wickets

Posted on August 8, 2007 by Monisha Tripathi
Filed Under DPI, TGSRT, Uncategorized | Comments Off

wing-pic.JPG set-pic.JPG

“Wickets” is an adaptation of Maria Irene Fornes’ Fefu and Her Friends. “Set inside an airplane, the entire theater becomes the stage for this celestial rock opera where the audience is surrounded by high flying action that takes place all around them – in the aisles, galleys, and lavatories of a trans-Atlantic flight. Immersed in a myster, eight 1970s stewardesses find themselves split between the private self and the public persona” … “Manned by this dedicated crew of stews, Wicket Air Flight 1971 takes off just prior to the crest of the 2nd Wave of feminism. The Original Eight valiantly go where no man had gone before – to the struggle of women in the workplace. On board, these stews look for mysterious signs of life and offer oxygen to a present-day feminism desperately in need of life support. This mapcap adventure is a not to be missed event, part play and part rock concert, a contemporary anti-musical which includes choreography by Clove Galilee, videography by Jenny Rogers, and an original rock soundtrack by the LA rock band Jetliner fronted by lead singer Adam Paskowitz (formerly of The Flys)”.

This phenomenal piece used “cinemascope” style to project one large picture using three projectors. The audience sat in seating that replicated the interior of an airplane and was surrounded by projectors on either side of them to simulate landing, flying, and taking off. While in residency with the Gertrude Stein Repertory Theatre and DPI, the company of “Wickets” learned how to use a green screen to create surreal stills to be used in the preshow, and received help from Hal Eagar to divide the video work into sections in order to be used on the projection screens.

Last year, “Wickets” was shown at HERE Arts Center with five sold out shows, totaling 350 audience members. They will be doing a five-week run in mid-December of this year at 3LD. During the showings at HERE Arts Center, “Wickets” received amazing reviews from Time Out New York and Culturebot. Check out the show’s website for more information!

http://www.tricksaddle.com/wickets/

makeshift

Posted on August 3, 2007 by Monisha Tripathi
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The Gertrude Stein Repertory Theatre and DPI pride themselves on recognizing and supporting various types of experimental artists. Generally, these artists include daring pieces that play with ideas of digital media and technology. Adam Matta came to the residency program to pursue an entirely new kind of experimental piece.

He calls it a multimedia and installation piece titled “Makeshift”. I call it awesome. The basis of the work, performed at HERE Arts Center in early January of 2007, was “bike drawing”. Adam would put paint on the tires of bike and perform tricks on a canvas, resulting in a piece of art to be left behind after the performance. As if that isn’t cool enough, he used his time at the Gertrude Stein Repertory Theatre to play with wireless video connections and transmissions in order to set up a live feed during his performance. He attached videos to the handlebars of his bike and aimed them at his hands, projecting interesting video clips to be combined with animation created beforehand.

During this performance, Adam also showed off his beatboxing skills, performing both the bike drawing and the beatboxing simultaneously, a feat that he practiced for many hours during his Residency and GSRT and DPI.

Adam will be participating in the Confluence Theatre Company’s (re)cycle plays as part of the community eco festival on September 15. It should be a cool event. It’s also your chance to see 10-12 old-style cycle plays based around environmentalism and also see Adam perform his bike drawing and beatboxing.

Visit Adam’s website for more information about him and his projects!

www.adammatta.com

red fly/blue bottle

Posted on August 2, 2007 by Monisha Tripathi
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pictures from the show!

This evocative piece is a staged song cycle with video. It explores what it means to “wake up to a world turned unfamiliar by the looming presence of war”.

The piece begins with an isolated house and the sound of the buzzing of a lone red fly. When a clock explodes, a man makes a fast exist and the woman he left behind finds out that he’s actually been sent to a secret war. This experimental piece includes voices coming from walls and otherwise stagnant objects, turning what we think we know into unfamiliar and questionable concepts.

While in residence at the Gertrude Stein Repertory Theatre and DPI, the fabulous company of this piece edited their material, rehearsed, and experimented with using projectors and media beams. The greatest discovery they made was the true meaning of an installation based piece and the work and scope of it. In the course of their residency, the company learned a lot of new techniques and received tutorials from members of the Gertrude Stein Repertory Theatre on how to work the new technology.

The piece showed at HERE Arts Center in January of 2007. Visit their website to get more information and keep up with the artists.

www.redflybluebottle.com

stanley (2006)

Posted on July 31, 2007 by Monisha Tripathi
Filed Under Art, DPI, TGSRT | Leave a Comment

Stanley (2006), performed October 26 through November 18 of 2006, was not an easy show to produce. However, with the help of a multi-talented company and crew, as well as the resources offered by the Gertrude Stein Repertory Theatre and Digital Performance Institute’s Residency Program, it became what The New York Times called “deliciously thought-provoking premise…striking and original”.

This solo performance, described as “multidisciplinary”, is the journey of a man who believes that he is Stanley Kowalski from A Streetcar Named Desire. This authentic and metaphoric piece is inspired by Tennessee Williams’ work.

The play, featuring Todd d’Amour as the solo performer, received wide acclaim. Show Business Weekly said, “Arguably the most accomplished theatrical event of the Off-Broadway season… Stanley (2006) is a nonstop thrill-ride on one man’s tragic emotional rollercoaster… the show is a chilling reminder that theater is, in fact, a live event.”

While participating in the Residency Program at the Gertrude Stein Repertory Theatre and DPI, writer, director, and co-creator Lisa d’Amour said that their company spent about fifty hours editing and choreographing their video in order to perfect their show.

See Lisa’s website for more information and additional shows!
www.lisadamour.com

RUS

Posted on July 25, 2007 by Monisha Tripathi
Filed Under DPI, TGSRT | Comments Off

“Inspired by the myth of Icarus, RUS is a modern exploration of a man lured into a dark, heightened world, the physical and emotional boundaries he exceeds, and the devastating results that occur. RUS is a hybrid performance piece with multiple channels of video, text, music, an experimental video puppet rig, and dance.”

This brilliant show, directed by Kristin Marting, was one of the pieces to be hosted by the Artists in Residence program with the Gertrude Stein Repertory Theatre and the Digital Performance Institute. Originally, the company decided to apply for the program in order to have more time and space to work with the technology that was to be used on stage. This is exactly what they accomplished.

The production involved two dancer/performers who had video monitors strapped to their hands, which were controlled wirelessly in Bunraku style. The idea was to have different videos playing on each of the individual screens, and to cue them from a remote location. This is a difficult feat in and of itself, but with the resources allotted them by Gertrude Stein and DPI, along with the immense talent in the company, the technology succeeded. In addition to these complexities, the production incorporated a large screen with projections on two different surfaces and a media beam.

The company of this show spent countless hours and days working on the ideas and concepts involved and about forty to fifty total hours in the residency space playing with the technology and rehearsing. As many others have said, the most beneficial part of the residency program was being able to leave the equipment set up and hold full-scale rehearsals without allotting obnoxious amounts of time to set-up and strike all of the pieces.

In an interview, James Scruggs (writer and video designer for the show) commented that he was surprised at how well the technology actually worked. Among the creative things he had the video screens do was “painting a character” onto the stage. On the screen, a video would play, panning up a human body while simultaneously, the physical performer raised his hand (with the screen attached to it) up his own body. This gave the illusion that the character was literally being painted onto the stage, a miraculous effect.

The rehearsals culminated in performances at HERE Arts Center in February, however, don’t be discouraged! The company plans to do more performances of the show, perhaps incorporating even more creative stories and effects to be shown through video puppetry.

“I’m interested in technology, but I’m more interested in telling stories”, said James Scruggs when asked if he would do this kind of thing again. This is proof that we are to expect many more great things out of RUS in the future.

see their website!

About

Part of working at Learning Worlds is doing pro bono and individual artistic projects. A lot of us are artists in various disciplines, and we also get involved with helping a variety of non-profit organizations that are important to our staff and clients, particularly educational and environmental programs.

"Satellites" is a blog about those projects, where we can describe them briefly and and link to more information.

If you're particularly interested in a project you read about here, or in supporting these organizations, please drop us a line.

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