Yoshiko Chuma and The School of Hard Knocks will perform POONARC: A Page Out of Order: Not About Romanian Cinema at Danspace Project for 6 performances. With support from RCINY, four Romanian artists are taking part in this project: director & playwright Theo Herghelegiu, dancers Andreea Duta and Istvan Teglas, and actor Sorin Calota. Before coming to New York in June, the four artists will participate in a project residency and performance tour in Romania in April/May, with performing and visual artists from New York, Japan and Romania. This exciting residency is hosted by the Arad Fun Underground Theatre Festival in Western Transylvania.
Yoshiko Chuma, Artistic Director of The School of Hard Knocks, has been a creative force in postmodern performance s ince the 1980s. She has been an activist and artist, taking her projects to relatively isolated parts of the world, and focusing on East/Central Europe. This current dance/ theater/ film/ performance project, POONARC: A Page Out of Order Not About Romanian Cinema, features 25 participants from Japan, Romania and the USA, and is part of her ten year project, "A Page Out of Order", which will culminate in 2010.
Two of the biggest inspirations for Chuma are the recent Romanian film movement in New York and the artists' train ride from Cluj to Bucharest in Transylvania last year. Seven foot cubes are used symbolically as compartments of a train. In each compartment, a different story is told by the dancers as footage from Romanian films is projected. There are seven stories on the same train, heading to the same destination, but where?
The performance project has been created in Japan, the USA and Romania and includes interviews with Romanian filmmakers and artists.
POONARC artists: actors/dancers/musicians USA: Yoshiko Chuma, Ursula Eagly, Jake Margolin, Kristine Lee; plus performers from Romania: Andreea Duta, dancer; Istvan Teglas, dancer and Sorin Calota, actor. Multiple Screen Concept is by Yoshiko Chuma. Lighting is by Rie Ono. Set is by Nick Vaughan. Song and music by Sizzle Ohtaka and Koichi Makigami (from Japan). Sound is by Jacob Burckhardt and Soichiro Migita. Playwright, associate director is Theo Herghelegiu.
POONARC was created with support from co producers: Casa Cultura/Arad (Romania); Ground Floor Group (Romania), Saison Foundation (Japan), Danspace Project (USA) and GOH Productions (USA).
Touring engagement in Romania is supported by Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation through USArtists International with support from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and the Trust for Mutual Understanding.
The creation of POONARC: A Page Out of Order: Not about Romanian Cinema was made possible in part by the Danspace Project 2008-2009 Commissioning Initiative, with support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
POONARC was created, in part, while in residence at Kaatsbaan International Dance Center in partnership with Danspace Project's Danspace@Kaatsbaan Creative Residency Program and is supported by the New York State DanceForce with funding from the New York State Council on the Arts Dance Program.
The participation of the Romanian artists to the performances in the USA is supported by the Romanian Cultural Institute in New York.
The music for POONARC was commissioned by the American Music Center Live Music for Dance Program.
The School of Hard Knocks is supported in part by National Endowment for the Arts (USA), Japan Foundation, Saison Foundation, Tokyo Metropolitan Government and New York State Council on the Arts.
DANCESPACE PROJECT at ST. MARK'S CHURCH
131 East 10th Street, NYC
For tickets see dancespaceproject.org
