Brooklyn Academy of Music's Next Wave Festival, regarded by many as New York's premiere showcase for international avant garde theater, dance, and music has announced its 1996 season.
Running September to December, 1996, festival highlights include the US premiere of Robert Lepage's new theatrical production, The Seven Streams of the River Ota, Meredith Monk's new chamber opera The Politics of Quiet, and the US premiere engagement from France's Equestrian Theater Troupe Zingaro in Chimere.
Past festivals have featured artists such as Peter Sellars, Robert Wilson, Peter Brook, and Mark Morris and presented such epic, groundbreaking works as Einstein on the Beach (1984), The Mahabharata (1987), and Les Atrides (1992).
The Next Wave Festival's theatrical offerings include the following:
Chimere
September 17-October 13 Kicking off the festival will be France's critically acclaimed equestrian theater troupe Zingaro performing Chimere, an equestrian theater piece under a bigtop at Battery Park City. Directed by Zingaro creator and artistic director Bartabas, this elaborate spectacle features 26 horses and riders, dancers and acrobats, plus The Musicians of Rajastham, an ensemble of Indian musicians and storytellers. Never before seen in North America, Zingaro's unique combination of daredevil horsemanship and strikingly majestic choreography is widely known in Europe, with Chimere enjoying a two-year, sold-out run in Paris and at European festivals.
The Seven Streams of the River Ota
December 1, 3-7, 10-14
Robert Lepage's seven-section theatrical epic Seven Streams combines several artistic disciplines to explore the human consequence of dropping the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. With modern technology and traditional theatrical forms such as kabuki and bunraku puppets, Lepage tells the tale of a photographer who lives on the river Ota running through Hiroshima. The French Canadian director is well known for his recent works The Dragon's Trilogy, Needles and Opium, and Tectonic Plates.
The Beatification of Area Boy
October 9-13
Activism and drama come together in a moving new work by Nobel Prize winning Nigerian playwright Wole Soyinka. Set in a shopping center on a derelict street, Soyinka's critique of the Nigerian military regime follows the dangerous lives of a group of citizens, and portrays their survival under the strict, often nightmarish dictatorship controlling the oil-boom nation. Awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1986, Soyinka now lives in self-imposed exile in the UK. His plays include The Road, The Lion and the Jewel, Death and the King's Horseman, and Madmen and Specialists.
The Politics of Quiet
October 10-13
Meredith Monk's new interdisciplinary oratorio is a non-linear and collage-like meditation on the speed of modern communication. Structured like an oratorio, with no set character and no plot, the piece is performed by a cast of 10 singers/dancers, two instrumentalists and two children, who present a contemporary collection of characters struggling to find and build a sense of community and to find a space and time for true communication. Composer, singer, filmmaker, choreographer and director, Monk has created more than 100 works spanning the mediums of dance, theatre, and music.
For BAM subscription information, call 718-636-4100. Single tickets may be purchased after Saturday September 7 by calling Ticketmaster at 212 307-4100. Tickets for Chimere are now available.
-- By Andrew Ku
