Iran’s 32nd Fajr International Theater Festival runs from January 16 to February 1. Thirty-three troupes from Iran and other countries will be competing in the international section. Ten troupes come from countries around the world, and the rest are from Iran.
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FESTIVAL WATCH | Performance actions teem in Bulgaria’s festival for independent theater
Of particular interest would the November 9, Open Space Forum, which organizers say “will explore several key factors in the development of contemporary culture that we consider important. They are: the development of international partnerships, the establishment of independent art spaces, as well as the development of new audiences and international mobility of artists and creative products.” Continue reading »
VIDEO | In Provincetown, a site-specific workshop re-imagining of “In the Summer House” by Jane Bowles
This post offers two videos. First, a video excerpt of the Provincetown Tennessee Williams Theater Festival’s workshop production of In the Summer House (Act 2). At the end of this post is a video recording of the post-performance conversation I moderated with the show’s director David Kaplan. Continue reading »
FESTIVAL WATCH | Cuba hosts an international theater festival in Havana
Companies from more than 70 countries in Latin America, Europe, the United States and China are taking part in the 15th edition of Havana’s International Theater Festival, better known as Festival de Teatro de la Habana. Kicking off on October 25, this year’s festival is dedicated to the legendary acting teacher Konstantin Stanislavski, for his technical contribution, his legacy, his aesthetic, his generative inspiration and his transformative impact on Cuban theater. Continue reading »
THEATER COMMENTARY | Viewing Jane Bowles and her “In the Summer House” through the prism of Tennessee Williams
You’ve likely not heard of Jane Bowles, but she wrote a cock-eyed, mesmerizing play that was one of the signal achievements of postwar American drama. It’s right up there with the classic works of Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams, Gertrude Stein, late Eugene O’Neill, Lillian Hellman, and Sam Shepard. This post is about Jane Bowles’s unjustly neglected play: “In the Summer House.” Continue reading »
ART & POLITICS | Hope lingers in Sarajevo’s Festival MESS, one of the Balkan region’s most important festivals
Dino Mustafic, director of Festival MESS, describes this year’s Festival as conquest for happiness and hope. Mustafic, one of the most important theater directors in the region, adds that the theater in the Balkans is “struggling to survive.” Over the last five years, Festival MESS’s budget was slashed by 73 percent. Continue reading »
FESTIVAL WATCH | Italy’s international fire-dancing festival flickers to life this summer
It’s open to everyone. People can take part in street games, parades, dance and acrobatic workshops. If you play your cards right, you might even assist at the show in the castle. Continue reading »
FESTIVAL WATCH | Documentary theater seeks social change via international “Theater of the Voiceless”
To track this creative upswing, the Austrian Cultural Forum, Goethe-Institut Washington, Embassy of Switzerland and Georgetown University’s Laboratory for Global Performance and Politics have launched “Theater of the Voiceless,” an international symposium and festival on documentary theater that runs June 16 to June 19 at various venues in Washington, D.C. Continue reading »
ON SOUTH AFRICA | Small-scale political Zimbabwe dramas headline Durban’s Musho! International Theatre Festival
Musho! (the name is Zulu for an enthusiastic praise response, similar to “Bravo!”) embraces everything from mime to physical theater, drama to comedy. Continue reading »
NATIVE AMERICAN REPORT | Spirits of buffalo, caribou, eagle dance and pow-wow for Thunderbird’s 50th anniversary
Highlights will include Storytelling by Matoka Eagle (Santo Domingo, Tewa), a Hoop Dance by Michael Taylor (Choctaw), a Caribou Dance (from the Inuit people of Alaska), a Buffalo Dance (from the Hopi people), a Grass Dance and Jingle Dress Dance (from the Northern Plains people), a Stomp Dance (from the Southeastern tribes), and a Shawl Dance (from the Oklahoma tribes). In the final section of the program, the audience will be invited to join in the Round Dance, a friendship dance Continue reading »
FESTIVAL WATCH | Iranian version of “Macbeth” wins top prize in Moscow
The musical comedy blends the Zar ritual of Iran’s southern Bushehr Province with Shakespeare’s famous tragedy. Continue reading »
Congolese choreographer/director Faustin Linyekula dances solo after profound dialogue with director Peter Sellars
Tonight, September 18, Linyekula returns to Florence Gould Hall to debut his autobiographical new work, Le Cargo, which tells of his 2011 return to Obilo, the Congolese village where he spent part of his childhood. Co-presented by “Crossing the Line” (the French Institute Alliance Française’s annual fall festival) in association with the Museum for African Art. Continue reading »
Dramatic photographs of North Korea, Greece, Afghanistan exhibited at France’s international festival of photojournalism
This festival is a unique event for those who share a love and passion for photography. For one week each year, the Palais des Congrès in Perpignan becomes the centre of the photojournalism community. The Festival exhibits the greatest photojournalist work from around the world in exhibitions across the city. Continue reading »
In Colorado Springs, European puppet-style Dickens Festival showcases “Great Expectations” and “Oliver Twist” in repertoire
impich Showcase of Colorado Springs is joining in the international celebration of the bicentenary of the birth of Charles Dickens by hosting a unique two-part festival. Continue reading »
Indigenous Peruvian culture fest | In D.C., 6-day Kaypi Peru Festival celebrates traditional music, dance, cuisine, alpacas
Kaypi Perú,which means “This is Peru” in the indigenous language of Quechua, includes an art market, music and dance performances, hands-on activities for kids, short films, photo exhibitions of Machu Picchu and the Inka Road, traditional plants, as well as Peruvian Paso horses and alpacas Continue reading »
PUMA.Peace offers free short films to organize your own films4peace screenings
PUMA.Peace would love for you to screen this year’s films4peace and will do everything we can to assist you to accomplish this. You are invited to curate these films into an exhibition with the films screened individually on monitors or by projection Continue reading »
Performance review | Is “Pâquerette” penetrating, or merely a dance with penetrating elements?
Pâquerette is a duet between a man and a woman who re-discover their childlike innocence through the intensities of penetration. Continue reading »
Edible diplomacy | U.S. and Croatia political relations served and summed up in food installation
A food installation from Croatia, cumbersomely entitled “KroaTisch–Amerikanische Freundschaft,” directly alludes to important events in the history of Croatian-American political relations. Continue reading »
Slideshow | How to walk over a Balkan performance artist
Want to see how they built Igor Josifov’s “2-Dimensional”? Click on my slideshow. In this unusual performance, the artist is an observer as much as he is observed while the spectator becomes a performer. Continue reading »
Performance review (NSFW) | Italy’s Ricci/Forte serves up queer fantasia in “Macadamia Nut Brittle”
Macadamia Nut Brittle is excoriating, sexy, hallucinatory, viciously funny. The plot steals from the mode of a reality-TV show, but its stance is subversive and punk. As the noisy evening unfolds, Ricci/Forte detonates, again and again and again, the illusory logic of this TV genre Continue reading »