy of the tragedy. Instead of Oedipus discovering his past bit by bit through the questioning of people (the “ping-pong dialogue” Bob wanted to avoid), we told the story of the original myth chronologically starting with Oedipus’ childhood, followed by the oracle foretelling that Oedipus was going to kill his father, and so on. I took only Sophocles’ original text (in an early twentieth-century Italian translation) without adding a single word. The text was there but not used as dialogue. What Bob did first was to determine a structure. There were to be five acts; the duration of each was decided without knowing how the parts would correspond to each other in the overall structure. Then these five parts were ultimately placed in relation to each other: the first was echoed in the fifth, the second in the fourth, the third positioned at the center. The five acts were freely improvised during a staging workshop at the Watermill Center in New York. Only when the structure had been established did I suggest elements of the text for each scene, which again would be spoken by a narrator. The titular character was played by a dancer. A typical approach to designing the structure of a production involves determining some of the following features: Is a scene (or part) calm or vivid in relation to the others? Is it peaceful or violent? Bright or dark? Fast or slow? Does it accelerate or slow down? Is it crowded or solitary? Is the process deductive or additive? In one scene of Oedipus , for example, the dancers carried folding stairs onto the stage building several rows that were later destroyed by Oedipus in an outburst of despair: the climax of the show. Most dramaturgs, especially in the German-speaking countries, tend to concentrate first on the literary text, the musical genre and specific form, or the historical, cultural and artistic background of a subject. Robert Wilson takes a more abstract approach. What he always explores first is the basic structure of the production—visually, dramatically, and musically. In Bob’s words: “Many stage directors tend to study only the text, trying to stage a play or an opera from there. In Western culture, as André Malraux has put it, theatre ‘has been drowned by literature.’ Therefore, it is a shock for the audience if the other elements of theatre are treated as being equally important. Take Balinese theatre, the Indian Katakali, the Peking Opera or the Nô theatre of Japan: they’re all about form.” When conceiving a theatrical production, establishing a structure is a creative process in its own right. In the case of a new opera it can be discussed together with the composer. It precedes the content that this structure is going to be filled with. This may seem arbitrary, but it is always linked to a deep understanding of the subject. When we start discussing an existing work or a subject to draw a new work from, the one question Bob always puts forth is: “What is it about? Say it in one sentence.” A difficult task for a dramaturg like me. We tend to make long speeches. . . . This was not possible with Bob. There are exceptions to this process, however. I first met Bob back in 2010 at the Zurich Opera House. I had admired his work for decades, but never had the chance to work with him. I was appointed by the house’s management to act as his dramaturg for the production of Bellini’s Norma . Having heard that Wilson has a tendency of being shy with a new collaborator he doesn’t know yet, I resolved before the first meeting not to say a word. When we were all seated around a long table, together with the whole team, he put forth the question: “What is the overture of Norma about?” No one dared to answer. After a long silence, I plucked up courage and began to talk. I said, the whole story of this opera is a confrontation between the male principle represented by a beam of sunlight and the female principle metaphorically expressed by the moon—Norma’s famous prayer “Casta Diva” is addressed to the goddess of the moon, whereas the belligerent “Guerra” chorus conjures the help of the Sun, a male god. Musically, the basic contrast between the two can be found already in the overture. While I was pointing out which sections of the overture stood for the two different principles, Bob had taken his pencil and started drawing. After ten minutes I finished speaking. He passed over to me a series of sketches picturing what would happen in front of the closed curtain during the overture and asked: “Do you think this will work?” “Perfectly,” I said enthusiastically. He had translated what I had said into images. The male principle was represented by straight lines, the female principle by circles, with Norma in the center of it. Here’s another example from the theatre-with-music genre. In 2015, we did a production called Adam’s Passion . It was based on music by the Estonian composer Arvo Pärt. The venue was the Noblessner Foundation in Tallinn, a former submarine shipyard: a hall measuring 40 meters by sixty. An enormous space. Bob had met Pärt at the Vatican when they were both invited for an audience with the Pope. Bob said: “I’ve always admired your music. I would love to use it for a stage production.” Pärt answered: “I’ve always admired your theatre. Please feel free to use whatever you like of it.” During the workshop in Watermill, we listened to a variety of pieces by Pärt. I informed Bob of their structure. In fact, Pärt’s composing methods are strongly based on very abstract formal principles. One example is Tabula Rasa , a composition from 1977. It is structured, among other things, by a chord on the prepared piano that is played eight times—each section opened by this chord is twice as long as the previous. Accordingly, the moments when you hear the chord are stretched out in time. This is something Bob can immediately relate to. We also used a choral piece called Adam’s Lament based on a text by the Russian monk Silouan. The set consisted of a stage with a cyclorama as backdrop (typical for Bob) and a sort of narrow runway stretching out into the audience. The chorus was placed behind the audience in an upper floor gallery. The main character identified as “A Man” was again a dancer; in fact, it was the same artist who interpreted Oedipus : Michael Theophanous. He was naked. During the twenty minutes this section of the production lasted, he walked in slow motion from far upstage to the very top of the runway where he picked up a tree branch with leaves for the next part. Adam’s Lament tells the story of Adam after he has been driven out of paradise. The chorus expresses his feelings of guilt. Arvo Pärt attended both the final rehearsal and the opening night. Subsequently, he came to me, extremely upset, and asked: “Why did you change it? At the end of Adam’s Lament , Adam was kneeling down asking God for forgiveness—it didn’t feel like that tonight!” I said: “Well, all the actor does is pick up a tree branch—in the rehearsal, he did it the same way as he did it tonight.” Arvo, who is a man of profound Christian faith, said: “He was not asking God to pardon him?” “No,” I said, “he was picking up a branch.” And the composer answered: “Just as good.” This story shows how audience members have their own associations about what they hear and see. As Bob would say: “I never try to tell the audience what they are supposed to feel or think. I am not interested in psychology on stage. I have no ‘message.’ It’s not about ‘interpretation.’ I don’t want to impose an ‘idea’ on the spectator. It’s up to them what they experience. Experience is a way of thinking; Zen philosophy tells us this. I follow what I experience. And I try to stay open.” What a relief it was for the German playwright Heiner Müller when Wilson staged his drama Hamletmachine back in 1986. First presented in New York in English, then in Hamburg in the original German, both productions used students still in drama school. Müller had seen many interpretations of his play, which attempted to make sense of his text, which is full of allusions, full of latent meaning. A very dense text, it is highly concentrated. Most of these stagings merely illustrated the text without contributing anything new. What did Bob do? He invented a choreography of movements in a set with nothing but tables and chairs. And a tree. Then he had this pattern repeated three times, each time rotating the set by 90 degrees. The audience then could see the identical movements of the group of actors four times, but each time was from a different perspective. The production had a totally abstract structure; at first glance it appeared to have no relation to the play. Yet it resonated with the text in many ways, leaving the audience the freedom to pursue their own associations. Regarding the text, when Bob was asked by the Schauspielhaus in Düsseldorf to create a new piece based on Oscar Wilde’s novel The Picture of Dorian Gray , he approached US author Darryl Pinckney.. Darryl had collaborated with Bob for many decades on different projects, among them a monologue in 1989 based on the novel Orlando by Virginia Woolf. Bob knew that it was out of the question to transform the plot of the novel into dialogue. Instead there was to be only one actor and that was Christian Friedel. Friedel was known in the US as a film actor in such movies as The Zone of Interest . Darryl drew phrases from the novel, turning them around in many ways. He also used extracts from Oscar Wilde’s letters and poems by Wilde’s lover Alfred Douglas. The general idea was to tell a story about the painter and his model. Bob also incorporated the story of the famous painter Francis Bacon and his lover George Dyer, a burglar he surprised when Dyer was breaking into his studio. Instead of calling the police, he asked him to become his model. The text Darryl created with Bob had three parts. In the first part, he used only sentences in the past tense and the third-person singular: “He fell through the window and it gave him new life.” In the second part, all sentences were in the present tense and the first- person singular: “I look in the litter of tin tubes and dry brushes, looking for my maker.” And the third part, still in the present tense, was in the second-person singular: “When you are not on your pedestal you are not interesting.” Thus these very basic structures—the grammatical syntax—came to define the text. To conclude my remarks, let me draw your attention to another aspect of Robert Wilson’s work. He stated: “My theatre is a formal theatre. For me, in theatre all elements are equally important: movement, dance, gesture, costume, make-up, architecture, sculpture, design, light, words, music . . . all the arts come together in theatre. You may call it Gesamtkunstwerk [total work of art] like Richard Wagner did.” This means that for Bob, each of these elements stands for itself and is treated independently. It also means: no illustration. What one element expresses does not have to be doubled by another element. If a scene is tragic, maybe the actor will play it with a smile and the lighting will be bright. As Bob says: “Black can only be seen against white.” Life consists of contradictions. A Wilson production is, therefore, much more “real” than the many performances aiming at “realism.” Often I have heard Bob say to his actors: “The stage is not a bus stop. You can’t stand or walk on it the same way you do in the street.” True indeed. About The Author(s) Robert Wilson Yearbook The Robert Wilson Yearbook, published annually by the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center, offers a dedicated platform for scholarly and creative engagement with the life, artistry, and enduring legacy of Robert Wilson (1941–2025), one of the most original visionaries in contemporary theatre and performance. The Yearbook seeks to explore and expand upon Wilson’s groundbreaking approaches to staging, lighting, movement, and visual composition. Each issue will feature a diverse range of content—including original essays, critical commentary, archival materials, artist reflections, and photography—examining facets of Wilson’s multifaceted practice across genres, eras, and geographies. The Robert Wilson Yearbook is a publication of the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center. Visit Journal Homepage Table of Contents - This Issue Listening to Deafman Glance Robert Wilson’s Art of Senses and Emotions Robert Wilson's Production of Henrik Ibsen's When We Dead Awaken Thinking in Structures: Working as a Dramaturg with Robert Wilson Previous Next Attribution: This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.

Watch Transindigenous Assembly by Joulia Strauss at the Segal Film Festival on Theatre and Performance 2025. This documentary concerns queer aboriginal and indigenous artists and their inventions of the “good life”. Many indigenous peoples have in common that they embrace trees, drink the sun, talk to the plants, worship their ancestors, and, in order to daydream, forge their own bridges to the sky – just as we will be during the film. Transindigenous Assembly takes us on a journey from knowledge-rich island to knowledge-rich island, guided by Joulia Strauss who plays an Ancient Greek lyre along the way while narrating this “Odyssey” from the perspective of an ecofeminist Siren. In this film you will meet artists who have remained in their indigenous communities or have variously returned to them and the forms of knowledge they offer. You will meet master teachers whose outstanding teachings on light are as precise as any mathematics. You will meet Aboriginal cultural workers who have emancipated themselves solely through the power of their art, and Amazonian curanderas who work miracles despite the shaman business. Living on the receiving end of the Empire, they have invented lives worth living. The idea of bringing all these protagonists together in one film is intended to inspire an alternative planetary politics. The film also proposes an epistemic and pedagogical shift to help education adapt to these times of failed systems of governances and life on a privatized planet. The people featured in the film include: filmmaker and activist Sonal Jain, co-founder of the Desire Machine Collective, Assam; Dharmendra Prasad, founder of the Harvest School; Surendar Kshatriya, founder of the Barefoot Nature movement; Syriademmah, who with his shamanic drum from Iran synchronizes the rhythm of our hearts with Gaia; the queer Aboriginal Sista Girls Buffy Warlapinni and Nicole Miller, who have emancipated themselves from the conservative structure of their tribe and made their life in the settlement more bearable by printing ancestral patterns with natural colours on fabric and opening the Tiwi Design Centre, Tiwi Islands, Australia; Khien Phuc, founder of the Cambodian Lotus Center, who has rescued land from the clutches of real estate speculators and built a free school for the Takmao village; Albenis Tique Poleska, an indigenous leader from the Pijao tribe in Columbia who is part of a long tradition of midwifery and, being raised in Cauca, helps navigates peace processes; Maestra Justina Serrano Alvares, who has been at home doing jungle diets all her life, deliberately not giving in to the educational system; and Maestro Wiler, who shares with us important warnings and bits of advice about the globalization of jungle knowledge. The author of the film, Joulia Strauss, was herself born and raised as Mari, one of Europe’s last remaining indigenous cultures with a shamanic tradition, located at the very edge of Eastern Europe. The Mari people have successfully resisted the Czar, Stalin, and now Putin. The intention of the film was to use the privilege of being able to travel and to meet other indigenous peoples around the planet to tell them about the existence of “Indigenous Russia” (no other member of the Mari tribe has ever travelled to any other indigenous community), to exchange songs, cosmovisions, techniques of survival, notions of good life, and to ask whether they also feel that the time has come to unite; and last but not least, to invite them to be professors at the Avtonomi Akadimia, a university for transformation in Athens. During the editing process, which took place during the Covid19 lockdown, the second phase of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began, inducing many indigenous cultures living inside of the Russian “Federation” to unite for the first time in history. . The Martin E. Segal Theater Center presents Transindigenous Assembly At the Segal Theatre Film and Performance Festival 2025 A film by Joulia Strauss Screening Information This film will be screened in-person at The Segal Centre on Thursday May 15th, 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 Germany Language English Running Time 85 minutes Year of Release 2025 About The Film About The Retrospective This documentary concerns queer aboriginal and indigenous artists and their inventions of the “good life”. Many indigenous peoples have in common that they embrace trees, drink the sun, talk to the plants, worship their ancestors, and, in order to daydream, forge their own bridges to the sky – just as we will be during the film. Transindigenous Assembly takes us on a journey from knowledge-rich island to knowledge-rich island, guided by Joulia Strauss who plays an Ancient Greek lyre along the way while narrating this “Odyssey” from the perspective of an ecofeminist Siren. In this film you will meet artists who have remained in their indigenous communities or have variously returned to them and the forms of knowledge they offer. You will meet master teachers whose outstanding teachings on light are as precise as any mathematics. You will meet Aboriginal cultural workers who have emancipated themselves solely through the power of their art, and Amazonian curanderas who work miracles despite the shaman business. Living on the receiving end of the Empire, they have invented lives worth living. The idea of bringing all these protagonists together in one film is intended to inspire an alternative planetary politics. The film also proposes an epistemic and pedagogical shift to help education adapt to these times of failed systems of governances and life on a privatized planet. The people featured in the film include: filmmaker and activist Sonal Jain, co-founder of the Desire Machine Collective, Assam; Dharmendra Prasad, founder of the Harvest School; Surendar Kshatriya, founder of the Barefoot Nature movement; Syriademmah, who with his shamanic drum from Iran synchronizes the rhythm of our hearts with Gaia; the queer Aboriginal Sista Girls Buffy Warlapinni and Nicole Miller, who have emancipated themselves from the conservative structure of their tribe and made their life in the settlement more bearable by printing ancestral patterns with natural colours on fabric and opening the Tiwi Design Centre, Tiwi Islands, Australia; Khien Phuc, founder of the Cambodian Lotus Center, who has rescued land from the clutches of real estate speculators and built a free school for the Takmao village; Albenis Tique Poleska, an indigenous leader from the Pijao tribe in Columbia who is part of a long tradition of midwifery and, being raised in Cauca, helps navigates peace processes; Maestra Justina Serrano Alvares, who has been at home doing jungle diets all her life, deliberately not giving in to the educational system; and Maestro Wiler, who shares with us important warnings and bits of advice about the globalization of jungle knowledge. The author of the film, Joulia Strauss, was herself born and raised as Mari, one of Europe’s last remaining indigenous cultures with a shamanic tradition, located at the very edge of Eastern Europe. The Mari people have successfully resisted the Czar, Stalin, and now Putin. The intention of the film was to use the privilege of being able to travel and to meet other indigenous peoples around the planet to tell them about the existence of “Indigenous Russia” (no other member of the Mari tribe has ever travelled to any other indigenous community), to exchange songs, cosmovisions, techniques of survival, notions of good life, and to ask whether they also feel that the time has come to unite; and last but not least, to invite them to be professors at the Avtonomi Akadimia, a university for transformation in Athens. During the editing process, which took place during the Covid19 lockdown, the second phase of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began, inducing many indigenous cultures living inside of the Russian “Federation” to unite for the first time in history. About The Artist(s) Joulia Strauss, artist and activist, lives and works in Athens and Berlin. Her sculptures, paintings, performances, drawings, and video works have been displayed in solo and group exhibitions at the Pergamon Museum and the Martin-Gropius-Bau, in Berlin, and at the Tate Modern, in London, as well as at the Tirana Biennale, the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, the Athens Biennale, the Kyiv Biennial, the ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe, and documenta14, among others. She plays a reconstruction of an Ancient Greek lyre and sings healing songs in Ancient Greek, Mari, and many other languages. Strauss practices Việt Võ Đạo Kung Fu and is training for her fourth stripe. In 2024 she founded Avtonomi Akadimia, a durational artwork and grassroots university that she organizes in the Akadimia Platonos, Athens Get in touch with the artist(s) jouliastrauss@gmx.de and follow them on social media www-joulia-strauss.net http://joulia-strauss.net/2024-transindigenous-assembly/ Find out all that’s happening at Segal Center Film Festival on Theatre and Performance (FTP) 2025 by following us on Facebook , Twitter , Instagram and YouTube See the full festival schedule here His Head was a Sledgehammer Richard Foreman in Retrospect Moi-même Mojo Lorwin/Lee Breuer Benjamim de Oliveira's Open Paths Catappum! Collective Peak Hour in the House Blue Ka Wing Transindigenous Assembly Joulia Strauss Bila Burba Duiren Wagua JJ Pauline L. Boulba, Aminata Labor, Lucie Brux Acting Sophie Fiennes; Cheek by Jowl; Lone Star; Amoeba Film PACI JULIETTE ROUDET Radical Move ANIELA GABRYEL Funambulism, Hanging by a Thread Jean-Baptiste Mathieu This is Ballroom Juru and Vitã Reas Lola Arias The Jacket Mathijs Poppe Pidikwe Caroline Monnet Resilience Juan David Padilla Vega The Brink of Dreams Nada Riyadh, Ayman El Amir Jesus and The Sea Ricarda Alvarenga Grand Theft Hamlet Sam Crane & Pinny Grylls Theater of War Oleh Halaidych Skywalk Above Prague Václav Flegl, Jakub Voves Somber Tides Chantal Caron / Fleuve Espace Danse

Watch Jesus and The Sea by Ricarda Alvarenga at the Segal Film Festival on Theatre and Performance 2025. The video fables a submerged phantasmagoria of Jesus in the sea waters of Guanabara Bay, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The action took place on one of the 365 days of the One Year Performance, in which, every afternoon, the artist dressed up as Jesus and produced images in different places, situations and contexts, recreating mythological and everyday imaginaries with one of the most iconographic figures in western culture.. The Martin E. Segal Theater Center presents Jesus and The Sea At the Segal Theatre Film and Performance Festival 2025 A film by Ricarda Alvarenga Screening Information This film will be screened in-person at The Segal Centre on Saturday May 17th at 11am (as part of the Short Film showcase) and also be available to watch online on the festival website till June 8th 2025. RSVP Please note there is limited seating available for in-person screenings at The Segal Centre, which are offered on a first-come first-serve basis. You may RSVP above to get a reminder about the Segal Film Festival in your inbox. Country Brazil Language non-verbal Running Time 4 minutes Year of Release 2024 About The Film About The Retrospective The video fables a submerged phantasmagoria of Jesus in the sea waters of Guanabara Bay, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The action took place on one of the 365 days of the One Year Performance, in which, every afternoon, the artist dressed up as Jesus and produced images in different places, situations and contexts, recreating mythological and everyday imaginaries with one of the most iconographic figures in western culture. About The Artist(s) They are a professor in the Dance undergraduate program at UFU (Federal University of Uberlândia) in Uberlândia, Minas Gerais; a Ph.D. candidate in the Performing Arts Graduate Program at UFRJ (Federal University of Rio de Janeiro); and hold a master's degree from the Dance Graduate Program at UFBA (Federal University of Bahia) in Salvador, Bahia. Their work mobilizes actions and compositions in performance, contemporary dance, photography, video, installations, and writing — inferring and interfering with life as a work of art. Get in touch with the artist(s) provisoriocorpo@gmail.com and follow them on social media @ricardalvarenga 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

Back to Top Untitled Article References Authors Keep Reading < Back Robert Wilson Yearbook Volume 1 Visit Journal Homepage Robert Wilson’s Art of Senses and Emotions Maria Shevtsova By Published on September 1, 2025 Download Article as PDF Robert Wilson’s Art of Senses and Emotions Preamble The intention of this keynote address for the Segal Center Conference on Robert Wilson in New York and at Watermill on Long Island was to select from Wilson’s more recent theatre works, grouping them around specified elements of his aesthetic. My oral presentation on notes has here expanded into a written version that seeks to keep the speaking voice I had preferred for a well-judged and timely celebration, on his home soil, of Wilson’s achievements on a world scale. My choice of productions was clear from the outset, as were the questions to be raised, but my opening gambit eluded me. Wilson, unknowingly, provided the cue. We had warmly met up again in Romania in May 2024 at the Craiova International Shakespeare Festival, celebrating its thirtieth edition. This biennial festival had invited Wilson’s The Tempest, made and premiered in Bulgarian in 2021 at Sofia’s Ivan Vazov National Theatre. Performed twice at the National Theatre of Craiova (NTC), the festival’s prime venue, The Tempest was the fourth Wilson production to be seen at this festival. During the after-show social gathering with the Bulgarian actors, NTC actors (whom Wilson had directed in Craiova in 2014 for Eugène Ionesco’s The Rhinoceros ), staff, and friends, Wilson suddenly asked: “Maria, which scene did you like best?” Taken aback, I hesitated for a split second and said “the last.” Wilson, looking surprised, said: “I thought it would be the first.” To which, on a party occasion when everyone wanted to be photographed with Bob , I uttered a few hurried words before someone snapped my photo with Bob, too. Instantly I knew that my New York presentation had to begin with a veritable reply to his query and that answering it was the best way for me to pay homage to a fundamentally unclassifiable, ever-creative, and ever-growing unique artist. The Choreography of Sound Wilson’s The Tempest begins with a phenomenal sea storm constructed by the play of light, sound, and timing, which are not synchronized but in counterpoint, and in counterpoint again for juxtaposition against the dark visual imagery so as not to make this opening scene illustrative but expressive by association with the event. These are foremost traits of Wilson’s aesthetic in relation to which he offsets movement. Where there is light in Wilson there is color, so add “color” to “light,” “sound,” “timing,” “counterpoint,” “juxtaposition,” “ association,” “movement,” and “motion.” Other of his aesthetic elements will present themselves as we go. Movement in the tempest scene is stylized, as always in Wilson, and the eye discerns bodily images that suddenly appear in sharp, shaped flashes signifying lightning. These movements flash out and, suddenly, seem to be stilled for a split second. Juxtaposition like this of the moving body and the still body is also a Wilson trait, and here it implies (rather than “says”) the attempts the scene’s indistinct humans make, twisting in angular fashion to steady their bodies in the violence of a ship rolled and tossed by a ferocious tempest. Note my “still body,” whereas, in fact, there is little stillness in Wilson’s theatre since there are always tiny movements, sometimes so small – like the blink of an eye or the twitch of a finger – that they are barely perceptible. Shakespeare’s story component is embedded in the scene’s composition whose blasting sounds stimulate spectators to conjure up images of thunder and roaring ocean: thus they “see the sound” or “see with [their] ears,” as Wilson usually puts it (1), This crossover of the senses is one of his fundamental synesthetic principles. The scene suggests colossal cosmic upheaval and the devastation of the planet, and its immense sonic build-up explodes into the roar of a gigantic all-consuming wave rushing straight into the audience. Those of you who have experienced a mini-earthquake’s deep-throated growl, swelling up at top speed out of nowhere, would have recognized the terrifying, but also thrilling – because this is theatre – sonic revving up to the explosive wave, heard but invisible, of Wilson’s score. The scene ends abruptly with a swift blackout, followed, almost immediately, by low blue light announcing the next episode. Its overt theatricality, prodigiously powered sonically, is a metonym for Shakespeare’s words, a figurative replacement of them while, nevertheless, relaying their story: here is a tempest, a shipwreck, people stranded somewhere, which, as in Shakespeare, is said to be an island. Identification of the what, when, and where of this scene and of all subsequent scenes gives Wilson the structure of his production. Structure is habitually his starting point for arranging space (his term is architecture ) and for everything else that enters it, which is decided through testing and checking during the working process. Light is fundamental from the very beginning, counter to the standard practice, which is an anathema to Wilson, of bringing light in at the end, after everything else has been “done.” (2) For The Tempest , Shakespeare’s story is stripped back, offering what could be called the gist of its essential parts: Prospero seeks revenge; Miranda, his daughter, and Ferdinand fall in love; the foolish Stefano and Trinculo drink alcohol, as they plot a political coup – if braggart natter can be called “plotting” in anything but the vaudeville-type comic-ironic treatment that Wilson gives it; Ariel, demure, plays the role of Prospero’s fairy-angel helper (another ironic touch); Caliban appears, learns to get drunk, and is otherwise subordinated to Stefano and Trinculo’s antics. Caliban’s role in Wilson’s arrangement is really no more significant than that of the usurper Duke Antonio, Prospero’s treacherous brother and father to Ferdinand, or that of Alonso, King of Naples and Prospero’s former friend. Antonio and Alonso are shown in an incidental, rather than vital, run-by-magic banquet scene, attractive for its visual panache but without further consequence. Wilson’s is a “short” version of The Tempest – and of short duration, too, taking only ninety minutes – whose excisions in terms of storyline and, especially noticeably, of dialogue can be argued to be as valid as any of the plentiful “short” Shakespeare at the 2024 Craiova Festival, not to mention across the world. None, of course, is like Wilson’s theatre, which is truly one of a kind, sui generis . A few phrases on second viewing of the production seemed over-repetitive, but they were most likely reiterated because a given line or the one that followed it in Shakespeare’s text was too long for the beat, or meter, or rhythm considered more suitable, and therefore necessary, for performance purposes. In other words, the artistic exigency was a matter of the perceived right form rather than one of staying with the right text – the text, so called to the letter of literary concerns. Wilson’s approach here recalls the repetitions used in opera, when, at certain moments, a singer sings again the same phrase or sentence from the libretto to exactly the same music specifically for formal reasons, that is, the arc of the musical writing requires repetition for musically satisfactory completion – such as, for instance, the completion in returning to the tonic of musical composition. More than story, then, is at issue in this not immediately evident, indirect approach to narrative typical of Wilson’s theatre. The production elides to its close and to Prospero, alone with Miranda. Wilson condenses Prospero’s lines, but their subject is clearly his bygone suffering and inner turmoil, and this, his internal tempest, is transcended at the very moment when forgiveness, reconciliation, and renewal begin in an atmosphere of peace at play’s end. Prospero’s spiritual voyage is the core of the production and, from it, come new beginnings. His last scene with Miranda is gently moving, and this emergent emotion, together with Wilson’s elision of Antonio and his courtly entourage as extraneous to this particular denouement, opens the space for suggesting that Prospero’s last scene is a legacy offered not only to Miranda but also to all listening and watching in the theatre. “In my end is my beginning” wrote T. S. Eliot in Four Quartets of his own spiritual rebirth . (3) Wilson’s focus and closure on this very note is a clue to his insight into the spiritual dimension of Shakespeare’s play. You can see why it was not possible to speak to Robert Wilson about his first scene in The Tempest without speaking about the last: they are, essentially, two parts of the same scene because Wilson’s structural line is straight, going from tempest to reconciliation – to illumination, in fact – in a continuum of thought and action. Further, all factors considered, this emergent emotion emanates principally from the actor in the role of Prospero (Veselin Mezekliev): it stems from something in his manner coming from deep within him, and the sensation transmitted is sustained by the quality of his voice – a long-road-traveled voice that has been and seen and understood. The phenomenon of performer attention nurtured from within rather than settled on an external, extraverted, starting point allows what Wilson calls “filling the form,” that is, you, the actor, are filling the form from yourself, from whatever you are thinking, dreaming, feeling – in sum, experiencing there and then. Wilson sets the outer form to which he holds you, down to the angle of your little finger, but whatever it is that keeps you centered and permeates the form quietly, unostentatiously, gives it its interest for both actor and spectator. Wilson frequently maintains that, without this “inner” experiencing – let us also call it an inner energy – the form, however outwardly splendid it may be, is simply empty. (4) It is important for me to say, in anticipation of the last section of my talk, that the spiritual in Wilson’s work is rarely noticed, let alone written about, yet it is often there to a lesser or greater degree, depending on the work. It was present in his utterly innovative 1976 Einstein on the Beach (its premiere at the Avignon Festival, where I saw it), incarnated in the white beam of light, glowing against black, that took twenty minutes to rise from the floor and, incredibly slowly, slide into a vertical position at the center of the stage. Slowness, with nothing to detract attention away from it, measured time, while accentuating the sense of time as a palpable entity and, also slowly, the sense of time as eternal; and all of this happened to one long note, with minor modulations, held on an organ in the orchestra pit. That was spiritual, reaching beyond material being without signing itself conspicuously as “Spiritual!” Mary Said What She Said, premiered in 2019 in Paris two and a half years before The Tempest in Sofia, is a useful cross-reference, although not solely because it also took ninety minutes, which is long for a monologue, but because it relies and, this time, consistently relies, on an incisively fashioned soundscape, now, however, primarily generated by language; and, while Wilson never tires of stressing that all elements of his theatre works are equal, equal can be understood as “all playing their part,” which does not exclude the prominence of selected parts at some point in the multiplicity of a given composition. Language, here, is the eminent factor because it provides an exceptionally dense text, an unavoidable verbal mass with which its performer, Isabelle Huppert, has to deal, or fail. Mary Said What She Said is the second of Huppert’s Wilson-directed solos, following her 1993 French version of Orlando , its text extracted from Virginia Woolf’s novel by Darryl Pinckney and Wilson. (5) Pinckney, the author of Mary Said , draws on the letters of Mary Queen of Scots, cousin of Elizabeth I Queen of England, who imprisons her for eighteen years before executing her. The time is the eve of Mary’s execution. Huppert’s monologue requires pristine diction and enormous stamina so that nothing is lost from her gamut of enunciated letters, syllables, words, phrases, but also sentences that flow one after another without marked punctuation. In Orlando she often hurled or spat out words, often defiantly. (6) In Mary Said , she affirms, as if the substance of the text that she is saying need not be explained or defended. Timbre, tone, innuendo, register, pitch, pace, and tempo weave her vocal choreography while she paces up and down, back and forth, and frequently on a diagonal (Lucinda Childs’s signature angle for walking in Einstein on the Beach ). A sense of urgency filters here and there through Huppert’s volley of words, while an occasional hop, skip, or cantering motion breaks into her walking, accentuating the intermittent sound of her footsteps, audible only when her feet, hidden by her long dress, press on the heels of her shoes. Meanwhile, Ludovico Einaudi’s horizontal piano music runs counter to Huppert’s much thicker textured sonorities, while the latter in turn runs counter to Wilson’s palette of light. The palette is elegant, comprising soft pinks (some folding on the back wall into a sliver of white before sudden disappearance), soft blues, subtle shifts of nuanced shadings of peach-apricots and dimmed yellows, and eventually billowing white feathered clouds that envelop Huppert as the performance draws to a close. Space is non-figurative – common to Wilson’s oeuvre – thus enabling the sensorial impact of the light design as well as that of the unexpected and incongruous apparitions, at different moments, of a thinly framed white chair (almost faded out by a white-fog effect); a high-healed white shoe evoking Elizabethan courtly attire, which stands in profile on the floor; and a white envelope whose enclosed page Huppert burns, presumably of an incriminating letter, before Mary’s end. Huppert’s black, slightly shimmering, figure-length sleeved garment has a hint of Elizabethan costume around its neck and sleeves. (7) A high beehive wig completes Mary-Huppert’s silhouette. All of these constitutive elements come together, and although operating on the principle of contrast, they combine into a coherent and cogent artistic unit, grounded in its linguistic intensity. The cogency of this particular work is instrumental in evoking sensation and eliciting responsiveness of some kind from spectators, and the language wielded by Huppert, although meaningful, is keyed to Wilson’s non-representational means, none geared to apperception through the reasoning mind and all-affecting intuitive sensing and subconscious release. After all, the subconscious harbors feelings – tangibly in such instances as Huppert’s voice rising repetitively with just enough urgency to trigger spectators’ intuitive perception that she is approaching Mary’s demise. There is no trace of outburst when Huppert accelerates pace and pitch, but acceleration is noticeable enough to communicate the wisps of emotion that emanate from her sonorities at these very points in her soliloquy. Spectators are free to link them to earlier vocal points since they are all integral to her “filling the form,” aspects of which could be attributed to Mary’s “inner tempest” (initiated, not unlike that of Prospero, by political machinations) before her death. They are free, as well, to link the entire soundscape—including Einaudi’s musical notes—to the continually changing colors of light, for instance, since all of it together elicits some kind of emotion, not least the feeling of beauty or the wonder that Huppert could have managed it all. “Emotion,” for Wilson, is not about being “emotive,” nor is it “histrionics” or forced or fake “acting emotion,” any more than it is for Huppert. On occasion, Wilson seeks external signs capable of arousing a performer’s feelings behind their actions, as happened during the dress rehearsal of The Tempest (May 19, 2024). The scene involved Tom Waits’s recorded voice singing of love, through which Wilson urged the actor in the role of Ferdinand to look at his partner: “Eyes, eyes . . . Show your eyes. Look at her. . . . You love her.” At this juncture, the actor was so fixated on correcting the arm and hand movements prescribed by Wilson’s template that lifting his eyes for the audience to see them or to look at his partner, let alone allow stimuli to feed into what might pass for inner experience, seemed out of the question. Concern with outer form inhibited inner response. This brief episode shows that Wilson is by no means solely interested in impassive performers, or that he is immune to the sense of words. The dense presence of language in Mary Said What She Said is a reminder that language most certainly exists in Wilson’s collected works, and not only as playful enigma, as had transpired in his 1974 A Letter for Queen Victoria . The latter heralded his break from the highly imaginative and highly innovative group of “silent opera” preceding it (give or take Wilson’s play of words on opera from the Latin denoting “work”). Yet, while Wilson had avoided using language semantically for meaning and interpretation in his “silent” pieces, language in some of his later ones is expressly tasked to convey meaning. Such was the case of his own three solos – Hamlet, A Monologue (1995), Krapp’s Last Tape (2009), and Lecture on Nothing (2012). By comparison with Huppert’s solos, they are not as tightly packed linguistically, thus conveying meaning more immediately. They are also more straightforward, which makes them more quickly recognizable as dramatic texts rather than any other kind of text. Drama-acknowledged works like these (collaboration with Heiner Müller had doubtlessly ignited Wilson’s interest in drama) draw attention to the variety within Wilson’s theatre, but also of his oeuvre as such, which embraces the artefacts – paintings, drawings, sculptures, video portraits, glass, and other objects – that have won them international acclaim as visual art, while leaving their imprint on his theatrical art. Wilson is not beyond self-reference, within or across his artistic forms, as occurs in the unexpected fleeting presence of a video portrait of Aleksandr Rodchenko in Lecture on Nothing , high in the corner front-stage, who, in an inspired joke, winks at the audience! Humor is no stranger to the Wilson repertoire. The Music of Opera Einaudi’s music is integral to Huppert’s sonosphere, but, then, music is of utmost importance to Wilson’s theatre as a whole. (8) It can come in mixtures of musical genres in his manifestly spoken-word/drama creations, as happens in The Tempest , where a Tom Waits song co-exists with fragments of Schubert played by string instruments. His music theatre proper is, by comparison, different in that it is sparked off by music and is music-led; and, notwithstanding the hybrid characteristics that layer his music-led constructions, it is musically genre-specific, which lends itself to grouping into three categories. The first is what I call the “rock-folk” group, whose masterpieces are The Black Rider (1990, Hamburg), where Waits’s music predominates, Woyzeck (2000, Copenhagen), whose music and lyrics are by Waits and Kathleen Brennan, and Shakespeare’s Sonnets (2009, Berlin), music by Rufus Wainwright, with Wainwright rising up on a small platform from the pit (only once in a “star” gesture), singing into his microphone. The second is “baroque opera,” notably Monteverdi’s The Return of Ulysses to his Homeland (2011) at La Scala (Milan) and The Coronation of Poppea (2014) at the Opéra de Paris Bastille, the second, modern house of the Paris Opera, while the older, nineteenth-century house is known as the Palais Garnier. The third music-theatre group is “grand opera” (the commonly used but awkward terminology), which, in Wilson’s case, primarily comprises operas from the Romantic repertoire of the nineteenth century, with Verdi foregrounded since the 2000s, giving seven Verdi operas to date. Even so, he staged a sparse but fire-flamed, overall ritualistic and quite mesmerising Ring cycle, all four of Wagner’s operas of this major opus taking two years to be premiered sequentially at the Zurich Opera (2000 to 2002) and be performed in relatively quick succession during 2002 in Paris at the Théâtre du Châtelet. Their Wagner predecessors were Lohengrin in 1998 at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, the glaringly only grand opera Wilson was to stage there at all, and Parsifal in 1991 in Hamburg. Weber’s Der Freischütz ( The Freeshooter ), connecting this opera with the rock-folk The Black Rider, came in 2009 in Baden-Baden. Just these few geographical details for Wilson-crafted operas show a pattern of European patronage and audience engagement that have sustained his operatic output right until the present. Still within Wilson’s grand-opera diapason are two key Symbolist works, both strong and both staged for the Paris Opera – Puccini’s Madama Butterfly (1993, at the Bastille) and Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande (1997, at Garnier). These productions are still in the Paris Opera repertory, with another reprise of Madama Butterfly scheduled for the 2024–2025 season. And there are various modernist works, going from Bela Bartok’s Blue Beard’s Castle and Arnold Schoenberg’s Expectation in 1995 in Salzburg to Virgil Thomson and Gertrude Stein’s Four Saints in Three Acts , premiered at the Houston Grand Opera in 1996 and performed shortly afterwards at the Edinburgh Festival in the fresh, light-hearted way conceived by its authors. Note too Richard Strauss’s The Woman Without a Shadow at the Paris Opera Garnier in 2003, which, in my view, had an undeservedly short life. Not to be forgotten in the modernist canon is Igor Stravinsky’s stand-alone 1927 Oedipus Rex, an “opera oratorio,” in Stravinsky’s own classification, for orchestra, narrator, soloists, and male chorus, which Wilson staged in 1996 on a huge staircase designed for the occasion at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris. The work was introduced by a twenty-five minute Silent Prologue involving performance artists and dancers in the vein of Wilson’s “silent opera” and so too of his earlier experimentation with hybrid forms. Perhaps Wilson’s not altogether successful conjuncture of Oedipus Rex and his prologue (I was among the unconvinced) is best placed not with opera but alongside Debussy’s 1911 hybridized Le Martyr de Saint Sébastien, also a stand-alone piece. Debussy wrote its music for unconventional dancer Ida Rubinstein with text by Symbolist-influenced Gabriele d’Annunzio featuring a narrator. Jean Cocteau, who had collaborated with Stravinsky, also featured a narrator. Wilson staged Le Martyr de Saint Sébastien in 1988, showcasing Paris Opera Ballet’s superstar ballerina Sylvie Guillem in her then home, the Garnier. Opera, when “grand” – including, for the purposes of this presentation, the maverick modernist works that had contested the habits of the grand traditional opera houses ( Blue Beard’s Castle and so on) – significantly outweighs, in some twenty-six productions so far, the total number of Wilson’s baroque variety combined with his “popular,” more “home-spun” music-theatre. His prolific opera work points not only to his attachment to classical music, but also to the great importance of established opera to his artistic vision and the materialization of that vision. Given that these are matters of fact and not of opinion, it is more than disappointing that theatre scholarship has paid little to no attention to Wilson’s world of opera, within which are to be found some of his most outstanding works. Works of this caliber have enriched the field of opera of the past fifty years, while challenging and changing the field’s artistic vocabulary, outlook, and possibilities of being new in the present rather than entrenched in the practices of the past. Thus, when Wilson’s legacy is at issue, one need not look much further than his achievements in grand opera to gauge that legacy’s enduring force. My contextual remarks are a framework for ascertaining characteristics of Wilson’s direction and design shared by his operas. But they help to identify, as well, characteristics that are heightened in individual operas or are simply unique to a particular production. When looking from the perspectives of what is heightened and what singular, two recently acclaimed opera productions command attention: Puccini’s Turandot, staged in 2018 at the Teatro Real in Madrid, with this theatre’s orchestra and chorus, conductor Nicola Luisotti (returning to Madrid in 2023 before traveling to the Paris Opera Bastille in the same year, the performance discussed here); and Verdi’s La Traviata , first in Linz in 2015, but reaching glory only in the 2016–2017 version in Russia at the Perm Opera and Ballet Theatre with MusicAeterna, founded and conducted by Teodor Currentzis. This rendition was then performed at the Grand Théâtre de la Ville in Luxembourg in 2018, which is the one discussed here. Of foremost importance in these two productions is their uncluttered space, which, having distinguished Wilson’s very early career, has become a recognizable aesthetic principle across his body of work. What needs to be stressed, however, is that Wilson’s varied opera directing has completely ratified his principle of bare space. He may well have begun with an understanding of space from visual-art and dance perspectives, but opera progressively showed him that the musically complex organism that is opera required uncluttered space to be fully heard and be heard commensurately with its ambitions. Opera consists of orchestral music, singing soloist voices, choral voices, a libretto replete with names of characters and story and plot – these are its drama components – and architectural, painterly and other scenographic features as well as dance and related physically trained practices like the commedia dell’arte , which Puccini had borrowed for Turandot . All these multifarious elements notwithstanding, opera, if pan-artistic (or “interdisciplinary”) in its very essence is, above all else, a sonic universe, and Wilson accedes to this when he observes that he is usually “visually distracted” when he goes to the opera because it is “so busy on stage” that he has to close his eyes “in order to hear carefully. . . . I can [then] listen to the violin, to the harp, to the flutes, I can listen to the singer.” His “biggest challenge” as a director is to “give a space so that we can hear [the] music,” and, for his work, “which is highly visual, the visual must give a space for us to hear music so that, with my eyes open, I can hear better than when my eyes are closed.” In other words, hearing the music, which is imperative, cannot be impaired by busy décor (among other “busy” factors) or, for that matter, in the case of Wilson’s design, by what is visually arresting and even potentially overpowering. Turandot is a salient example of what is exceptionally visually powerful, even by Wilson’s standards, with its architecturally imposing but constantly moving big blocks and tall columns of colored light in a range of deep blues and some black; sometimes there is only black, barely lit. Vibrating masses of purple protrude and fill the space, also saturating the comical “Chinese” commedia trio whose costumes by Jacques Reynaud, as if cut from heavy paper in an angular fashion, hold the gaze. The rarity of purple in Wilson’s palette makes its loud presence all the more striking. Purple may well allude to Turandot’s regal power – indeed, imperial tyranny – to which Wilson unmistakably refers through her appearances, standing on a narrow black platform that moves and juts out from the wings, high up above the stage, and then retreats after her pronouncements to behead her unsuccessful suitors. She poses her three riddles to her last suitor, Caleb, from this same platform. Wilson perceives, in one of the most striking expressions ever of his imagination, just how daunting, how fearful the height and position in the air of his platform really are to eyes that see as they listen. The visual potency of this device is matched by Turandot’s stiff, stridently deep orange dress (which she wears throughout) of triangular shape and squared shoulders, accompanied by black squared headgear and long black gloves. Towards the end of the opera, the orange of her dress seems to radiate against washes of rich, warm brown on the back wall; at another moment, an outsize vibrating orange ball appears on it, referring, by association through color, to Turandot’s beginning to be transformed by the power to love. Turandot, without the capacity to love, is a forbidding sight, countered only by the softer contours of Liu’s, but especially of Caleb’s, simple but confident bearing and the garments both wear. Reynaud and Wilson here approach Puccini’s chinoiserie with discretion, dressing these characters from top to toe in monochromatic, one-patterned thick but stylish fabric which is the color of stone, tinted with very pale green (unless this slight tint is an optical illusion created by light). But discretion is evident most of all in their contained gestures and movements. More physically restrained still – Wilson’s understatement to another degree – are the duets between Turandot (Iréne Theorin) and Caleb (Gregory Kunde), particularly their closing series where Caleb is at last able to declare his love instead of continually proving it through his successful feats. The singers’ kinaesthetic minimalism is precisely what allows the cumulative release of the full power of their voice – for nothing can obstruct its intense focus; and the singers bring out vocally, even more than does the orchestral playing, the music’s enormous emotional range. Wilson understands only too well that music is both a source and generator of emotions and that it can be this form of energy – distilled, pure – when all the energy of singing is channeled through the singing and is condensed in it. Gestures and movements at this level of condensation can be nothing other than mere clutter, irrelevant to the supreme translucence of the singing voice as it sings from the movement within each singer. And once you can fully hear, untrammeled, what the voices are telling you – the voices rather than the words – Wilson’s sumptuous visual presentation falls into place, holding its own, but not overbearing – “equal,” Wilson would say – while you can hear all the music, vocal and instrumental together, at ease, with your “eyes open.” A comparable kind of translucence and musically elevated synthesis occurs in La Traviata , with the great difference that the music at the end of this opera soars into transcendence, instantaneously as Nadezhda Pavlova, in the title role, soars into transcendence. This extraordinary metamorphosis happens most of all through the emotional depth and finesse of the vocal and instrumental music from the very beginning of the production until its last note. This refined unison is due to the completely attuned togetherness of all the players, necessarily, including the singer-players, who are inseparable from, and totally sensitive and attentive to, the finely tempered ensemble that is MusicAeterna, nurtured by Currentzis. Wilson, meanwhile, pursued his designer-director course, sensitive, by some kind of alchemical intuition and affinity to the tenor of the musical work. His visual imagination, in response, is especially delicate: colors are largely pastels – creams and pinks tinged with gold for Violetta (Marguerite in Alexandre Dumas’s The Lady of the Camellias , the source of the opera’s libretto), as they are for her apartment and other spaces related to her. Objects are few, a good number of them floating in the air. Wilson’s more pronounced visual compositions are reserved for Violetta’s lover Alfredo (Dumas’s Armand), Alfredo’s father, and Violetta’s demi-monde friends. Accordingly, the opera’s ballroom scene of Act II (Wilson calls it a “party)” is replete with stunning bull-like heads and horns and cat’s-eye masks, pervasive red light, and red and black costumes evoking bullrings, matadors, and flamenco dancers. All are intrinsic to Verdi’s score but, nevertheless, give room for Wilson’s fantasy cabaret-camp-and-queer pianist to do his number with brio in the merriment that, before too long, becomes disaster. (10) The production’s closing scene is breathtaking. Wilson places Pavlova-Violetta in the shadow of death, her image in the illusion of a darkening skeleton (this through Wilson’s masterful lighting) in her large white bed, until she rises, training a long unfurling white sheet behind her, which is her nightgown and shroud in one. Attached to one of her fingers is the loop of a sheet that she trains along the air, like the sail of a ship, as she takes steps forward, her radiant face looking ahead as she sings her love of Alfredo. She biblically curves her index finger upwards to the Divine. And she is now smiling, smiling as she sings her love, not collapsing in a heap, as in melodramatic views of this opera, but standing tall, with dignity. The strings of the orchestra tremor and gently recede into silence, as does Pavlova’s voice, except that the silence seems to be an illusion of silence and the musical notes seem still to be heard. Never have I heard the quality of such a silence – a holy silence, the silence of miracles – in any Wilson work before. If pressed, I would have to say that this silence is the silence of spiritual experiencing – or, perhaps, more accurately, of spiritual being . The Spiritual Dimension La Traviata closes without closing, having suffused a distinctly palpable sense of togetherness on the stage and between the stage and spectators, binding them all as one. This particular kind of togetherness is in itself a kind of spiritual experience. It is, in the same instance, something like a celebration of life, akin to Pavlova’s celebration of love for and with Violetta. For Wilson, a spiritual experience is not a religious one because, as he sees it, the church (temple, mosque, synagogue) is the place for religion while the theatre can be spiritual without the religious dogmas (my paraphrase) that he believes are divisive. (11) The spiritual dimension of Wilson’s theatre appears in what may be called “secular” works, but it is more evident in music that is culturally accepted to be sacred music, (differently, of course, in the diverse cultures of the world), or thought to have sacred origins and uses, or which, by its spiritual qualities, is entitled to sanctified places. Such music gave rise to the following in Wilson’s oeuvre, in chronological order: Bach’s St John’s Passion (2007, Théâtre du Châtelet); Adam’s Passion (2015, using four pieces by Arvo Pärt, whose pivotal piece is a Russian Orthodox lament sung in Russian, which in 2009 Pärt had named Adam’s Lament ), presented in Tallinn’s Noblessner Foundry, newly renovated for performances; The Messiah ( Der Messias, 2020) , Mozart’s arrangement and sung in German of Handel’s English-language The Messiah, premiered right at the beginning of the Covid pandemic at the Mozartwoche in Salzburg); Bach 6 Solo (2021, Wilson in collaboration with violinist Jennifer Koh and Lucinda Childs choreographing for five dancers, of whom she was one). Bach 6 Solo was performed at the Chapelle Saint-Louis of the renowned seventeenth-century hospital Salpêtrière in Paris. The concert-dance was integral to France’s celebration of Wilson’s eightieth birthday in recognition of Wilson’s artistic services to France. (12) Two additional works on the outer edge of this time span rightly belong to the sphere of the sacred, broadly understood. The first is Gloria , a 2022 recorded sound installation in which Wilson speaks in tandem with Huppert and saxophonist Richard (Dickie) Landry playing his own music. Sound was transmitted through unobtrusively situated small microphones in that most venerated of holy sites in France, the Sainte-Chapelle, in the heart of Paris. Most unfortunately, the stream of tourists passing through (some stopping for a minute or two to figure out what was going on) brought in unsettling noise, while the sound installation, although respectfully quiet and intentionally transmitted as if from afar, was altogether too quiet to be heard adequately in such circumstances. The second work is an art installation, the 2024 STAR and STONE: a kind of love…some say , which is Wilson’s bold and frequently startling painting of Notre-Dame de Rouen in Normandy via digitally projected images from technology placed in the grounds of the Cathedral. Several of these images, although by no means newsreel reproductions, are surely allusions to the damages done to the Cathedral during the Second World War. Compelling in their destructive mode, particularly given the Cathedral’s beautiful facades in real life and the beautiful colorings that Wilson otherwise inscribes on them, these tougher images can justifiably be interpreted as his profoundly critical thoughts on the devastations of war. In the face of semiotics like these, it can hardly be assumed that Wilson’s consciousness of the world has been smothered by aesthetics because his is not social-issue art, nor, as a consequence, does he make “social theatre.” The latter, although a comprehensible label, is unsatisfactory for individuating theatre centered on social issues since all theatres, by virtue of being made in societies, are social. Adam’s Passion , created before Covid and the spate of horrendous wars fought in 2024, picks up Pärt’s underlying theme that Adam, the symbol of all humanity, had precipitated the tragedy of humanity, while transposing it into the key of hope. Myriad hues of blue permeate the work from start to finish, suggesting, in the context of Pärt’s thought, the celestial plane of salvation evoked by the painters of the Renaissance. These are the blues, too, of Wilson’s first four minutes of silence (Pärt’s choir sings straight afterwards) in which Adam, Wilson’s “Man,” is Everyman and stands for collective responsibility as well as collective atonement and pardon. The very abstraction of his name gives Man (Humanity) a plural identity, composed of single individuals. Atonement and pardon, two aspects beyond darkness, buoy up the production’s motif of hope and summon to the imagination the Man who was Christ. The silver, piercing light, which first appears on the backstage wall as a vertical line, opens out from the line’s central slight swell, growing bigger and brighter, like organic growth from a seed. This iridescent emanation returns periodically, also in order to light a hanamichi-style walkway extended from the edge of center stage into the audience. By the time the choir starts singing, the stage has been set for the journey of Man, played by a stocky and naked Michalis Theophanous, who, by a curious trompe l’oeil, does not, at first, look naked at all. This optical deception is probably due to the magnetic light, but also to the attention drawn of the viewing eye to the pearly silhouette of a tree, suspended in space above the stage, with its leafless branches hanging upside down. This can only be the Tree of Man, an evocation of faith and myth; a memory of antiquity and the holy. The Tree visually connects to a branch – possibly, symbolically, a branch lopped off the hanging tree (albeit with some leaves) – that rests on the floor at the point where the hanamichi reaches into the audience. Pärt’s religious musical meanings meld into Wilson’s projected humanist vision of human resilience and endeavor, while his pervading play of light conjures up the human spirit, as does, in tandem, the singing choir. Man walks steadily towards the branch as if walking into the future. The performance, at the same time, draws to an end, and nothing in it contradicts the idea that naked Man (who is, also “cleansed” Man), walks forward confidently, with hope. Wilson, being an artist of point and counterpoint, sets up rotund creatures in puffball shapes as comical counterparts of the central seriousness of his production. Yet this ploy, in my view, misses the mark, since the puffball scene looks like misplaced kitsch, nor is it particularly funny. Nor is it witty enough to counter and thus puncture high-minded sentiments, as comedy is said to have done for tragedy in Ancient Greece. Choreographer and dancer Lucinda Childs’s incomparable hieratic style is most certainly suitable for the composition, but for some reason – too withheld, or simply lackluster – it does not enhance a work that, by its very nature, poses the greatest of difficulties for rendition as theatre. The subject of Handel’s The Messiah concerns humankind, and Handel wrote it theatrically; but, then, he was also a writer of operas . Mozart, who was a prodigious composer, also wrote operas, and this meant that his version of The Messiah made it less problematic for staging than compositions lacking an inbuilt sense of theatre – the case of Pärt’s compositions, which are in the range of prayer and meditation. Mozart’s arrangement is lighter and bouncier than Handel’s original. It willingly displays its joyous tonalities and dance-like beats and rhythms, which Wilson caught quickly for his direction and design. Mozart’s and Wilson’s accord was cut short. No sooner was Der Messias premiered in Salzburg in January 2020, playing for three nights, then Covid drove it into “storage.” Wilson, in the meantime, was prevented by the outbreak from traveling back to the United States and found refuge in Berlin, where, in isolation, he continued the black and white drawings of The Messiah begun in Salzburg. Wilson, apart from generally working with and through drawings in the gestational phases of his productions, drew this particular set with the intention of exhibiting it in an art gallery in Paris to accompany planned performances of The Messiah in that city. My impression of these drawings so full of movement, much of it suggesting wind, was that they were of a different order from the joyousness of the stage movement. The two impulses appeared to be in opposition, the one steered towards shadowed turbulence, the other towards the radiant skies. It might well be that Wilson’s bi-vocality, couched in two different artistic forms, entered into dialogue with The Messiah, which recalled his earlier dialogue with Pärt in Adam’s Passion . Wilson could well have used Pärt’s name Adam’s Lament for the whole work. Instead, he chose Passion whose nuances of meaning differ significantly from those of Lament , the first coming from the Bible’s New Testament and the second from the Old. Passion inescapably references “Passion of Christ,” which is a singularly New Testament event, and Wilson probably felt that its nuances were closer to the positive, proactive dimensions that shaped his part of the collaboration. Five years later, the spirit of The Messiah is indubitably positive. The Messiah resurfaced three times in September 2020 at the venerable Théâtre des Champs Elysées in Paris, while Covid escalated. The theatre management took maximum precautions, and audiences complied, but, as Wilson notes, all the theatres of Paris were shut down after the third night. (Theatres in London, on the other hand, were closed down months sooner.) What, in retrospect, is striking is how uplifting in such fearful times The Messiah would have been to those who had heard and seen it (which argues for the importance of the arts to society). Just as striking is how true this production was to the certitude, breathed by Mozart into The Messiah, that humanity could and would overcome adversity; here the Christian basis and full significance of “Messiah” cannot be ignored. The Grand Théâtre of Geneva dared two performances in October 2020. The Messiah then retreated until its six performances at the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona in March 2024. Wilson took up the abstractions of the dramatis personae of The Messiah. Mozart had identified them musically, that is, by voice and so by Soprano, Tenor, and so on. This pattern dramaturgically organizes all of the production’s participants, except its magnificent dancer Alexis Fousekis. Wilson’s main goal was to have the whole space full of joy, starting with the tenor, Richard Croft, who, light on his dancing feet, is graceful, gracious, and urbane as he cuts across his “roles,” including that of singing narrator. Like a thread of continuity, he weaves in and out of various tableaux. Tableaux is the most appropriate word in this context for Wilson’s sequences of slightly “stilled,” momentarily “held” images in the manner of Symbolist tableaux. Soprano, dressed in white with long white hair standing in a gondola, is “caught” in a gesture of rowing; Tenor is caught in an echoing, similar gesture: Alto stands with a jet of steam behind her; elsewhere fire burns in the sky; somewhere else a huge moon hangs (in my memory behind Tenor); and, somewhere else, the Tree of Man stands upright in the sky and not upside down, as in Adam’s Passion . Most of the solos and duos are offset by rows of iridescent thin lines on the stage floor; sometimes they are set into relief by the illuminated outlines of the rectangular shape of the stage; at others, a box framed in white-silver light is framed within another similarly framed box to create depth of image. The effect is entrancing, but does not etiolate the singing. There are also group tableaux. Sometimes the chorus walks in a line of darkened silhouettes behind this or that soloist. Mostly, however, choral singers divide the stage space into two (as in Turando t), with a wide passage between them, usually for entrances and exits. Occasionally, all horizontal space is filled, as happens when, a spaceman in the image of the first man on the moon emerges from clouds and massive effects of exploding snow. No sooner glimpsed, then the singing chorus in black flanks the moon man on either side. Even so, this splendor upon splendor is outshone by Dancer Fousekis whose impeccable virtuosic technique gives his jetés the power to leap high and free of the earth, an ethereal not terrestrial being with variations of the position of his arms. Airborne, Spirit incarnate, he leaps through the skies of Wilson’s blues; clouds thicken and darken; black planks, well spaced from each other and held up on “invisible” strings, look downward while he passes to land. At one point, Fourakis leaps and comes down to stand with his shoulders and arms pulled behind him, suggesting they might be touching or even be attached to the plank now settled nearer the floor. It dawned on me afterwards that the image, angled as it was, alluded to Christ carrying the Cross. The whole work is surreal, engrossing, exhilarating, and its instruments and singers perform music less like Handel’s church music (even if touched by theatre) and more like Mozart’s spiritual translucence, here symbolized and materialized in dance. Epilogue There can be no adequate “conclusion” to this presentation except to affirm that Wilson’s spiritual dimension is integral to his legacy. Further commentary waits silently for his future work. Endnotes “News,” Robert Wilson, accessed September 28, 2024, https://robertwilson.com . My Robert Wilson , 2nd ed. (London: Routledge, 2019) offers an extensive account both of Wilson’s working processes and the aesthetic of his works. T. S. Eliot, East Coker , in Four Quartets (London: Faber and Faber, 2001), 20. Confirmed for another context by Ann-Christin Rommen (Wilson’s assistant director on The Tempest ), in Ann-Christin Rommen and Maria Shevtsova, “Working with Robert Wilson,” New Theatre Quarterly 23, no. 1 (February 2007): 58–66. Jutte Lampe first performed Orlando in German in 1989 at the Schaubühne in Berlin. For a detailed study of Orlando accompanied by an interview with Huppert, see my “Isabelle Huppert Becomes Orlando,” Theatre Forum , no. 6 (Winter/Spring 1995): 69–75. I here coin the notion of “vocal choreography.” The costumier is Jacques Reynaud who also designed the exceptional costumes with Elizabethan echoes of The Winter’s Tale (2005) and Shakespeare’s Sonnets (2009); both premiered at the Berliner Ensemble. See my “Robert Wilson’s Sonosphere,” in Meredith Monk, Richard Foreman, Robert Wilson: Landscapes of Consciousness , ed. Ann Shanahan, vol. 6 of Great North American Stage Directors (London: Bloomsbury, 2019), 175–208. Robert Wilson and Maria Shevtsova, “Covid Conversations 5: Robert Wilson,” New Theatre Quarterly 38, no. 1 (February 2022): 4. Amply illustrated with photographs. See, for this terminology, Susan Sontag’s renowned essay “Notes on Camp,” Partisan Review 31, no. 4 (1964): 515–530. For a considerably fuller account of this Perm production of La Traviata , see “Robert Wilson’s Sonosphere,” 193–97. Robert Wilson and Maria Shevtsova, “Covid Conversations 5,” 7 and 14. Ibid., 14 and 24–5. About The Author(s) Robert Wilson Yearbook The Robert Wilson Yearbook, published annually by the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center, offers a dedicated platform for scholarly and creative engagement with the life, artistry, and enduring legacy of Robert Wilson (1941–2025), one of the most original visionaries in contemporary theatre and performance. The Yearbook seeks to explore and expand upon Wilson’s groundbreaking approaches to staging, lighting, movement, and visual composition. Each issue will feature a diverse range of content—including original essays, critical commentary, archival materials, artist reflections, and photography—examining facets of Wilson’s multifaceted practice across genres, eras, and geographies. The Robert Wilson Yearbook is a publication of the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center. Visit Journal Homepage Table of Contents - This Issue Listening to Deafman Glance Robert Wilson’s Art of Senses and Emotions Robert Wilson's Production of Henrik Ibsen's When We Dead Awaken Thinking in Structures: Working as a Dramaturg with Robert Wilson Previous Next Attribution: This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.

Inga Galintyé and Chloé Bellemère Kayla Farrish (a Nina von Maltzahn Fellow) Fana Fraser PRELUDE Festival 2023 PERFORMANCE In Process Open Studios at The Watermill Center Multimedia 6:00PM EST Friday, October 13, 2023 39 Water Mill Towd Road, Water Mill, NY 11976, USA Free Entry, Open To All In Process Inga Galintyé and Chloé Bellemère Kayla Farrish (a Nina von Maltzahn Fellow) Fana Fraser Content / Trigger Description: The Watermill Center is a laboratory for the arts and humanities providing a global community the time, space and freedom to create and inspire. Founded in 1992 by avant-garde visionary Robert Wilson, The Watermill Center is an interdisciplinary laboratory for the arts and humanities situated on ten acres of Shinnecock ancestral territory on Long Island’s East End. With an emphasis on creativity and collaboration, The Center offers year-round artist residencies and education programs, providing a global community with the time, space, and freedom to create and inspire. The Watermill Center’s rural campus combines multifunctional studios with ten acres of manicured grounds and gardens, housing a carefully curated art collection, expansive research library, and archives illustrating the life and work of Artistic Director, Robert Wilson. The Center’s facilities enable Artists-in-Residence to integrate resources from the humanities and research from the sciences into contemporary artistic practice. Through year-round public programs, The Watermill Center demystifies the artistic process by facilitating unique insight into the creative process of a rotating roster of national and international artists. https://www.watermillcenter.org/ Watch Recording Explore more performances, talks and discussions at PRELUDE 2023 See What's on

Watch Benjamim de Oliveira's Open Paths by Catappum! Collective at the Segal Film Festival on Theatre and Performance 2025. The Catappum Collective retraces the steps of Benjamim de Oliveira, revisiting the places where he lived, performed, and left his legacy. The journey began in Pará de Minas and Belo Horizonte—his hometown and starting point—where the group interviewed local artists, accessed historical documents, and delved into the memory of our Black clown’s presence. In São Paulo, the collective visited the Museum of Circus Memory and explored key moments in Benjamim’s path to success. As the first clown to record a music album in Brazil, he made history in the capital through performances filled with chulas and lundus, playing a pioneering role in the evolution of Brazilian entertainment. The journey continued to Rio de Janeiro, a historic site of Black resistance and home to the region known as Little Africa. It was there that Benjamim found support and cultural vitality during the formative years of his artistic rise.. The Martin E. Segal Theater Center presents Benjamim de Oliveira's Open Paths At the Segal Theatre Film and Performance Festival 2025 A film by Catappum! Collective Screening Information This film will be screened in-person at The Segal Centre on Saturday May 17th at 11am (as part of the short films selection) and also be available to watch online on the festival website till June 8th 2025. RSVP Please note there is limited seating available for in-person screenings at The Segal Centre, which are offered on a first-come first-serve basis. You may RSVP above to get a reminder about the Segal Film Festival in your inbox. Country Brazil Language Brazilian Portuguese Running Time 36:17 minutes Year of Release 2024 About The Film About The Retrospective The Catappum Collective retraces the steps of Benjamim de Oliveira, revisiting the places where he lived, performed, and left his legacy. The journey began in Pará de Minas and Belo Horizonte—his hometown and starting point—where the group interviewed local artists, accessed historical documents, and delved into the memory of our Black clown’s presence. In São Paulo, the collective visited the Museum of Circus Memory and explored key moments in Benjamim’s path to success. As the first clown to record a music album in Brazil, he made history in the capital through performances filled with chulas and lundus, playing a pioneering role in the evolution of Brazilian entertainment. The journey continued to Rio de Janeiro, a historic site of Black resistance and home to the region known as Little Africa. It was there that Benjamim found support and cultural vitality during the formative years of his artistic rise. About The Artist(s) Group, Collective, or Production Resume The Catappum Collective began its research in 2015. In 2019, they premiered their first show, also titled Catappum. Between 2019 and 2023, they performed in more than 50 neighborhoods across all five regions of São Paulo and its countryside, reaching nearly 10,000 people from various social classes and age groups. From 2020 to 2022, the group took part in several in-person and online festivals, including the 2nd Festejo Raízes do Riso, the 2nd Saruê International Circus Festival, two editions of the Brincando no Parque Festival, the 3rd Dona Ruth Black Theater Festival of São Paulo, the 6th São Paulo International Circus Festival, and the Preta Leste Festival in Itaquera. In 2022, they were awarded funding through the 6th Circus Promotion Program, during which they held 12 performances of Catappum for over 3,000 people. They also offered workshops on Black comic traditions, engaging both artists and audiences in discussions about laughter, comedic expression, and racism through conversation circles. Also in 2022, the collective published an article titled “Black Popular Cultures in the Media” in Folha de São Paulo. That same year, they taught in the Humor course at SP Escola de Teatro, the institution where the collective’s founders were previously trained. Additionally, they participated in Brazil’s 1st Black Circus Research Symposium, contributing to the panel on Black Clowning, Circus, and Education. In 2023, they performed at SESC Registro – SP with a double feature: the Catappum show and the storytelling piece Pulú, the Little Black Boy Who Jumped Far, which was also written by the collective. That same year, they inaugurated the noon programming slot at Grande Lona do Mundo do Circo in Parque da Juventude (formerly Carandiru), presenting Catappum. Still in 2023, they were selected in the 42nd edition of the Theater Promotion Program for the City of São Paulo, which enabled them to create the group’s second show, Na Lona de Benjamim, a tribute to Benjamin de Oliveira, the great Black clown and circus artist of the early 20th century. In 2024, the Catappum Collective received the Picadeiro Trophy from the State Government in the category of Best Clown Show for their work Catappum. Get in touch with the artist(s) contatocatappum@gmail.com and follow them on social media https://www.instagram.com/cata.ppum/ 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

David Levine invites Matthew Gasda, author of "Dimes Square" and director of the Brooklyn Center for Theater Research, to discuss what's under the radar of Under the Radar. PRELUDE Festival 2023 ARTIST TALK The Other Downtown: David Levine, Matthew Gasda David Levine, Matthew Gasda Discussion English 1 hour 5:30PM EST Thursday, October 12, 2023 Elebash Recital Hall, The Graduate Center, 5th Avenue, New York, NY, USA Free Entry, Open To All David Levine invites Matthew Gasda, author of "Dimes Square" and director of the Brooklyn Center for Theater Research, to discuss what's under the radar of Under the Radar. David Levine is an OBIE and Guggenheim-award winning theater director and visual artist. His work has been covered by Frieze, Artforum, The New York Times , and his writing has appeared in n+1, Theater , and Parkett . He is Professor of the Practice of Performance, Theater and Media at Harvard University, and the author, with Shonni Enelow, of A Discourse on Method , published by 53rd State Press. His holographic film, Dissolution , will debut at the Museum of the Moving Image in late October. He is also the author of Re-Public , a 2005 manifesto for the artistic, fiscal, and operational overhaul of the Public Theater, commissioned by the journal Theater . Content / Trigger Description: www.davidlevine.art Watch Recording Explore more performances, talks and discussions at PRELUDE 2023 See What's on

Encounter Keith Josef Adkins's work The Heat Will Kill Everything in Manhattan, at this year's edition of the Prelude in the Parks festival by The Segal Centre, presented in collaboration with Summer on the Hudson/Riverside Park Conservancy. Prelude in the Parks 2024 Festival The Heat Will Kill Everything Keith Josef Adkins Theater Saturday, June 8, 2024 @ 3pm Riverside Park South, Manhattan Performance on Locomotive Picnic Lawn @61st street on the Hudson River. Enter at 59th St, or 66th St and Riverside Boulevard Summer on the Hudson/Riverside Park Conservancy Presented by Mov!ng Culture Projects and The Segal Center in collaboration with Presented by Mov!ng Culture Projects and The Segal Center View Location Details RSVP To Event A Black man’s daughter disappears during an extreme heat event. Excerpts will be performed by Francois Battiste and directed by Russell G. Jones. Keith Josef Adkins Keith Josef Adkins is a writer and artistic director. His plays have been produced around the U.S., and include The People Before The Park, about the 19th-century black community Seneca Village that was razed to create Central Park. Keith received Samuel French’s inaugural Award for Impact and Activism in the Theater Community, and a Helen Merrill Playwright Award. Keith is the co-founder and artistic director of The New Black Fest, dedicated to new and provocative playwriting and discussion from the African Diaspora. He has written for CBS’ The Good Fight, ABC’s For The People, and P-Valley on STARZ. Visit Artist Website Location Performance on Locomotive Picnic Lawn @61st street on the Hudson River. Enter at 59th St, or 66th St and Riverside Boulevard Summer on the Hudson/Riverside Park Conservancy Summer on the Hudson is Riverside Park and West Harlem Piers Park’s annual outdoor arts and culture festival that takes place from 59th Street to 181st Street along the Hudson River, from May to October. Events include concerts, dance performances, movies under the stars, DJ dance parties, children’s shows, educational workshops, special day-long festivals, wellness activities, and more. All programs and events are free to the public and no registration is required unless specifically noted. Visit Partner Website

A surreal and poetic chamber oratorio with music composed by Alaina Ferris and libretto by Karinne Keithley Syers, The Lydian Gale Parr follows the story of a child emissary sent from a high-walled city to deliver a letter to the General laying siege to her city, but she cannot find him. So, she travels through space and time — through ancient cities, ports, and present-day container ships. Built from cutups of Henry James’ novel The American, it is a story of being lost, of feeling displaced from one’s community, of slipping in and out of disparate webs of belonging, yet holding fast to one’s quest — it is about fortitude and finding strength of purpose and community amidst desperate circumstances. Staged inside an embroidered white tent surrounded by a spatialize instrument made of deconstructed vibraphones and bells, the oratorio will emerge like an ancient war encampment filled with instruments and mechanical detritus. Somewhere between speech and song, it is scored for ten musician/performers: chamber choir, flute, bass clarinet, bassoon, french horn, viola de gamba, piano, Celtic harps, bells, and archival radio transmissions; and features Renaissance anti-masque-style dances performed by subversive, queer ballet company, Ballez, choreographed by Katy Pyle. All the performers share the role of The Lydian Gale Parr. The Lydian Gale Parr will premiere in Winter/Spring 2024 for three limited weekend runs, directed by Meghan Finn, co-produced by Amanda+James and The Tank with support from the NYC Women’s Fund. The Lydian Gale Parr has previously received support from Hermitage Artist Fellowship, The Frederick Loewe Musical Theatre Initiative at New Dramatists, National Sawdust’s Summer Labs, The Bushwick Starr Reading Series. Music by Alaina Ferris Libretto by Karinne Keithley Syers Choreography by Katy Pyle Directed by Meghan Finn PRELUDE Festival 2023 PERFORMANCE The Lydian Gale Parr Alaina Ferris, Karinne Keithley Syers, Katy Pyle, Meghan Finn Theater, Music English 60 Mins 3:30PM EST Saturday, October 14, 2023 Martin E. Segal Theatre Center, 5th Avenue, New York, NY, USA Free Entry, Open To All A surreal and poetic chamber oratorio with music composed by Alaina Ferris and libretto by Karinne Keithley Syers, The Lydian Gale Parr follows the story of a child emissary sent from a high-walled city to deliver a letter to the General laying siege to her city, but she cannot find him. So, she travels through space and time — through ancient cities, ports, and present-day container ships. Built from cutups of Henry James’ novel The American, it is a story of being lost, of feeling displaced from one’s community, of slipping in and out of disparate webs of belonging, yet holding fast to one’s quest — it is about fortitude and finding strength of purpose and community amidst desperate circumstances. Staged inside an embroidered white tent surrounded by a spatialize instrument made of deconstructed vibraphones and bells, the oratorio will emerge like an ancient war encampment filled with instruments and mechanical detritus. Somewhere between speech and song, it is scored for ten musician/performers: chamber choir, flute, bass clarinet, bassoon, french horn, viola de gamba, piano, Celtic harps, bells, and archival radio transmissions; and features Renaissance anti-masque-style dances performed by subversive, queer ballet company, Ballez, choreographed by Katy Pyle. All the performers share the role of The Lydian Gale Parr. The Lydian Gale Parr will premiere in Winter/Spring 2024 for three limited weekend runs, directed by Meghan Finn, co-produced by Amanda+James and The Tank with support from the NYC Women’s Fund. The Lydian Gale Parr has previously received support from Hermitage Artist Fellowship, The Frederick Loewe Musical Theatre Initiative at New Dramatists, National Sawdust’s Summer Labs, The Bushwick Starr Reading Series. Music by Alaina Ferris Libretto by Karinne Keithley Syers Choreography by Katy Pyle Directed by Meghan Finn Content / Trigger Description: Meghan Finn (she/her) is the Artistic Director of The Tank. She previously served as the Associate Artistic Director at 3LD Art & Technology Center. Her directorial work has been seen at the Tank, the V&A, Serpentine Galleries, The Wexner Center, SCAD, The Logan Center for the Arts in Chicago, Museo Jumex Mexico City, The Power Plant, Canadian Stage, Carnegie Mellon, Brooklyn College, MIT, NYU, the Great Plains Theater Conference and others. She has directed three world premieres by playwright Mac Wellman, including most recently The Invention of Tragedy (2019). Other recent credits include: I Am Nobody a new musical by Greg Kotis (Urinetown) at The Tank; as well as The Nine Dreams: Blake & the Apocalypse by writer Nick Flynn (film). She directed a short film by playwright Peggy Stafford called 16 Words or Less which has been screened at indie film festivals nationally and in Europe. She is a frequent collaborator of conceptual artist and sculptor Pedro Reyes, and directed Doomocracy for Creative Time. Finn collaborated with photographer Mitch Epstein on a live performance with cellist Erik Friedlander as well as celebrated premieres by Erin Courtney, Peggy Stafford, Gary Winter, Ben Gassman, Alexandra Collier, Carl Holder, Eliza Bent and Cori Copp. When We Went Electronic by Caitlyn Saylor Stephens which premiered at The Tank in 2018 toured in 2021 to The Roes Theater in Athens Greece and OnStage! Festival Rome and Milan. She holds a BA in Theater from The University of Southern California and an MFA in Directing from Brooklyn College. Alaina Ferris is a composer, poet, and performer who specializes in choral works, opera, and contemporary theater. As an active pianist and Celtic harpist, her music is inspired by a love of Renaissance chorales and her former work as a music therapist. She is one half of the indie-folk duo, Physical Kids, alongside Matt Schlatter. Alaina’s work is committed to exploring ways of ending the cycle of violence and violence against women by modeling creative acts of caretaking, collective inquiry, and communion. She is an awardee of the New Music USA 2022 Creator Development Fund; 2022-2024 Hermitage Fellow; 2022 artist resident at Cité International des Arts in Paris; was a 2019-2021 Composer Fellow at The American Opera Project; a co- winner of the 2019/2020 Brooklyn Youth Chorus Composer Competition; and selected as a 2019 National Sawdust Summerlab Musician. Alaina’s work has been presented at HERE, SoHo Rep, Barnard College/ Columbia University, Abrons Arts Center, The Connelly Theater, and St. Ann’s Warehouse. She has worked with the Brooklyn Youth Chorus, artists César Alvarez, Coco Karol, Sxip Shirey, Ellen Winter, Amanda Palmer, Jason Webley, Steve Earle, Anne Waldman, Eliza Bent, Mia Rovegno, William Burke, Joshua William Gelb, Mac Wellman, Tyler Gilmore (Blank For.ms.), and more. Her poetry chapbook, 'While Listening,' was released by The Operating System in 2016. Her manuscript, 'To Be Awake Means to Will' was a 2015 Finalist for the National Poetry Series and a 2018 Finalist for Fence Modern Poets. Alaina was born and raised in Las Vegas, Nevada and later moved to Boulder County, Colorado. She earned her B.A. in Music and Creative Writing from the University of Denver and her M.F.A. in Poetry from New York University. Photo by Arthur Moeller Karinne Keithley Syers is an artist and teacher based in Amherst, Massachusetts who makes works in text, song, dance, sound, bookmaking, essay, video, game design, and points in between. Plays and librettos include Douteflower (McSweeney’s 64: The Audio Issue), Long Bright Day, The Lydian Gale Parr (libretto, National Sawdust), A Tunnel Year (Chocolate Factory Theater, 2016), Another Tree Dance (Chocolate Factory, 2013), Do Not Do this Ever Again (Ohio Theater, 2008), Tenderenda (Danspace Project, 2005), Four Fruits (Surf Reality, 2000), and Montgomery Park, or Opulence (Incubator Arts Project, 2010), for which she won a New York Dance and Performance “Bessie” Award for Outstanding Production. She is currently developing Your Ghost Body, a meditative video game with songs, which will be reverse engineered into a concert version of the game for the Chocolate Factory Theater’s 23-24 season. She has been a two-time fellow in theater at The MacDowell Colony, a member of the Soho Rep. Writer/ Director Lab, a two-time member of Puppet Lab at St. Ann’s Warehouse, and is grateful to be a current resident playwright of New Dramatists. She founded 53rd State Press, co-founded Ur, a dance palace (2003-5), instigated the playwright think tanks and posses Joyce Cho and Machiqq, and co-hosted (with Jason Grote) the Acousmatic Theater Hour on WFMU. She collaborated as a performer, librettist, sound and video designer, and choreographer, with artists including Big Dance Theater, Sara Smith, David Neumann, Young Jean Lee, Sibyl Kempson, Theater of a Two Headed Calf, Chris Yon, The Civilians, and Talking Band. MFA in Playwriting, Brooklyn College (2006); PhD in English, CUNY Graduate Center (2014). She teaches independently through the Pelagic School. Photo by KJ Holmes Ballez Creator Katy Pyle is a genderqueer lesbian dancer and choreographer who began Ballez in 2011 to explore their complicated relationship to the cishetero patriarchal form of ballet, and to make space for their own, and their communities’, presence within it. Having studied ballet since age 3, Pyle became a professional apprentice at 13; left home at 14 to study full-time in the conservatory at North Carolina School of the Arts, and, at 16, was told by teachers, “You would have had a great career if you had been born a boy.” Pyle was pushed out of the ballet program. Because of that rupture, Pyle began studying choreography for the first time. After graduating from NCSA’s high school program in ’99, Pyle attended Hollins University, became a Drag King and studied experimental dance forms. In New York City, Pyle danced in the works of Ivy Baldwin, Faye Driscoll, John Jasperse, Xavier Le Roy, Karinne Keithley Syers, Jennifer Monson, Stina Nyberg, Anna Sperber, Katie Workum, and Young Jean Lee, among others. Pyle created collaborative work Eleanor Hullihan, Rebecca Brooks and Jules Skloot, with evening-length works at Galapagos (2005), PS 122 (2007), Danspace Project at St. Mark’s Church (2010), and The Bushwick Starr (2012). In 2011, Pyle founded the Ballez to insert the herstory and lineage of lesbian, queer and transgender people into the ballet canon through the creation of large-scale story ballets, open classes, and public engagement. Major works include “The Firebird, a Ballez” (Danspace Project, 2013), “Variations on Virtuosity, a Gala with the Stars of the Ballez” (American Realness, 2015), “Sleeping Beauty & the Beast,” (La Mama, 2016), “Slavic Goddesses,” (Collaboration with Paulina Olowska, The Kitchen, 2017), and "Giselle of Loneliness," (The Joyce, 2021). Ballez Class began at Brooklyn Arts Exchange in 2011, and Pyle has since brought the class to Gibney Dance, Slippery Rock University, Stolt Scenkonst and MDT, SCDT, LGBTQ Center at BSP, Princeton, Yale, Movement Research, Allied Media Conference, CounterPULSE, University Musical Society, Irreverent Dance, Beyond Tolerance Youth Conference, New York University, and Sarah Lawrence College. Pyle currently teaches at Eugene Lang College, Marymount Manhattan College, and Gibney Dance. Ballez has been supported by the Hodder Fund, United Artists, Foundation for Contemporary Arts, the Jerome Foundation, Mertz Gilmore, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Brooklyn Arts Council, Brooklyn Arts Exchange, and over 1000 individual donors. 2013-2015 Artist in Residence at BAX; residencies: Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Mount Tremper Arts, Rockbridge Artist’s Exchange, the Bushwick Starr, the Dragon’s Egg, Abrons Arts Center, and La Mama, ETC. https://thetanknyc.org/ Watch Recording Explore more performances, talks and discussions at PRELUDE 2023 See What's on

Time is running out the Human kind before the earth goes into full self sedation. The trees have always been the guardians of the earth, but they now must conserve their strength to save themselves. Who will save the human kind from self destruction and all that is in their path? Is there someone, something that can speak for the trees, who speak for all things that inhabit this planet? PRELUDE Festival 2023 PERFORMANCE Mud & Blood Maya Sharpe Theater, Music English 1 hour 8:00PM EST Monday, October 16, 2023 The Brick, 579 Metropolitan Avenue, Brooklyn, NY, USA Free Entry, Open To All Time is running out the Human kind before the earth goes into full self sedation. The trees have always been the guardians of the earth, but they now must conserve their strength to save themselves. Who will save the human kind from self destruction and all that is in their path? Is there someone, something that can speak for the trees, who speak for all things that inhabit this planet? produced by The Brick Content / Trigger Description: Musician. Storyteller. Filmmaker. Maya Sharpe is multi-passionate maker and thinker. Maya's passion lies in exploring simplicity in humanity through composition. Using this tool to demonstrate there is more of a connection and love between everything than the politically derived disconnect and hatred. http://www.mayasharpe.com/ Watch Recording Explore more performances, talks and discussions at PRELUDE 2023 See What's on

NILE HARRIS, ALEX TATARSKY, ANH VO + ETHAN PHILBRICK presents Precarious Luxuries: improvisations, performance, and planning for the unplanned at the PRELUDE 2024 Festival at the Martin E. Segal Theater Center CUNY. PRELUDE Festival 2024 Precarious Luxuries: improvisations, performance, and planning for the unplanned NILE HARRIS, ALEX TATARSKY, ANH VO + ETHAN PHILBRICK 4:30-6:00 pm Thursday, October 17, 2024 Proshansky Auditorium RSVP Three artists, one microphone, and a large room; the idea and practice of improvisation; making somethings out of nothings; finding ways out of no way; “yes and…”; “no but…”; everything for everyone. For this event, the artist and writer Ethan Philbrick gathers three artists who work in an expanded field of performance—Nile Harris, Alex Tatarsky, and Anh Vo—to improvise and discuss the stakes and strategies of their improvisational practices. Harris, Tatarsky, and Vo, while each working in different modes and in relation to different social exigencies, all turn to improvisational techniques as part of a broader commitment to the unknown and the unpredictable. While improvisation can sometimes be understood as the activity of a heroically volitional individual, Harris, Tatarsky, and Vo improvise so as to expose politically fraught dependencies and entanglements. Each artist will improvise for ten minutes before coming together for a conversation about improvisation with Philbrick. Precarious Luxuries is a keynote event of ASAP/15 and is presented in partnership with Prelude. 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). Nile Harris (he/him) is a performer and director of live works of art. He has done a few things and hopes to do a few more, God willing. Alex Tatarsky (they/them) makes live performances in the unfortunate in-between zone of dance, theater, performance art, and comedy—drawing on traditions from vaudeville to futurist poetry. Their practice embraces the figure of the bouffon, a European clown type said to live in the swamps at the edge of the kingdom, who was not only allowed to mock the king’s power but rewarded for it. Tatarsky’s original solo pieces have been presented at a wide array of venues including La MaMa, MoMA PS1, The Kitchen, Judson Memorial Church, Playwrights Horizons, and Abrons Arts Center, as well as comedy clubs, bars, basements, and trash heaps. As curatorial fellow at the Poetry Project, they organized a series on the poetics and politics of rot. Along with collaborator Ming Lin, they form one half of Shanzhai Lyric and its fictional office Canal Street Research Association. Tatarsky experienced fleeting fame as Andy Kaufman’s daughter and used to perform as a mound of dirt. Anh Vo (they/them) is a Vietnamese choreographer and writer working primarily in New York City, with a second base in Hanoi. Their practice fleshes out the body as a vessel for apparitional forces. Their work is situated in the unlikely lineage convergences between Downtown New York experimental dance, queer and feminist performance art, and Vietnamese folk ritual practices. Vo is indebted to Miguel Gutierrez’s unapologetic queerness and amorphous excess, Moriah Evan’s speculative commitment to the depth of interiority, Tehching Hsieh’s existential sense of time, and Ngoc Dai’s guttural sonic landscape of postwar Vietnam. Their formal training is in Performance Studies, studying with esteemed theorists and practitioners at Brown University (BA) and New York University (MA). Described by the New York Times as “risky, erotic, enigmatic and boldly humorous,” their choreographic work has received critical recognition for its research-driven and boundaries-pushing formal investigation. Significant fellowships and grants include Jerome Hill Artist Fellowship, NYSCA/NYFA Interdisciplinary Artist Fellowship, Dance/NYC Disability Dance Artistry Fellowship, USArtist International grant, Franklin Furnace Fund for Performance Art, Brooklyn Arts Council grants, and FCA Emergency Grants. Ethan Philbrick (he/him) is a cellist, performance artist, and writer. He holds a PhD in performance studies from New York University and has taught performance theory and practice at Pratt Institute, Muhlenberg College, New York University, Wesleyan College, Yale University, and The New School. He is currently performance curator-in-residence at The Poetry Project. In 2023, Philbrick published Group Works: Art, Politics, and Collective Ambivalence with Fordham University Press. He is part of the musical-theatrical project DAYS and has presented solo and collaborative performances at The Kitchen, NYU Skirball, Wesleyan Center for the Arts, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, and Grey Art Museum. His musical performances have been called “overwhelmingly beautiful” and “extremely strange” in The Nation and his writing has been characterized as “rich and fascinating” in e-flux. Explore more performances, talks and discussions at PRELUDE 2024 See What's on

"In the whole world there is no king who has peacocks like unto my peacocks. But I will give them all to you." SALOME, OR THE CULT OF THE CLITORIS: A HISTORICAL PHALLUSY is a verbatim theatre piece devised from the transcripts of the 1918 libel trial of Noel Pemberton Billing and the text of Oscar Wilde’s Salome around which the trial revolved. Internationally renowned dancer Maud Allan was starring in a private performance of Salome, a play still banned for its radical depictions of female sexuality. In an elaborate publicity stunt before a reelection campaign, British MP, conspiracy theorist, and conservative firebrand Noel Pemberton Billing published a defamatory article titled “The Cult of the Clitoris,” accusing Allan of secretly conspiring with a ring of lesbian secret agents to sabotage the British war-effort. Allan was not simply performing in a play, Billing argued—she was seducing the wives of high-ranking British officers, and generally participating in the insidious feminization of the British public through art and culture. When Allen sued him for libel, he fought back publicly, in court—contending that not only had he not defamed Allen, but everything he had written was true. This performance will be a staged reading workshopping materials gathered from 500 pages of verbatim court transcript. PRELUDE Festival 2023 PERFORMANCE Salome, or the Cult of the Clitoris: A Historical Phallusy The Goat Exchange Theater English 90 Minutes 5:00PM EST Saturday, October 14, 2023 Martin E. Segal Theatre Center, 5th Avenue, New York, NY, USA Free Entry, Open To All "In the whole world there is no king who has peacocks like unto my peacocks. But I will give them all to you." SALOME, OR THE CULT OF THE CLITORIS: A HISTORICAL PHALLUSY is a verbatim theatre piece devised from the transcripts of the 1918 libel trial of Noel Pemberton Billing and the text of Oscar Wilde’s Salome around which the trial revolved. Internationally renowned dancer Maud Allan was starring in a private performance of Salome, a play still banned for its radical depictions of female sexuality. In an elaborate publicity stunt before a reelection campaign, British MP, conspiracy theorist, and conservative firebrand Noel Pemberton Billing published a defamatory article titled “The Cult of the Clitoris,” accusing Allan of secretly conspiring with a ring of lesbian secret agents to sabotage the British war-effort. Allan was not simply performing in a play, Billing argued—she was seducing the wives of high-ranking British officers, and generally participating in the insidious feminization of the British public through art and culture. When Allen sued him for libel, he fought back publicly, in court—contending that not only had he not defamed Allen, but everything he had written was true. This performance will be a staged reading workshopping materials gathered from 500 pages of verbatim court transcript. Content / Trigger Description: Co- Directed by Mitchell Polonsky and Chloe Claudel Cast: ROBERTA COLINDREZ, PETE SIMPSON, PAUL LAZAR, CHLOE CLAUDEL Lighting: Finn Bamber THE GOAT EXCHANGE is an international ensemble making crazy potatoes theater and live art since 2016. We work with a wide variety of source materials from classic plays to bold new writing, to films, poetry, prose, verbatim historical transcripts and found texts, often pulling from obscure, forgotten corners of history. Our work is interdisciplinary and deeply collaborative, incorporating wide-ranging influences from opera, dance, literature, film, vaudeville, slapstick, pop-culture, and public art. We have developed over 20 productions both in traditional theaters and in a range of site-specific venues, from museum galleries to swimming pools to football stadiums. Recent work includes DEADCLASS, OHIO (Ice Factory), MEMONICA (HERE Arts Center), JASON (Vault Festival) and 7 BLOWJOBS (La Mama). www.thegoatexchange.com Watch Recording Explore more performances, talks and discussions at PRELUDE 2023 See What's on

Segal Talks The Martin E. Segal Theatre Center is proud to announce its new global series, SEGAL TALKS. New York, US, and international theatre artists, curators, researchers and academics will talk daily for one hour with Segal Center’s director, Frank Hentschker, about life and art in the Time of Corona and speak about challenges, sorrows, and hopes for the new Weltzustand— the State of the World. The newly introduced SEGAL TALKS is in English, ad-free and will be live-streaming on howlround.tv, on the Segal Center Facebook page, as well as on the Segal Center YouTube Channel. Each session will be archived on both platforms, HowlRoundand the YouTube Channel, and will raise money for a theatre artist or a company. In collaboration with HowlRound Theatre Commons, based at Emerson College. The Segal Center Play Video Play Video 23:05 The Barbarians by Paul Lazar and Jerry Lieblich | Prelude 2024 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. Play Video Play Video 40:22 Bad Stars by Amanda Horowitz | Prelude 2024 Two brothers writing a Hollywood movie about worms struggle to split apart. Like a worm cut in half, one play becomes two, becomes three, becomes many. Adapted from True West by Sam Shepard. Written & directed by Amanda Horowitz Performed by Brian Mendes, Peter Mills Weiss, Isa Spector Set and costumes by Maggie Fitzpatrick Bathtub painting by Adi Blaustein Rejto Rehearsal asst.: Carolyn Kettig, Hannah Applebaum, Hayley Stahl Special thanks to Jess Barbagallo, Sophia Cleary, Arne Gjelten Play Video Play Video 34:54 Going Beige with Lelie Cuyjet and Karen Kandel | Prelude 2024 Performing artists Leslie Cuyjet and Karen Kandel sit down for the first time to speak about their experiences, forming the start of a collaboration of a potential project. Play Video Play Video 16:03 Ornamentalism by Riven Ratanavanh | PRELUDE 2024 Ornamentalism is a ritual that explores the gendered racialization of the Asian transmasculine body, using tattoo as a way to inscribe personal loss and collective histories onto the skin. Through the duration of this piece the audience is invited to witness the act of transforming the body as an act of adornment, adornment as transformation; and the ways in which the two respond to and rub up against the world. In collaboration with Zhiyu Lu. Play Video Play Video 30:55 New York Theatre Artists for Ukraine: Theatre Without Borders @9:30 pm ET, Hour 12 | 16th April 2022 On April 16 2022, over 3500 viewers from 39 countries tuned in to listen to 12 hours of readings and conversations from 24 New York theatre institutions. Over 100 theatre artists expressed deep sorrow and outrage about the bombing of the Donetsk Drama Theatre in Mariupol, Ukraine where 300 people died while seeking shelter in a space that is sacred to all of us. Theatre Without Borders was the 24th of 24 New York theatre institutions to join us at 9:30 pm ET in Hour 12 of 12 of #NYTheatreArtistsForUkraine. They invited Lebanese violinist Layale Chaker and American playwright-librettist Lisa Schlesinger to perform excerpts and speak about Ruinous Gods: Suites for Sleeping Children—their opera about displaced children. ‘New York Theatre Artists for Ukraine: A 12-hour online marathon of Readings and Conversations with 24 New York Theatre Institutions’ was a Segal Center / GC CUNY Initiative in collaboration with: Abrons Arts Center; Al Límite; Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM); CUNY Stages; Here Arts Center; HowlRound Theatre Commons; La Mama / Yara Arts Group; Mabou Mines / Performance Space New York; Ma-Yi Theater Company; Nuyorican Poets Cafe; Park Avenue Armory; PEN America; PS2; St. Ann's Warehouse; Theatre Without Borders; National Black Theatre; Noor Theatre; The Play Company; The Public Theater; The Shed; Torn Page; Ukrainian Actors of New York; The Watermill Center / Robert Wilson. Producers: Frank Hentschker & Tanvi Shah (Martin E. Segal Theatre Center) Digital Hosts: HowlRound Theatre Commons; Thea Rodgers and Vijay Mathew; NachtKritik, Germany; Esther Slevogt Social Media and Design: The Paper Planes Agency (India) Livestream Operators: Aaditya Rawat, Rachit Khetan, and Tanvi Shah #StopWar Play Video Play Video 29:37 New York Theatre Artists for Ukraine: Ukrainian Actors of NY@9 pm ET, Hour 12 of 12, 16th April 2022 On April 16 2022, over 3500 viewers from 39 countries tuned in to listen to 12 hours of readings and conversations from 24 New York theatre institutions. Over 100 theatre artists expressed deep sorrow and outrage about the bombing of the Donetsk Drama Theatre in Mariupol, Ukraine where 300 people died while seeking shelter in a space that is sacred to all of us. Ukrainian Actors of New York was the 23rd of 24 New York theatre institutions to join us at 9 pm ET in Hour 12 of 12 of #NYTheatreArtistsForUkraine. Ukrainian Actors of New York's Alex Ozerov-Meyer, Sasha K. Odesa, Cynthia Adler, Tjaša Ferme and Tony Naumovski read excerpts from The Paris Review's Conversations to the Tune of Air-Raid Sirens: Odesa Writers on Literature in Wartime by Ukrainian-American poet Ilya Kaminsky to honor and amplify the voices of the brilliant writers of Odesa, Ukraine. ‘New York Theatre Artists for Ukraine: A 12-hour online marathon of Readings and Conversations with 24 New York Theatre Institutions’ was a Segal Center / GC CUNY Initiative in collaboration with: Abrons Arts Center; Al Límite; Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM); CUNY Stages; Here Arts Center; HowlRound Theatre Commons; La Mama / Yara Arts Group; Mabou Mines / Performance Space New York; Ma-Yi Theater Company; Nuyorican Poets Cafe; Park Avenue Armory; PEN America; PS2; St. Ann's Warehouse; Theatre Without Borders; National Black Theatre; Noor Theatre; The Play Company; The Public Theater; The Shed; Torn Page; Ukrainian Actors of New York; The Watermill Center / Robert Wilson. Producers: Frank Hentschker & Tanvi Shah (Martin E. Segal Theatre Center) Digital Hosts: HowlRound Theatre Commons; Thea Rodgers and Vijay Mathew; NachtKritik, Germany; Esther Slevogt Social Media and Design: The Paper Planes Agency (India) Livestream Operators: Aaditya Rawat, Rachit Khetan, and Tanvi Shah #StopWar Play Video Play Video 30:28 New York Theatre Artists for Ukraine: Mabou Mines @8:30 pm ET, Hour 11 of 12 | 16th April 2022 On April 16 2022, over 3500 viewers from 39 countries tuned in to listen to 12 hours of readings and conversations from 24 New York theatre institutions. Over 100 theatre artists expressed deep sorrow and outrage about the bombing of the Donetsk Drama Theatre in Mariupol, Ukraine where 300 people died while seeking shelter in a space that is sacred to all of us. Mabou Mines | Performance Space New York were the 21st and 22nd of 24 New York theatre institutions to join us at 8:30 pm ET in Hour 11 of 12 of #NYTheatreArtistsForUkraine. Mabou Mines represented by Sharon Fogarty and Senior Artistic Associate actress Maude Mitchell read poetry and texts in solidarity with Ukraine, joined by Yulia OK representing relief aid and street theatre organisation Razom For Ukraine. ‘New York Theatre Artists for Ukraine: A 12-hour online marathon of Readings and Conversations with 24 New York Theatre Institutions’ was a Segal Center / GC CUNY Initiative in collaboration with: Abrons Arts Center; Al Límite; Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM); CUNY Stages; Here Arts Center; HowlRound Theatre Commons; La Mama / Yara Arts Group; Mabou Mines / Performance Space New York; Ma-Yi Theater Company; Nuyorican Poets Cafe; Park Avenue Armory; PEN America; PS2; St. Ann's Warehouse; Theatre Without Borders; National Black Theatre; Noor Theatre; The Play Company; The Public Theater; The Shed; Torn Page; Ukrainian Actors of New York; The Watermill Center / Robert Wilson. Producers: Frank Hentschker & Tanvi Shah (Martin E. Segal Theatre Center) Digital Hosts: HowlRound Theatre Commons; Thea Rodgers and Vijay Mathew; NachtKritik, Germany; Esther Slevogt Social Media and Design: The Paper Planes Agency (India) Livestream Operators: Aaditya Rawat, Rachit Khetan, and Tanvi Shah #StopWar Play Video Play Video 29:07 New York Theatre Artists for Ukraine: Noor Theatre @8 pm ET, Hour 11 of 12 | 16th April 2022 On April 16 2022, over 3500 viewers from 39 countries tuned in to listen to 12 hours of readings and conversations from 24 New York theatre institutions. Over 100 theatre artists expressed deep sorrow and outrage about the bombing of the Donetsk Drama Theatre in Mariupol, Ukraine where 300 people died while seeking shelter in a space that is sacred to all of us. Noor Theatre was the 20th of 24 New York theatre institutions to join us at 8 pm ET in Hour 11 of 12 of #NYTheatreArtistsForUkraine. Noor Theatre invited New York MENA/SWANA artists Noelle Ghoussaini and Bazeed to present digital and written pieces in response to global current events, diaspora and displacement. Introduced by Kate Moore Heaney, Artistic Producer at Noor Theatre. ‘New York Theatre Artists for Ukraine: A 12-hour online marathon of Readings and Conversations with 24 New York Theatre Institutions’ was a Segal Center / GC CUNY Initiative in collaboration with: Abrons Arts Center; Al Límite; Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM); CUNY Stages; Here Arts Center; HowlRound Theatre Commons; La Mama / Yara Arts Group; Mabou Mines / Performance Space New York; Ma-Yi Theater Company; Nuyorican Poets Cafe; Park Avenue Armory; PEN America; PS2; St. Ann's Warehouse; Theatre Without Borders; National Black Theatre; Noor Theatre; The Play Company; The Public Theater; The Shed; Torn Page; Ukrainian Actors of New York; The Watermill Center / Robert Wilson. Producers: Frank Hentschker & Tanvi Shah (Martin E. Segal Theatre Center) Digital Hosts: HowlRound Theatre Commons; Thea Rodgers and Vijay Mathew; NachtKritik, Germany; Esther Slevogt Social Media and Design: The Paper Planes Agency (India) Livestream Operators: Aaditya Rawat, Rachit Khetan, and Tanvi Shah #StopWar Play Video Play Video 59:13 New York Theatre Artists for Ukraine: La MaMa & Yara Arts @7 pm ET, Hour 10 of 12 | 16th April 2022 On April 16 2022, over 3500 viewers from 39 countries tuned in to listen to 12 hours of readings and conversations from 24 New York theatre institutions. Over 100 theatre artists expressed deep sorrow and outrage about the bombing of the Donetsk Drama Theatre in Mariupol, Ukraine where 300 people died while seeking shelter in a space that is sacred to all of us. La MaMa & Yara Arts Group were the 18th and 19th of 24 New York theatre institutions to join us at 7 pm ET in Hour 10 of 12 of #NYTheatreArtistsForUkraine. La MaMa invited resident artists Adham Hafez and Sophia Gutchinov from its 60th season to read poetry and texts in solidarity with Ukraine. Artists including ‘Maria from Mariupol’ from the Mariupol theatre community in Ukraine joined Virlana Tkacz to share their perspectives. Introduced by Mia Yoo, Artistic Director of La MaMa and Nicky Paraiso, Director of Programming at La MaMa. Yara Arts Group is a resident company at La MaMa Experimental Theatre in New York. Together with actor Marina Celander, Yara Arts Group artistic leaders Virlana Tkacz and Wanda Phipps read their award-winning translations of poetry by Serhiy Zhadan (Kharkiv, Ukraine) and Katerina Babkina (today a refugee in Poland). ‘New York Theatre Artists for Ukraine: A 12-hour online marathon of Readings and Conversations with 24 New York Theatre Institutions’ was a Segal Center / GC CUNY Initiative in collaboration with: Abrons Arts Center; Al Límite; Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM); CUNY Stages; Here Arts Center; HowlRound Theatre Commons; La Mama / Yara Arts Group; Mabou Mines / Performance Space New York; Ma-Yi Theater Company; Nuyorican Poets Cafe; Park Avenue Armory; PEN America; PS2; St. Ann's Warehouse; Theatre Without Borders; National Black Theatre; Noor Theatre; The Play Company; The Public Theater; The Shed; Torn Page; Ukrainian Actors of New York; The Watermill Center / Robert Wilson. Producers: Frank Hentschker & Tanvi Shah (Martin E. Segal Theatre Center) Digital Hosts: HowlRound Theatre Commons; Thea Rodgers and Vijay Mathew; NachtKritik, Germany; Esther Slevogt Social Media and Design: The Paper Planes Agency (India) Livestream Operators: Aaditya Rawat, Rachit Khetan, and Tanvi Shah #StopWar Load More

(Livestreamed) In conversation about past and upcoming projects PRELUDE Festival 2023 ARTIST TALK Steve Cosson Theater, Discussion English 60 minutes 12:30PM EST Monday, October 9, 2023 PS21: Performance Spaces for the 21st Century, New York 66, Chatham, NY, USA Free Entry, Open To All (Livestreamed) In conversation about past and upcoming projects Content / Trigger Description: STEVE COSSON is a director, writer and Artistic Director of The Civilians theater company in New York, where he has originated and developed numerous original works in collaboration with some of the leading theater artists of the country. He’s developed original shows for TBS and ITV Entertainment, is the creator and host of the documentary musical podcast Let Me Ascertain You, and with The Civilians was the first theater company to be Artist-in-Residence at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. PS21: Performance Spaces for the 21st Century is a contemporary arts venue in the Hudson Valley. PS21 presents innovative programming by leading and emerging artists in music, dance, theater, contemporary performance, and the visual and multimedia arts. Watch Recording Explore more performances, talks and discussions at PRELUDE 2023 See What's on

This event will take place in the Art History Screening Room in GC CUNY from Wednesday, October 11 to Saturday, October 14, everyday from 3pm to 8:30pm EST. Imagine that the American Theater is dead, or Downtown at any rate is dead, or both, or maybe no one can find the body but it's probably dead, anyway there was definitely a crime, or series of crimes; the place is a mess, and someone has watered down the whisky. You are a detective, or a prime witness, or a culprit, or all of the above, and you have been invited to contribute to one of those great evidence or murder boards/crazy walls they have on cop shows...sometimes in the stationhouse, sometimes in the serial killer lair... bring your questions, your theories, your schemes, your accusations, your confessions, your factoids, your manias; bring your hard won diagnosis, bring your intricately worked out solutions. We will supply: index cards, felt tips, crayons, red string. PRELUDE Festival 2023 INTERVIEW Murder Room - Day 3 Anne Washburn, Many Others including, perhaps, yourself. Theater, Other, Discussion, Multimedia English 5 min - 55 min, your choice. 3:00PM to 8:30PM EST Friday, October 13, 2023 Martin E. Segal Theatre Center, 5th Avenue, New York, NY, USA Sign Up to Contribute This event will take place in the Art History Screening Room in GC CUNY from Wednesday, October 11 to Saturday, October 14, everyday from 3pm to 8:30pm EST. Imagine that the American Theater is dead, or Downtown at any rate is dead, or both, or maybe no one can find the body but it's probably dead, anyway there was definitely a crime, or series of crimes; the place is a mess, and someone has watered down the whisky. You are a detective, or a prime witness, or a culprit, or all of the above, and you have been invited to contribute to one of those great evidence or murder boards/crazy walls they have on cop shows...sometimes in the stationhouse, sometimes in the serial killer lair... bring your questions, your theories, your schemes, your accusations, your confessions, your factoids, your manias; bring your hard won diagnosis, bring your intricately worked out solutions. We will supply: index cards, felt tips, crayons, red string. This room has received material support from Playwrights Horizons, and New Georges, with numerous numerous contributors throughout the field. Content / Trigger Description: Anne Washburn is a playwright whose works include 10 out of 12, Antlia Pneumatica, Apparition, The Communist Dracula Pageant, A Devil At Noon, I Have Loved Strangers, The Internationalist, The Ladies, Little Bunny Foo Foo, Mr. Burns, Shipwreck, The Small, and transadaptations of Euripides' Orestes & Iphigenia in Aulis. Her work has premiered with 13P, Actors Theater of Louisville, the Almeida, American Repertory Theatre, Cherry Lane Theatre, Classic Stage Company, Clubbed Thumb, The Civilians, Dixon Place, Ensemble Studio Theater, The Folger, Playwrights Horizons, Soho Rep, Two River Theater Company, Vineyard Theater and Woolly Mammoth. Other contributors include: playwrights, box office personnel, artistic directors, literary managers, actors, designers, program directors, development directors, producers, interns, audience members, stage managers, directors. Watch Recording Explore more performances, talks and discussions at PRELUDE 2023 See What's on

Watch Reas by Lola Arias at the Segal Film Festival on Theatre and Performance 2025. Yoseli has a tattoo of the Eiffel Tower on her back and has always wanted to travel, but she was arrested at the airport for drug trafficking. Nacho is a trans man who was arrested for swindling and started a rock band in jail. Gentle or rough, blonde or shaved, cis or trans, long-term inmates or newly admitted: in this hybrid musical, they all re-enact their lives in a Buenos Aires prison.. The Martin E. Segal Theater Center presents Reas At the Segal Theatre Film and Performance Festival 2025 A film by Lola Arias Screening Information This film will be screened in-person at Anthology Film Archives (32 Second Avenue, NY 10003) on Sunday May 18th at 3pm. RSVP Please note this film has a ticketed entry and is being screened at Anthology Film Archive. Click on the button above to visit the AFA website to reserve your seats. Country Argentina, Germany, Switzerland Language Spanish Running Time 82 minutes Year of Release 2024 About The Film About The Retrospective Yoseli has a tattoo of the Eiffel Tower on her back and has always wanted to travel, but she was arrested at the airport for drug trafficking. Nacho is a trans man who was arrested for swindling and started a rock band in jail. Gentle or rough, blonde or shaved, cis or trans, long-term inmates or newly admitted: in this hybrid musical, they all re-enact their lives in a Buenos Aires prison. About The Artist(s) Lola Arias is a writer, theatre and film director and performer. She collaborates with people from different backgrounds (war veterans, former communists, Bulgarian children, etc.) in theatre, literature, music, film and art projects. Her productions play with the overlap zones between reality and fiction. Get in touch with the artist(s) N/A and follow them on social media @gema.films, @madavenuepr Find out all that’s happening at Segal Center Film Festival on Theatre and Performance (FTP) 2025 by following us on Facebook , Twitter , Instagram and YouTube See the full festival schedule here His Head was a Sledgehammer Richard Foreman in Retrospect Moi-même Mojo Lorwin/Lee Breuer Benjamim de Oliveira's Open Paths Catappum! Collective Peak Hour in the House Blue Ka Wing Transindigenous Assembly Joulia Strauss Bila Burba Duiren Wagua JJ Pauline L. Boulba, Aminata Labor, Lucie Brux Acting Sophie Fiennes; Cheek by Jowl; Lone Star; Amoeba Film PACI JULIETTE ROUDET Radical Move ANIELA GABRYEL Funambulism, Hanging by a Thread Jean-Baptiste Mathieu This is Ballroom Juru and Vitã Reas Lola Arias The Jacket Mathijs Poppe Pidikwe Caroline Monnet Resilience Juan David Padilla Vega The Brink of Dreams Nada Riyadh, Ayman El Amir Jesus and The Sea Ricarda Alvarenga Grand Theft Hamlet Sam Crane & Pinny Grylls Theater of War Oleh Halaidych Skywalk Above Prague Václav Flegl, Jakub Voves Somber Tides Chantal Caron / Fleuve Espace Danse

Watch Skywalk Above Prague by Václav Flegl, Jakub Voves at the Segal Film Festival on Theatre and Performance 2025. An exciting documentary about an audacious, 400-metre tightrope walk across the River Vltava in Prague by the world famous tightrope artist Tatiana-Mosio Bongonga. The story of a search for inner strength and the art of balancing between Heaven and Earth. The opening show of the 2019 Letní Letná festival. Between Heaven and Earth high above Prague’s bridges, a French acrobat is walking. She is passing from one side of the Vltava to the other over a 350-meter tightrope. Her gait reflects absolute concentration and courage but also her faith and the attention of spectators standing on the ground with their heads tilted back in silent awe. This documentary allows the audience to watch this feat from the perspective of Tatiana standing on a rope 35 meters above the river.. The Martin E. Segal Theater Center presents Skywalk Above Prague At the Segal Theatre Film and Performance Festival 2025 A film by Václav Flegl, Jakub Voves Screening Information This film will be screened in-person at The Segal Centre on Friday May 16th at 8:10pm and also be available to watch online on the festival website till June 8th 2025. RSVP Please note there is limited seating available for in-person screenings at The Segal Centre, which are offered on a first-come first-serve basis. You may RSVP above to get a reminder about the Segal Film Festival in your inbox. Country Czech Republic Language Czech, French, English with subtitles in English Running Time 51 minutes Year of Release 2020 About The Film About The Retrospective An exciting documentary about an audacious, 400-metre tightrope walk across the River Vltava in Prague by the world famous tightrope artist Tatiana-Mosio Bongonga. The story of a search for inner strength and the art of balancing between Heaven and Earth. The opening show of the 2019 Letní Letná festival. Between Heaven and Earth high above Prague’s bridges, a French acrobat is walking. She is passing from one side of the Vltava to the other over a 350-meter tightrope. Her gait reflects absolute concentration and courage but also her faith and the attention of spectators standing on the ground with their heads tilted back in silent awe. This documentary allows the audience to watch this feat from the perspective of Tatiana standing on a rope 35 meters above the river. About The Artist(s) Tatiana started tightrope walking when she was eight. She trained at Académie Fratellini and Center National des Arts du Cirque in Châlons-en-Champagne both of which are prestigious contemporary-circus institutions. Her teachers included Rudy Omankowski from a traditional circus family with Czech roots. Today, Tatiana mostly cooperates with choreographer Anna Rodriguez. She participated in major events, such as the Pan-African Festival of Algiers or the World Circus Festival where she won a gold medal. Get in touch with the artist(s) ivana.pekna@letniletna.cz and follow them on social media https://provazochodkynenadprahou.cz/en/homepage/, https://www.facebook.com/search/top?q=provazochodkyn%C4%9B%20nad%20prahou%20%2F%20skywalk%20above%20prague Find out all that’s happening at Segal Center Film Festival on Theatre and Performance (FTP) 2025 by following us on Facebook , Twitter , Instagram and YouTube See the full festival schedule here His Head was a Sledgehammer Richard Foreman in Retrospect Moi-même Mojo Lorwin/Lee Breuer Benjamim de Oliveira's Open Paths Catappum! Collective Peak Hour in the House Blue Ka Wing Transindigenous Assembly Joulia Strauss Bila Burba Duiren Wagua JJ Pauline L. Boulba, Aminata Labor, Lucie Brux Acting Sophie Fiennes; Cheek by Jowl; Lone Star; Amoeba Film PACI JULIETTE ROUDET Radical Move ANIELA GABRYEL Funambulism, Hanging by a Thread Jean-Baptiste Mathieu This is Ballroom Juru and Vitã Reas Lola Arias The Jacket Mathijs Poppe Pidikwe Caroline Monnet Resilience Juan David Padilla Vega The Brink of Dreams Nada Riyadh, Ayman El Amir Jesus and The Sea Ricarda Alvarenga Grand Theft Hamlet Sam Crane & Pinny Grylls Theater of War Oleh Halaidych Skywalk Above Prague Václav Flegl, Jakub Voves Somber Tides Chantal Caron / Fleuve Espace Danse

This piece has glaciers breaking off under their own precariousness and secrets being whispered into the wind. We are seeing other sites with other sights. It is the background coming to the fore and the structure playing the lead role. Timescales intersect. It’s the big and small trying to understand each other on their own terms. PRELUDE Festival 2023 PERFORMANCE other sights/other sites Erin Landers & Movers Dance, Mime N/A, English 30 min 6:00PM EST Saturday, October 14, 2023 Elebash Recital Hall, The Graduate Center, 5th Avenue, New York, NY, USA Free Entry, Open To All This piece has glaciers breaking off under their own precariousness and secrets being whispered into the wind. We are seeing other sites with other sights. It is the background coming to the fore and the structure playing the lead role. Timescales intersect. It’s the big and small trying to understand each other on their own terms. Content / Trigger Description: ERIN LANDERS is a Brooklyn based director, choreographer, and performer. As an artist, Erin’s goal is to open the audience's awareness to the magic present in the world around them. She imagines her pieces as dreams, extended realities, portals that give permission to imagine things differently. She has presented work at Palace of Fine Arts (San Francisco, CA), the Trust Performing Arts Center (Lancaster, PA), Alchemical Studios (New York City), ChaShaMa (New York City), the Neuberger Museum of Art (Purchase, NY), and MOtiVE (Brooklyn, NY) as part of the For the Artists! Residency Program. Website: erinlandersdance.com, Instagram: @air.in.the.land.of.water Watch Recording Explore more performances, talks and discussions at PRELUDE 2023 See What's on

Encounter Al Límite Collective's work Brooklyn is Not a Sacrifice Zone in Brooklyn, at this year's edition of the Prelude in the Parks festival by The Segal Centre, presented in collaboration with Newtown Creek Alliance. Prelude in the Parks 2024 Festival Brooklyn is Not a Sacrifice Zone Al Límite Collective Interactive Theater Sunday, June 9, 2024 @ 3pm Newtown Creek Nature Walk, Greenpoint Avenue, Brooklyn Meet at the entry near 59 Paidge Ave. Newtown Creek Alliance 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 Walk along the banks of the Newtown Creek Nature Walk with this community-engaged theater performance while hearing the stories and visions of local residents and activists who dream to topple their neighbor, a giant fracked gas depot, and imagine what the landscape could be if National Grid's site was decommissioned and the land rehabilitated. * With text from interviews with: Margot Spindelman, Katherine Thompson, Kier Blake, Anna Tsomo, EW Fye, GiGi Niesen, Kevin LaCherra, William Vega, Kim Fraczek, Willis Elkins, Eric Kun. Al Límite Collective Leah Bachar is a performer/producer/director/experimenter. Fascinated with human connection, Leah is drawn to public performance and unique, interactive situations that create an open arena for spontaneous experiences and promote no barriers between the spectators and performers. With a deep interest in ritualistic theatre and the healing properties of the arts, she combines her passion for guerrilla theatre, different cultures, the written word, surreal stagings, entering trance states, dancing, radical artistic collaboration, social experiments, and curating happenings where performance art and human healing intertwine. Realizing the powerful social and political message that the arts emit, Leah is interested in initiating conversations and introducing people to one another who wouldn’t normally meet in order to help facilitate a greater universal discourse between artists and their communities. Monica Dudárov Hunken is an activist, storyteller, and teacher who creates docu-adventure plays inspired by her international bicycle voyages. Monica is touring a solo performance with music called Mt Rushmore, developed at her artist residency in SPACE on Ryder Farm and the Fish Factory in Iceland. She has performed it in the On Women Theater Festival at Irondale, NYC’s Exponential Theatre Festival, The Brick Theatre, MKE Fringe, Charm City Fringe, International Festival for Making Theater in Athens, Greece. She is a current CulturePush Fellow and is developing a traveling Drag performance and participatory Drag transformation project called DragCycle in Brooklyn in 2023/2024. As a repeat recipient of the Brooklyn Arts Fund, she co-devised an outdoor, site specific piece along the route of the North Brooklyn Pipeline with theater company, Al Límite Collective, a company she co-founded. Al Límite Collective completed a tour across Europe summer 2023 leading workshops in storytelling, street performance and remounting the Living Theatre show, Electric Awakening, and then were invited by the historic Freedom Theatre in Jenin, Palestine for their second annual Feminist Festival in September 2023. https://www.monicahunken.com/ Visit Artist Website Location Meet at the entry near 59 Paidge Ave. Newtown Creek Alliance Here are some transportation possibilities: Bus: Take the B43 Bus to the Manhattan Ave and Clay Street Stop then walk 8 minutes on Clay street over to the end of Paidge Ave to the Nature Walk entrance. Train: Take the G train to Greenpoint Ave stop, walk 13 minutes on India Street to Provost St to Paidge Ave Citi Bike: Drop off a Citi Bike at the 371-383 McGuinness Blvd station or the 1164 Manhattan Ave station The Newtown Creek Alliance is a community-based organization dedicated to restoring, revealing, and revitalizing Newtown Creek. The Newtown Creek Alliance works to restore the Creek by securing mitigation and remediation of known environmental hazards – both in the neighborhoods surrounding Newtown Creek and in Newtown Creek itself – reporting ongoing sources of pollution, and preventing new pollution. To restore the ecological functions of the waterway, the Newtown Creek Alliance supports investments in green infrastructure, bioremediation, and habitat restoration. The Newtown Creek Alliance endeavors to reveal the Creek by conducting tours by foot, bike, bus, and boat that educate the public about the history of the waterway and current activity. We also work to nurture and expand open spaces along Newtown Creek to enable public access to a waterway which has few public access points and we partner with educational institutions to teach Newtown Creek-based curricula. The Newtown Creek Alliance helps revitalize watershed communities by playing a leadership role in area-wide brownfield redevelopment planning, creating programs that improve the environmental profile of industrial businesses, and engaging in workforce development to create local green jobs. Our work supports environmental, economic, and human health. Visit Partner Website