Pauline Adamek
REDCAT has announced the exciting line up of groundbreaking performances to be featured in Radar L.A., An International Festival of Contemporary Theater, to be held from September 24 to October 1, 2013
(NB—there will be some additional performances between August 29 and October 6, 2013. More info & full schedule below.)
Radar L.A. is an international festival of contemporary theater that highlights innovative Los Angeles-based artists alongside influential companies from around the world, including artists from Chile, Argentina, Mexico, Colombia, Japan, New Zealand and more.
This second edition of the festival features eighteen different productions at the forefront of the contemporary performing arts, from leading artists from the U.S., Los Angeles, and across the world.
Highlights include:
– New commissioned works and premieres with an interdisciplinary performing arts focus;
– An international program that highlights adventurous works from Latin America and the Pacific Rim, alongside L.A. artists;
– A focus on downtown venues, activating more than ten locations, including historic theaters and outdoor sites;
– Programs in other L.A. areas include local premieres at The Kirk Douglas Theatre in Culver City and special co-presentations with the J. Paul Getty Museum and CAP UCLA.
The Festival is also the opening event of REDCAT’s 10th Anniversary Season as CalArts’ downtown center for contemporary arts.
Some of the world’s most influential contemporary theater and performance ensembles are featured alongside innovative U.S. and Los Angeles-based artists during Radar L.A., An International Festival of Contemporary Theater, the week of September 24 to October 1, 2013.
Radar L.A. is presented by REDCAT and CalArts in association with Center Theatre Group, and a consortium of local and national partners, including the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs. Building on the success of the inaugural Radar L.A. festival in June 2011, the diverse programming stresses innovation and new theatrical forms, and once again draws on the expertise of the curatorial team of Mark Murphy, Executive Director of REDCAT, Diane Rodriguez, Director of New Play Production at Center Theatre Group, and Mark Russell, Director of the Devised Theater Initiative at The Public Theater in New York.
Visiting artists and ensembles from Argentina, Mexico, Chile, Colombia, New Zealand and Japan are highlighted in the festival’s ambitious international program, and the local programming includes new and commissioned works by such adventurous Los Angeles-based artists as choreographer David Roussève, theater ensemble Los Angeles Poverty Department (working in collaboration with Dutch ensemble Wunderbaum), and writer and performer Luis Alfaro.
The program is structured so that audiences can immerse themselves in the festival and see multiple events in a day, with most downtown venues within easy walking distance, and low admissions starting at $15 with a multi-event pass. Single tickets for most events are $25 (co-presented events in the program are ticketed and priced separately).
Festival passes are now on sale and single tickets will be available starting August 24 at their official site here or at the REDCAT box office: 213 237-2800.
International projects include the first Los Angeles appearances by some of Latin America’s most acclaimed theatrical innovators. Argentine director Lola Arias brings a special work of documentary theater developed in collaboration with an ensemble of Chileans born during Pinochet’s 17-year regime, who reflect on that tumultuous era by revealing and recalling their family histories (September marks the 40th anniversary of the 1973 military coup in Chile). Mexican director Claudio Valdés Kuri and his company, Teatro de Ciertos Habitantes, stage the acclaimed music/theater/opera production El Gallo. Mexico City-based company Lagartijas Tiradas al Sol is represented by incisive writer/performer Mariana Villegas, who recalls some unusual twists in her family history in Se Rompen Las Olas (Breaking the Waves). Famed Argentine ensemble Timbre 4 performs its critically praised production Tercer Cuerpo (Third Wing). Colombian director Manuel Orjuela leads an audience between four different downtown locations to experience writer Rodrigo García’s provocative You Should Have Stayed Home, Morons, translated into English for the first time. Argentine theater artist Mariano Pensotti collaborates with Los Angeles writers on a free installation/performance project designed for downtown pedestrian encounters.
The Festival’s international programming also highlights innovative productions and collaborations by artists from Pacific Rim countries. Renowned New Zealand-based director and choreographer Lemi Ponifasio and his company, MAU, bring life to the historic Palace Theatre for the avant-premiere of Stones in Her Mouth, developed collaboratively with an ensemble of ten Maori women, whose ancient and contemporary chanting, choral work and ritualized movement form the basis for a stunning blend of theater, dance and stagecraft. Dogugaeshi, a spellbinding work developed by acclaimed theater artist and puppeteer Basil Twist together with Japanese master musician Yumiko Tanaka, offers a highly visual theatrical experience at REDCAT. Theater company Complicite performs Shun-kin, its collaboration with Japan’s Setagaya Public Theatre, as part of the season of performances presented by CAP UCLA.
Los Angeles artists unveiling new work in the festival include Skid Row-based theater ensemble Los Angeles Poverty Department, working in collaboration with Dutch theater ensemble Wunderbaum on a provocative new work Hospital at the historic Tower Theater; choreographer David Roussève, who blends theater and dance in Stardust at REDCAT; and incisive writer and performer Luis Alfaro, whose new work St. Jude is presented at Center Theatre Group’s Kirk Douglas Theatre as part of a three-event repertory program also featuring Los Angeles-based solo artists Roger Guenveur Smith and Trieu Tran. The local program also features theater and puppetry artist Janie Geiser in a collaboration with writer Erik Ehn, physical theater ensemble Theatre Movement Bazaar, writer Dennis Cooper in a collaboration with French director Gisèle Vienne, and the CalArts Center for New Performance, staging Prometheus Bound in a special presentation by the J. Paul Getty Museum at the Getty Villa.
Downtown Los Angeles will be a theatrical hot spot during Radar L.A., which activates ten different neighborhood sites, from historic theaters on Broadway, to REDCAT in the Walt Disney Concert Hall, and multiple venues in the Los Angeles Theatre Center (LATC), with special events staged at the neighborhood’s Spring Street Park and at Automata in Chinatown.
The historic Broadway theaters brought to life for the festival include The Million Dollar Theater, The Palace Theatre and The Tower Theatre. Programs in other parts of Los Angeles include three new solo works produced by Center Theatre Group at The Kirk Douglas Theatre in Culver City, as well as special co-presentations at the Getty Villa in Malibu and the Center for the Art of Performance (CAP) at UCLA.
The expanded festival builds on the momentum and success of the inaugural Radar L.A. 2011 Festival.
The Radar L.A. Festival is also hosting many national, international and local performing arts professionals for a special symposium focused on contemporary theater and performing arts, with an emphasis on innovative and cross-disciplinary approaches to developing new theatrical forms. A delegation from the International Network for the Contemporary Performing Arts will also be convening at Radar L.A. as part of the network’s Caravan program, exploring the ways that artists from different regions of the world are contributing to the evolution of contemporary culture.
In addition to a vigorous schedule of performances, Radar L.A. offers theater audiences a chance to engage further. All day and late into the night the Lounge at REDCAT serves as an intimate space where audiences and artists can interact and exchange ideas.
After 9pm each night, a line-up of DJs, musical sets and more highlights experimental Los Angeles artists and fuels the fun.
Radar L.A. is presented by REDCAT and CalArts in association with Center Theatre Group and a consortium of partners including the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, The Public Theater (New York), LA Stage Alliance, Los Angeles Theatre Center and Theatre Communications Group. Additional partners include the Center for the Art of Performance at UCLA and the J. Getty Museum.
Major funding for Radar L.A. is provided by ArtPlace America, the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs and the National Endowment for the Arts. Additional support provided by the New England Foundation for the Arts and the National Performance Network.
COMPLETE LINE UP FOR RADAR L.A. 2013
NB: Program subject to change
New Zealand
Lemi Ponifasio/MAU
Stones in Her Mouth
Avant-Premiere
Renowned theater artist Lemi Ponifasio and his New Zealand-based company MAU construct sublimely forceful works that resonate with vivid images and the dynamic interplay of darkness and light. The company brings life to the historic Palace Theatre with Stones In Her Mouth, which introduces a ten-member ensemble of Maori women who articulate a powerful and undisguised challenge—voiced through the Maori language, genealogy, spirituality and ceremony…
Full descriptions and credits.
Thur 9/26, 7:30pm | Fri 9/27, 8:30pm | Sat 9/28, 8:30pm | Sun 9/29, 5:30pm
U.S./Japan
Basil Twist and Yumiko Tanaka
Dogugaeshi
Visionary puppeteer Basil Twist’s hypnotic collaboration with master musician Yumiko Tanaka is a stunning visual journey inspired by the multifold paper panels of Japanese dogugaeshi. Delving into this rarefied traditional form while creating a contemporary spin, Twist unfolds elegant landscapes and elaborate geometric patterns that reflect both ancient and contemporary Japanese culture—bamboo thickets, sly foxes, soaring bridges and dense cityscapes—on hundreds of hand-painted screens…
Full descriptions and credits.
Thur 9/26, 9:30pm | Fri 9/27, 3pm | Sat 9/28, 7pm & 10pm | Sun 9/29, 2pm
Los Angeles
Janie Geiser and Erik Ehn
Clouded Sulphur (death is a knot undone)
Set at the raw edges of Los Angeles, where the untamed landscape meets the city, Clouded Sulphur merges Bunraku and other forms of puppetry with visual installation, projection, text and music to dig into the emotional terrain that surrounds the unsolved abduction and murder of a 15-year-old girl. Created for an intimate storefront theater by director and designer Janie Geiser, playwright Erik Ehn and composer Valerie Opielski, the work orbits the real-life events through an elliptical narrative…
Full descriptions and credits.
Mon 9/23, 7:30pm | Tues 9/24, 7:30pm | Wed 9/25, 7:30pm | Thur 9/26, 7:30pm | Fri 9/27, 7:30pm | Sat 9/28, 3pm & 7:30pm | Sun 9/29, 5pm
Additional performances TBA.
Los Angeles CalArts Center for New Performance Prometheus Bound
World Premiere
Presented by the J. Paul Getty Museum at the Getty Villa
For this production envisioned by director Travis Preston and scenic designer Efren Delgadillo Jr., the Outdoor Theater at the Getty Villa plays host to a five and a half-ton steel wheel to create a bold and brutal visual centerpiece for one of the most profound and theatrically unique ancient dramas. Featuring poet Joel Agee’s heartfelt and faithful new translation, Preston’s forceful Prometheus places the drama at the edge of civilization—and at the border between ritual and artistic expression…
Full descriptions and credits.
Thur 9/26, 8pm | Fri 9/27, 8pm | Sat 9/28, 8pm
Additional performances: Aug 29–Sept 21.
Chile/Argentina
Lola Arias
El Año en Que Nací (The Year I Was Born)
Amid bursts of exuberant rock music and deceptively playful scenarios, 11 Chileans born during Pinochet’s dictatorship—all non-actors—reconstruct their family histories using photographs, letters, old clothing and personal stories. Argentine director Lola Arias’ El Año en Que Nací reveals a nation’s complex history through the eyes of a generation, in a riveting work of documentary theater that dives purposefully into lives lived within a brutal military regime…
Full descriptions and credits.
Performed in Spanish with English surtitles.
Wed 9/25, 9pm | Thur 9/26, 9pm | Fri 9/27, 9pm | Sat 9/28, 8pm | Sun 9/29, 8pm
Los Angeles
Roger Guenveur Smith
Rodney King
Presented by Center Theatre Group as part of DouglasPlus
History, poetry and tragedy collide when Roger Guenveur Smith tackles the thorny odyssey of Rodney King—deemed “the first reality TV star”—from the harsh initial glare of the national spotlight as the victim of police brutality to his involuntary martyrdom that ignited the L.A. riots to his lonely death at the bottom of a swimming pool. Smith seamlessly fuses facts and friction, motion and emotion into a gripping narrative…
Full descriptions and credits.
Sun 9/22, 6:30pm* | Thur 9/26, 7:30pm | Sat 9/28, 7pm | Sun 9/29, 4pm
Thur 10/3, 8pm | Fri 10/4, 7:30pm | Sat 10/5, 7pm | Sun 10/6, 1pm
Additional preview performances.
*Special double bill with Trieu Tran’s Uncle Ho to Uncle Sam.
Los Angeles
Luis Alfaro
St. Jude
World Premiere
Presented by Center Theatre Group as part of DouglasPlus
Highway 99 becomes an emotionally charged memory lane for writer/performer Luis Alfaro when his father has a stroke, compelling him to revisit the Central Valley of his childhood. As the family gathers around the ailing patriarch, the artist, activist and MacArthur Fellow conjures up memories of his youth (complete with an old-school slide show): from picking grapes to gospel-infused tent revivals, family holidays to running away from home at 16…
Full descriptions and credits.
Thur 9/19, 8pm | Fri 9/20, 8pm | Sat 9/21, 4pm | Tues 9/24, 8pm | Thur 9/26, 9pm | Sat 9/28, 8:30pm | Sun 9/29, 1pm
Tues 10/1, 8pm | Fri 10/4, 9pm | Sat 10/5, 4pm | Sun 10/6, 7pm
Additional preview performances.
Los Angeles
Trieu Tran
Uncle Ho to Uncle Sam
Presented by Center Theatre Group as part of DouglasPlus
Trieu Tran and his family barely escaped Vietnam when he was six years old, but his perilous adventure was only beginning. An attack by pirates, a cold reception for refugees in Saskatchewan, a turbulent home life with an abusive father, poverty, Boston gang life and sexual assault. Written by Tran in collaboration with the work’s director, Robert Egan, Uncle Ho to Uncle Sam is a fight for survival against insurmountable odds, a story of redemption through education and art and ultimately an overwhelming act of bravery.
Full descriptions and credits.
Sun 9/22, 6:30pm* | Wed 9/25, 8pm | Fri 9/27, 8pm | Sat 9/28, 4pm | Sun 9/29, 7pm
Wed 10/2, 8pm | Sat 10/5, 8:30pm | Sun 10/6, 4pm
Additional preview performances.
*Special double bill with Roger Guenveur Smith’s Rodney King.
Los Angeles
Theatre Movement Bazaar
Track 3
Track 3 is a fast-paced and inventive spin on Three Sisters, Chekhov’s turn-of-the-century play about the decay of the privileged class in Russia, and the search for meaning in the modern world. While this smart, contemporary adaptation by Richard Alger follows the main events of the original play, director and choreographer Tina Kronis incorporates elements of vaudeville, song and dance—from Russian folk to disco—to catapult the play from its Victorian origins into a 21st century existential extravaganza…
Full descriptions and credits.
Fri 9/27, 7:30pm | Sat 9/28, 4pm | Sun 9/29, 7pm
Argentina
Mariano Pensotti
Sometimes I think, I can see you
Innovative theater director Mariano Pensotti’s sly urban intervention Sometimes I think, I can see you unleashes multiple writers on a public space where they author fictions on the fly—using audience members and passersby as fodder for their narratives. Each writer is positioned at a different location within a bustling public space, like literary surveillance cameras, typing observations on their laptops as their texts are simultaneously projected for all to see…
Full descriptions and credits.
Schedule TBA.
U.K./Japan
Complicite and Setagaya Public Theatre
Shun-kin
West Coast Premiere
Presented by Center for the Art of Performance at UCLA
Through intricately executed puppetry and Complicite’s highly physical performance style, Shun-kin explores the connections between beauty and violence. Directed by Simon McBurney and created with Japanese actors from Tokyo’s Setagaya Public Theatre, Shun-kin is based on texts of celebrated Japanese author Jun’ichiro Tanizaki (1886–1965), who examined the sequestered lives of women in pre-modern Japanese society…
Full descriptions and credits.
Performed in Japanese with English surtitles.
Thur 9/26, 8pm* | Fri 9/27, 8pm | Sat 9/28, 2pm & 8pm | Sun 9/29, 2pm
*special benefit performance
Los Angeles/The Netherlands
Los Angeles Poverty Department and Wunderbaum
Hospital
World Premiere
Two groundbreaking theater companies—Skid Row performance group Los Angeles Poverty Department (LAPD) and Netherlands-based collective Wunderbaum—confront the realities of contemporary healthcare in a raucous and engrossing “ficto-mentary” of love, life, money and death. The historic Tower Theater is transformed into a simulated TV studio for the premiere of Hospital, which draws on the clichés of serialized medical dramas, as well as real-life encounters with patients, doctors, healthcare professionals and reformers in both the U.S. and the Netherlands…
Full descriptions and credits.
Tues 9/24, 7pm | Wed 9/25, 5pm | Thur 9/26, 2pm | Fri 9/27, 9pm | Sat 9/28, 5pm | Sun 9/29, 3:30pm
Argentina
Timbre 4
Tercer Cuerpo (Third Wing)
Director Claudio Tolcachir launched his internationally celebrated company—named after the buzzer on his apartment door—by converting his Buenos Aires residence into a compact, nearly claustrophobic theater. Tercer Cuerpo was developed within these confines, and Tolcachir’s extraordinary ensemble of actors exact a heartbreaking poignancy in this nuanced and often hilarious dramedy set in a cramped and outmoded office…
Full descriptions and credits.
Performed in Spanish with English surtitles. Wed 9/25, 7:30pm | Thur 9/26, 7pm | Sat 9/28, 6pm | Sun 9/29, 4pm
Mexico
Teatro de Ciertos Habitantes
El Gallo
El Gallo mixes opera, comedy and surrealist situations to expose the anxieties that fuel creation, from the audition process through to the climactic concert. For the first act, the audience plays witness to a rehearsal process beset with wrestling matches, bared insecurities and exposed underwear. Viewers then experience the “premiere” of the completed performance. Throughout, the proceedings are entirely sung—in an entirely invented language…
Full descriptions and credits.
Wed 9/25, 7pm | Thur 9/26, 2pm | Fri 9/27, 8pm | Sat 9/28, 7pm
Mexico
Lagartijas Tiradas al Sol
Se Rompen Las Olas (Breaking the Waves)
U.S. Premiere
Charismatic writer/director/performer Mariana Villegas delivers a funny and emotionally moving performance that takes the audience on an engaging search to find meaning in a life born from catastrophe. With accompanying video by Carlos Gamboa, Se Rompen Las Olas untangles the story of how Villegas’ parents met in the aftermath of the devastating 1985 earthquake in Mexico City, and the sometimes frustrating reality of how an individual’s life is shaped by the circumstances that set it in motion…
Full descriptions and credits.
Wed 9/25, 5pm | Thur 9/26, 7pm | Fri 9/27, 8pm | Sat 9/28, 3pm | Sun 9/29, 6pm
Colombia
Manuel Orjuela
You Should Have Stayed Home, Morons
U.S. Premiere
Colombian director Manuel Orjuela crafts a literal theatrical journey that takes audiences to four separate locations in downtown Los Angeles for a surprising and immersive experience. Orjuelo dives into the city with a site-responsive staging of this text by Rodrigo García, with a new English translation by Andrea Thome. You Should Have Stayed Home, Morons travels from public pathways to private apartments, and back to the street…
Full descriptions and credits.
Mon 9/23, 6pm | Tues 9/24, 6pm | Wed 9/25, 6pm | Thur 9/26, 6pm | Fri 9/27, 6pm | Sat 9/28, 6pm | Sun 9/29, 6pm
Additional performances TBA.
Los Angeles
David Roussève/Reality
Stardust
Avant-Premiere
Alpert Award-winning director-choreographer David Roussève’s dance-driven works weave storytelling and movement into indelible performances at the intersection of dance and theater. His latest, Stardust, is a coming of age story for the Twitter generation, in which the central character never makes a physical appearance. Present only in unanswered texts projected on multiple screens, a gay African-American teenager reaches out with growing urgency as the dark realities of his life become apparent. On stage the dancing unleashes a full-bodied expression of emotional states…
Full descriptions and credits.
Tues 9/24, 9pm | Wed 9/25, 7pm | Fri 9/27, 7pm | Sat 9/28, 2pm | Sun 9/29, 8:30pm
Los Angeles/France
Johnathan Capdevielle, Dennis Cooper and Gisèle Vienne
Jerk
In a stark room, using only one actor and a few hand-puppets, director Gisèle Vienne creates a harrowing staging of the novel Jerk by Dennis Cooper, once deemed “the most dangerous writer in America.” Told from the perspective of David Brooks, one of Texas serial killer Dean Corll’s young accomplices, Jerk descends into the minds of those responsible for the brutal torture, rape and killing of more than 25 teenage boys in the early 1970s…
Full descriptions and credits.
Fri 9/27, 10pm | Sat 9/28, 10pm
Additional performances TBA.
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TICKET INFORMATION:
$75 Festival Passes good for admission to five events are on sale through REDCAT’s Box Office online or by phone at 213 237-2800. Each pass is good for five admissions to most festival events making individual tickets only $15 each, though some partner performances are ticketed separately and are not available as part of the pass.
$25 single tickets for Radar L.A. events go on-sale on August 24, 2013 through REDCAT’s Box Office at 631 West 2nd Street; online or by phone at 213 237-2800.
FESTIVAL PARTNERS AND SUPPORT:
Radar L.A. is presented by REDCAT and CalArts in association with Center Theatre Group and a consortium of partners including the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, The Public Theater (New York), LA Stage Alliance, Los Angeles Theatre Center and Theatre Communications Group. Additional partners include the Center for the Art of Performance at UCLA and the J. Getty Museum.
Major funding for Radar L.A. is provided by ArtPlace America, the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs and the National Endowment for the Arts. Additional support provided by the New England Foundation for the Arts and the National Performance Network.by the New England Foundation for the Arts and the National Performance Network.
REDCAT and Radar L.A. Media Sponsors include Los Angeles Times, LA Weekly, La Opinion, and KCRW.
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ABOUT THE PRODUCING PARTNERS:
REDCAT (ROY AND EDNA DISNEY CALARTS THEATER) is CalArts’ downtown center for contemporary arts, located in the Walt Disney Concert Hall complex. Through performances, exhibitions, screenings, and literary events, REDCAT introduces diverse audiences, students and artists to the most influential developments in the arts from around the world, and gives artists in this region the creative support they need to achieve national and international stature. REDCAT continues the tradition of the California Institute of the Arts, its parent organization, by encouraging experimentation, discovery and lively civic discourse.
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF THE ARTS (CALARTS) is an internationally recognized pacesetter in the education of artists. Offering rigorous degree programs in its six schools—Art, Critical Studies, Dance, Film/Video, Music, and Theater—CalArts has championed creative excellence, critical reflection, and the development of new forms and expressions throughout its history, and successive generations of faculty and alumni have helped shape the landscape of contemporary arts. CalArts today encompasses a vibrant, eclectic community with global reach, inviting experimentation, independent inquiry, and active collaboration and exchange among artists, artistic disciplines and cultural traditions.
Founded in 1967, CENTER THEATRE GROUP (CTG), a non-profit organization, is one of the largest and most active theatre companies in the nation, programming seasons year-round at the 739-seat Mark Taper Forum and the 1,600 to 2,000-seat Ahmanson Theatre at the Music Center of Los Angeles, and the 317-seat Kirk Douglas Theatre in Culver City. With the Taper, the Ahmanson and the Douglas, CTG has a combined subscription audience of 50,000 and a total audience exceeding 700,000 a year. Center Theatre Group’s mission is to provide Los Angeles, national and international audiences with the greatest range of theatrical entertainment available from one theatre company, from groundbreaking new works to explosive productions of the classics to hit Broadway plays and musicals. CTG believes that the art of theatre is a cultural force with the capacity to transform the lives of individuals and society at large.
Terry Morgan
[…] show is part of Radar L.A., the international theater festival that started in L.A. in 2011 and is returning in late […]
[…] show began previews August 29 for its month-long run, and is part of Radar L.A., the international theater festival that started in L.A. in 2011 and is returning in late […]