US Artists Initiative

Artel is honored to announce its acceptance into the US Artists Initiative, part of the UNESCO sponsored Year of Grotowski International Theater Event, The World as Place of Truth. http://www.grotowskiyear.pl/

This amazing program is the work of Arden 2 in collaboration with the Grotowski Institute to bring 30+ US Artists to Wroclaw, Poland during an inspirational festival celebrating the life and work of Jerzy Grotowksi. The festival will host performances, films, and dialogues of world renowned practitioners (Peter Brook , Anatoly Vasiliev, Pina Bausch, Krystan Lupa, Eugenio Barbo, Theodorus Terzopulous, Tadaski Suzuki, Teatr Zar, Maisternia Pisni, etc.). The US Artists Initiative is an opportunity for a varied group of American theatre practitioners to attend the festival and to meet and discuss 21C theatre outside their homeland and habitual context.

Alongside the phenomenal experience of being in Wroclaw for such an event, the US Artists' Initiative is designed to create opportunities for dialogue and hopefully a little experimentation around the work seen throughout the festival. During the two week+ festival, Artel has been asked to lead a session on theater-laboratories and contemporary practice for the group of US Artists. We look forward to engaging the many fantastic companies and practitioners that have been working in the US for years in this discussion to investigate the potentials of 21 C theater .

We will post updates later in the summer.

A HUGE THANK YOU to Joanna Klass and Rachel Jendrzejewski for their vision and dedication to make this a reality.

Giving Voice

In April, Olya attended the 11 International Giving Voice Festival hosted in Wroclaw, Poland in collaboration with the Grotowski Institute and the Giving Voice festival producers, the Centre for Performance Research (CPR).

This stunning ten day event presented workshops, work demonstrations and evening concerts by a range of artists organized around Grotowski's work with voice and action as well as the growing concern of where and how to continue passing vocal traditions on to younger artists.

Not only was this Olya's first solo trip to Wroclaw, allowing for more particular relations to be built between Artel and the Grotowski Institute, but she also had the pleasure of meeting Judie Christie whose CPR has been an inspiration and model for our modest [via]Corpora House.

Beyond being immersed in a mixture of vocal practices, Olya worked with Theatre Lalishlabor and continued our previous year's explorations with Natalka Polyvinka of Maisternia Pisni.

Thank you to Jarek Fret, Judie Christie and Ditte Berkeley for making Olya's attendance possible.

For the list of practitioners hosted and more information:
http://rokgrotowskiego.pl/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=48