A five-month long festival featuring a wide range of performances, exhibitions, film screenings, and symposia throughout New York City
The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, in association with leading New York City cultural organizations, among which the Romanian Cultural Institute, presents Performing Revolution in Central and Eastern Europe. This five-month festival focuses on the performing arts as a powerful voice and contributing force in the fall of communism in Central and Eastern Europe. Spearheaded by The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center, which will present a major exhibition on the themes of the festival, Performing Revolution features over 20 events throughout New York City, with a specific focus on performing arts in the Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Romania, the Slovak Republic, and Slovenia.
Performing Revolution in Central and Eastern Europe explores the revolutionary mindset of performing artists through theater, music, and dance performances, exhibitions, film screenings, readings, and symposia. While certain festival events illustrate how artistic resistance in the 1980s contributed to the profound political changes in 1989, others comment on the different contexts that continue to characterize revolution in performance today.
The main festival event is the exhibition Revolutionary Voices: Performing Arts in Central & Eastern Europe in the 1980s (November 18, 2009 – March 20, 2010) that examines how performances attempted to break boundaries set by the communist state's culture politicians, aesthetes, and censors. The exhibition focuses on theater performances, music, and dance events, which through their form and/or content contested the prevailing totalitarian regime and anticipated the forthcoming political/social changes. As the revolution in most countries of the Soviet bloc did not take place in the form of a violent overthrowing of power, art was one the main arenas where "the revolutionary" started to happen. The exhibit is curated by Karen Burke, Assistant Chief, Music Division, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts and Aniko Szucs, Ph.D. Candidate in Performance Studies at New York University.
The Romanian Cultural Institute in New York participates to: Rebel Waltz, a weekend of music featuring underground bands that performed behind the Iron Curtain in the 1980s, which opens Performing Revolution (Nov 6-8); to the exhibition Revolutionary Voices: Performing Arts in Central & Eastern Europe in the 1980s, to a series of book launches featuring Romanian authors; to the festival symposium presented by The Harriman Institute at Columbia University (Nov 5); and will present its Annual Romanian Film Festival at Tribeca Cinemas (Dec 4-6) in conjunction with Performing Revolution.
The complete updated festival calendar will be available in September 2009.
Performing Revolution in Central and Eastern Europe is presented by The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts in partnership with the Czech Center New York; Goethe-Institut New York; Hungarian Cultural Center; Polish Cultural Institute; Romanian Cultural Institute New York; Consulate General of the Slovak Republic; Consulate General of Slovenia; Abrons Arts Center; Agentura dell'Arte; Dance New Amsterdam; Erste Bank Group; GOH Productions; The Harriman Institute at Columbia University; HERE Arts Center; The Joyce Theater; La MaMa, E.T.C.; (le) Poisson Rouge; Martin E. Segal Theatre Center; The Tank; Theatre Department at Barnard College, Columbia University; Untitled Theater Company #61; WaxFactory; and the 92nd Street Y Harkness Dance Festival.
November 6, 2009 - March 31, 2010
NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS
Festival program (as of June 24)
EVENTS IN THIS FRAME (listing of those presented by or with contribution from RCINY)
Nov 6-8: Timpuri noi at Rebel Waltz Nov 10: Dan Sociu at the Launch of "The Wall in My Head" Anthology Nov 16: Matei Visniec at Playwrights Before the Fall Nov 17: Opening of the "Revolutionary Voices" Exhibition Nov 23: Saviana Stanescu: NY Thru an Immigrant
