WHICH DIRECTION HOME?

WHICH DIRECTION HOME? is a festival of new work inspired by The Odyssey. 8 Directors from 6 countries have used Homer’s epic poem as a base to create wholly original theatrical material that encompasses a myriad of themes including home, mystery, choice, identity and myth.

PROGRAM A

7PM Wed 7/21, Fri 7/23, Tues 7/27

Das Fremde Essen, Directed by Dina Keller (Germany)

OD@C, Directed by Jake Witlen (USA)

Lucky, Directed by Karina Bes (The Netherlands)

To The Oars!, Directed by Jeremy Lydic (USA)

PROGRAM B

7PM Thurs 7/22, Mon 7/26, Wed 7/28

Das Fremde Essen, Directed by Dina Keller (Germany)

Longing, Lingering, Lost, Directed by Doug Howe (USA/France)

Fragments of a Father, Directed by Sama Ky Balson (Australia/France)

Oh De Sea!, Directed by Tamilla Woodard (USA)

SPECIAL EVENTS

Saturday, July 24 - MARATHON PERFORMANCE

(Programs A & B back-to-back)

Thursday, July 29

The Blind Trip, Directed by Ana Margineanu (Romania)

& Mash-Up Performance of 'Best of Fest' Highlights

Full Show Descriptions, Ticket info and Much Much More at

http://www.theinternationalists.org/odyssey.html

'Which Direction Home?' Press

Check out these two articles about The Internationalists' upcoming 'Which Direction Home?' festival.

The Brooklyn Rail

The Q Note

Find more information about the productions and how to buy tickets at our website.

Canada's Stratford Festival Posts 2.6m Deficit

The Stratford Shakespeare Festival is appealing to government for financial support to help it through the recession. The Stratford, Ont., festival revealed that it had suffered a $2.6-million deficit in 2008 despite a program featuring Christopher Plummer in George Bernard Shaw’s Caesar and Cleopatra. The loss last year was the company’s first since a three-year streak from 1991 to ’93. Attendance dropped by 4% to 534,000 in 2008. Though sales to Canadians were up by 2%, many Americans skipped Stratford, tipping the company into the red and forcing it to reach into its $5.6-million stability fund, which was set up for weathering recessions. Though some will remember a Stratford season that included Caesar and Cleopatra, a Hughie / Krapp’s Last Tape double bill and The Music Man, others will recall the collapse of a triumvirate of co-artistic directors last March. Marti Maraden and Don Shipley resigned before the season had even started, leaving Des McAnuff standing alone.

5th International Festival of Making Theater

The 5th International Festival of Making Theater will be held in Athens, Greece from July 5th – 12th 2009. During a whole week of creative interaction, Theater Makers from different parts of the world will have the opportunity to share and get acquainted with new working methods and ideas, regarding the following three sectors: Acting, Movement and Voice. For more information visit www.toc.gr

In.F.o.Ma.T.’s preparation plan will be completed in two phases: • The first phase - completed by March 31st 2009 - regards the INVITATION for TEACHERS. Teachers are considered all acting, movement and voice teachers. Their response will finalise the festival’s syllabus which will be announced no later than April 30th 2009. • The second phase - which will be completed by June 30th 2009 - regards the INVITATION for PARTICIPANTS. Participants are considered all those interested in attending the festival’s workshops. English will be the official language of the festival.

INVITATION for TEACHERS Theater of Changes invites acting, movement and voice teachers to take part in the 5th International Festival of Making Theater (In.F.o.Ma.T.) which will be held July 5th – 12th 2009, at the Theater of Changes, 19a 3is Septemvriou str, 104 32, Athens, Greece. The selected teachers will have the opportunity to present their work three times to a different group of participants each time, over a three-hour workshop. Furthermore, teachers - in their turn - will be able to witness and keep themselves updated with other teachers' methods and working techniques.

The selection will be completed in three phases: a) All teachers should express their interest by sending an email with all the necessary information (short CV, workshop description, max 50 words). b) Agreeing with the terms and conditions that will be emailed as a preapproval, teachers should send the official Application Form no later than February 28th 2009. c) Having sent the official Application Form, the selected teachers will receive the final approval of their participation at the Festival. No final approvals will be made after March 31st. ATTENTION!!! Do not send the Application Form if you have not completely understood and accepted the terms and condition of the Festival.

Applications for Romania's man.in.fest 2009

man.in.fest is a non-competitive international experimental theatre festival taking place between the 18th and 25 October 2009 in Cluj-Napoca, Romania and organized by Teatrul Imposibil (The Impossible Theatre), an independent Cultural Association located in Cluj-Napoca. man.in.fest is an event addressing young people (15-45), artists and public, both from Romania and abroad, interested in new/experimental arts and media, as they are the ones whose new perception needs and social references are served by the experimental artistic field. Also, either as public or as artists they need this kind of collaborative activities in order to have access to different perspectives on the cultural, political and social issues, through art. The participants will be “cultural ambassadors” of their countries, and will have the opportunity to represent their national cultural specificity. In the same time the event will offer them the time and the place to exchange experiences and points of view and to work in unfamiliar media, in order to challenge their creativity and to discover other perspectives, as a result of our across borders intercultural approach. Applications are due 1 March 2009.

Tercer Festival Internacional de Teatro y Danza

La Compañía de Teatro ANTIFAZ, fundada en la ciudad de Iquique, Región de Tarapacá el 03 de Marzo de 1993, a la fecha convertida en una de las organizaciones teatrales de mayor prestigio dentro y fuera de sus fronteras, convoca a todas las agrupaciones del arte representativo en las áreas del Teatro y la Danza al TERCER FESTIVAL INTERNACIONAL DE TEATRO Y DANZA FINTDAZ 2009, A realizarse del 12 al 17 de Octubre, en la ciudad de Iquique, Región de Tarapacá – Chile.

IQUIQUE - Tierra de Sol, Playas, Desiertos, Salitreras, Oasis y Zona Franca.

El FINTDAZ es un evento de iniciativa privada, de autogestión, que logra su soporte económico a través de Proyectos Artísticos Culturales, Auspicios de Empresas Comerciales y Aporte de Colaboradores Anónimos.

'Theatre Methods 09' Festival-Fair in Slovenia

THEATRE METHODS 09: International Festival-Fair
Between Tradition and Contemporaneity
July 6-12, 2009
Bovec, Slovenia

"Theatre Methods" is the annual professional festival-fair dedicated to the Bridge between Tradition and Contemporaneity in performing arts. The festival is an opportunity to demonstrate methods of training in traditional theatre and to present contemporary works created as the result of traditional theatre training techniques. At the moment THEATRE METHODS 09 has been accepting presentation proposals.

Presentation format:
• performance (not requiring special technical conditions)
• workshop/master class
• work in progress
• reading/lecture• any other way of demonstration to the presenter's discretion.

The festival is aimed at new international contacts, creative exchange and communication. "TM" does not imply opportunity of a one-day tour. Important condition of "TM" is that performers and theatres presenting works at the festival participate in the whole programme from the first to the last day - attending other festival events, workshops, performances, etc.

ACCOMODATION & VENUE (Bovec mountain resort):
Nearest airports: Ljubljana (Slovenia), Trieste (Italy) or Klagenfurt(Austria). http://www.iugte.com/projects/slovenia.php
SUBMISSION GUIDELINES & REGISTRATION:
http://www.iugte.com/projects/fest.reg.php
FESTIVAL INFO:
http://www.iugte.com/projects/TM09.php

If you wish to present your work at TM09, please become familiar with Submission Guidelines before submitting your proposal. The festival committee is considering proposals in appropriate standard only. Links to web sites are not considered as the application.

Around the World in 24 Hours

Festival de Teatro Experimental

submitted by Jake Witlin

For those of you in and around Ecuador for the next few weeks, make sure not to miss the 11th annual FITE (festival de international theatro experimental). I had the great pleasure of taking in two shows, of which I can highly recommend both.

First, the street performers David Berga, Ferran Aixalà, Oriol Aubets, Jordi Huete, Jaume Jové, all from Spain, delight with an outdoor show of mime, mimickry and general merrymaking in EFS (¨Encara Farem Salat¨). Set against the backdrop of a funeral, the procession starts somber enough, as the four wiry actors carry a coffin thru Mariscal Foch, stopping in front of several coffee shops, where a crowd quickly gathers. Over the course of the next hour, we are taken on a humorous ride of pratfalls and wonderful mime as they try desperately to find the missing body!

The second, and more traditional show, comes from Uruguay, and was a truly unique experience. Josep Pere Peyró´s ¨Una Lluvia Irlandesa¨ is a touching and poetic look inside the psychologies of a young woman seeking to let go of a love, and the man who continually psychoanalyzes her, remarking that without feeling, there is no where else to go. Taking place inside of the hip and happening bar Pobre Diablo, the actors comfortably navigated the mess of tables and chairs, to leave the audience with a sense of wonder and awe as we voyeuristically witness the birth, then death of love without emotion. Underscored with a haunting score, it is not to be missed. Click here for more information.

Edinburgh: Athens of the North

English actress and comedian Lucy Porter, a 17 year veteran of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, offers some very helpful and humorous advice about attending (and surviving) that crazy month in Scotland. Read the full commentary here.

"Late nights and boozing are a key part of the Edinburgh experience for many performers and audiences. It always makes me chuckle when you hear American tourists alight at Waverley station and ask, 'Say, where can I get a drink?' The question is, where can you not get a drink? Possibly the only venue in Edinburgh that doesn't serve alcohol is the Temperance society, but even they are probably running some kind of hooch racket on the quiet. I've now lived in Edinburgh for 17 months in total. I've decided that, technically, this makes me about one-thirtieth Scottish - I just hope that thirtieth isn't the part that includes my liver. As a proud Scot, I would urge anyone to head to Edinburgh this August - just don't forget to pack an umbrella and a bikini."

TeatroStageFest '08

For the second year, several New York City theater companies will team up with colleagues from Latin America, the Caribbean and Spain to present a two-week celebration of Latino performance at several locations around the city. The festival, which includes plays, concerts, comedy, panel discussions and even a high school playwriting competition, starts on Monday, when Bianca Marroquin, Broadway’s current Roxie Hart in “Chicago,” performs a solo evening at Joe’s Pub, offering a mix of her original songs, show tunes and Mexican standards. teatrostagefest.org

Other festival participants include the stalwart New York company Repertorio Español, now in its 40th-anniversary season, which will present “Doña Flor y Sus Dos Maridos” (“Doña Flor and Her Two Husbands”), a surreal Brazilian comedy about a woman living with — and sleeping with — both her new husband and the ghost of her dead ex. Among the visiting troupes are Teatro La Zaranda, from Andalucía, Spain, offering the absurdist clown tale “Los Que Ríen Los Últimos” (“Those Who Laugh Last”), above, and Grupo Doble Ve, from Buenos Aires. That Argentinean troupe will perform two one-act plays, “Harina” (“Flour”) and “Guardavidas” (“Lifeguard”), to be presented in Spanish with live English translation.

From ‘Theater Listing’ in the NYTimes by Steven McElroy

Theatre FIT

The network Theatre FESTIVALS IN TRANSITION (FIT), involving eight festivals in eight European countries, was founded in 2005. Between 2005 and 2006, FIT organized a series of contemporary theatre projects and highly regarded symposia on ‘festival policy′, which took place at all the participating festivals: Homo Novus in Riga, Latvia, Divadelna Nitra in Slovakia, Sirenos in Vilnius, Lithuania, SPIELART Munich in Germany, Exodos in Ljubljana, Slovenia, Krakow Theatre Reminiscences in Poland, 4+4 Days in Motion in Prague, Czech Republic and Baltoscandal in Rakvere, Estonia. Discussions gathered festival programmers, artists, supporters and cultural policy makers on local, national and European level and were focused on the role of festivals as a generator for a European cultural network.

With an enlarged network now involving ten festivals, from 2007 FIT embarks on a new project - a MOBILE LAB for Theatre and Communication. Ten European festivals focusing on contemporary theatre creation have come together to create a travelling laboratory to explore, develop and test drive innovative practices of discourse, critical writing and communication between artists, programmers and audiences in response to contemporary performance. Through carefully developed artistic programs, public discussions, collaborations with the media and Mobile Lab workshop programs for young theatre critics and writers, the project aims to facilitate a deeper and more wide ranging communication around contemporary art to a wider audience.

Festival for New Modes of Moving and Existing

FESTIVAL FOR NEW MODES OF MOVING AND EXISTING
NEW LIFE BERLIN is a contemporary art festival dedicated to new modes of moving and existing. Curated from the online art community WOOLOO.ORG, NEW LIFE BERLIN aims to connect the critical resources of a global network of artists with the physical geography of Berlin, as Europe's pre-eminent centre for cultural production. NEW LIFE BERLIN is taking place in Berlin from June 1-15, 2008 in collaboration with BERLINAUT.

INTERNATIONAL CALL FOR ARTISTS
The NEW LIFE BERLIN artistic program is focused on participation and is open to proposals from international artists. By inviting participation (while still retaining curatorial control), NEW LIFE BERLIN will investigate the much discussed 'online community' - How effective is this community? What binds this community? What governs it? In contrast to traditional art festivals and biennials, NEW LIFE BERLIN will not represent a set of cultural conclusions, but create a model for a fluid cultural landscape. Artists working in all mediums are encouraged to apply for participation in the various NEW LIFE BERLIN projects. All applications must be made online.

FESTIVAL PROGRAM
Participation in the NEW LIFE BERLIN artistic program is open to artists and writers and is structured along three main themes:

Transnational Communities. What do 'community' and 'identity' mean today? Presenting projects from both artistic and sociological starting points, NEW LIFE BERLIN will use group participation to explore real-life cultural mobility.

Artistic Social Responsibility. What is the relationship between cultural practitioners and corporate entities in the new millennium? How does contemporary cultural production relate to the concept of "Corporate Social Responsibility"?

Participation and Intervention. How do participatory arts practices affect the socio-cultural environments in which they take place? How and why can local audiences become involved in artists' projects, and what does their involvement mean in terms of civic engagement and
social empowerment?

Please click here for additional information.