Alexis. Una Tragedia Greca [Alexis. A Greek Tragedy]
Moteus
(Rome, Italy, in English)

“How to transform indignation into action?” This simple and enormous question sent us on the tracks of Antigone: a backward glance, listening to her radiant stubbornness, in order to reflect on the present. We worked at recomposing the tragic events into an original play, using a script impregnated with the biographies and personal experiences of the actors involved. An itinerary begun in 2008 from which three contests emerged, performances intended as confrontations/dialogues between Antigone-Silvia Calderoni and three different actors: Benno Steinegger-Polynices, Vladimir Aleksic-Creon and Gabriella Rusticali-Tiresias, entitled “Let The Sunshine In”, “Too Late!” and “Iovadovia”.
“Alexis” stands at the end of this journey though it presupposes the beginning: in August 2010 we went to Greece to retrace direct testimony of the killing, by a policeman, of fifteen year old Alexandros-Andreas Grigoropoulos (Alexis) which happened during our first study workshop for Antigone: a “Polynices” with a Sex Pistols T-shirt. . .”

By Enrico Casagrande and Daniela Nicolò
with Silvia Calderoni, Vladimir Aleksic, Benno Steinegger, Alexia Sarantopoulou
and the collaboration of Michalis Traitsis and Giorgina Pilozzi
assistant director Nicolas Lehnebach
dramaturgy Daniela Nicolò
Shooting – FTA TransAmerique Festival in Montreal, May 2012
video editing Enrico Casagrande
sound Andrea Comandini
music Pyrovolismos sto prosopo by The Boy
in the video Nikos of the Centro Libertario Nosotros,
Stavros of the band Deux ex machina
lights and sets Enrico Casagrande and Daniela Nicolò
technical director Valeria Foti
public relations and press Sandra Angelini, Lisa Gilardino
organisation and logistics Elisa Bartolucci, Valentina Zangari
administration Elisa Bartolucci with the collaboration of Cronopios
Production Motus, ERT Emilia Romagna Teatro Fondazione, Espace Malraux – Scène Nationale de Chambéry et de la Savoie – CARTA BIANCA, programme Alcotra coopération France Italie, Théâtre National de Bretagne/Rennes and the Festival delle Colline Torinesi with the support of Rimini Provincial Administration, Emilia-Romagna Regional Administration and the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activity.

Motus was born in 1991 as an independent nomadic theatre company, in constant movement between countries, historical moments and disciplines. The founders Enrico Casagrande and Daniela Nicolò, animated by the necessity to deal with themes, conflicts and wounds of the present time, blend art and civic engagement crossing imageries that have reactivated the visions of some amongst the most controversial “poets” of contemporaneity.
The group, who burst onto the scene in the Nineties with productions wielding great physical and emotional impact, has always anticipated and portrayed some of the harshest contradictions of the present day. It has experienced and created hyper-contemporary theatre trends, performing authors such as Camus, Beckett, DeLillo, Rilke or their beloved Pasolini, leading to Shakespeare’s The Tempest, interpolated by Aimé Césaire, which powerfully evoked the tragedy of migration and created instant communities around the world.

BI RIAL
Compania Danza JAM
(Santiago, Chile, in Spanish)

“After 3990 years we have returned. We decided to return to being the matter and the water that we have been. Today we are eight. We do not know how many more have come back, walking, running, appearing or being born . . . we are here . . . just like you.”
Dirección: Jenniffer Alegría
Interpretes: Daniella Soto, Karin Collao, Rodrigo Jorquera, Francisco Bagnara, Cesar Cisternas, Yoya Soriano, Betania Gonzalez, Nibaldo Manrriquez.
Música: Simón Flores
Vestuario: Daniel Bagnara
Cámara y edición: Paulo Fernández

JAM Dance Company was born in 2010 out of the need to have a space for creation and dance for students. In the beginning, it was formed by outstanding students from the same school, creating works in small formats, participating in dance meetings and festivals. Over time, professional dancers and dance students were integrated, seeking a space to train and create. Now under the direction of Jennifer Alegría, the company plays an active role in dance, performing continuously and creating new spaces for dance in everyday life.

Bloom
Molly Siboulet-Ryan
(Montréal, Dance theatre)

“Bloom is a contradiction between softness and strength, calm and frustration, fall and persistence. Immersed in a cycle, from which she draws her power, she collapses to erect herself. Yet she has not yet surrendered to her inner freedom and fury. Bloom still resists. Inspired by the history of the creator’s maternal lineage, Bloom attempts to extract from the shadows lives tainted by secrecy, shame and oppression. From the exploration of characters and stories, small universes are born to offer to the spectator, small time capsules in which to get lost for an evening.”

Molly Siboulet-Ryan is an artist in motion, based in Montreal since 2018. Her research is part of a process of denunciation and intergenerational healing. Through her process, she attempts to heal her family traumas generated by the Catholic Church and patriarchal society in which women are systematically at fault.

Conception and interpretation: Molly Siboulet-Ryan
Co-design and video : Maude Archambault-Wakil
Text: Sheila Ryan
Musical composition: Brittany Dubson
Costume design: Julianne Decerf

Eviction? Dog’s Blood! Nick Zynchuk & Montreal’s Red Plateau, 1933
Norman Nawrocki
(Montreal, English)

Based on a true story that made Montreal headlines in 1933. Nawrocki portrays Nick Zynchuk, an unemployed, Polish-Ukrainian worker caught in the middle of an eviction drama. During the Depression, mass unemployment hit Montreal hardest in poor neighbourhoods like ‘The Plateau.’ Trendy today, but known then as ‘The Red Plateau’ because of its radical, immigrant, working class population, the area was rocked by evictions and organized, street-level resistance to them. As rampant speculation, gentrification and greed fuel today’s housing crisis with tenants being evicted en masse, Nawrocki’s timely play (filmed during the pandemic lockdown) suggests one option: “stay and fight.” Filmed by Joyce Valbuena.

Norman Nawrocki is a Ukrainian-Polish-Canadian anarchist playwright, actor, author, musician & ‘sex advocate’ who started performing poetry in the 1980s, & then formed bands, cabaret troupes, & theatre groups & toured the world. His original plays address both historical & contemporary issues of social justice.

LA CALLE ES LIBRE el documental
Compania Danza JAM
(Santiago, Chile, in Spanish with English subtitles)

“We present an audiovisual documentary that features the performance of LA CALLE ES LIBRE, held in Santiago de Chile. This street dance performance presents a direct choreographic provocation in public and seeks to install the political and social theme of the “third gender”, its freedom of expression and their equality in society.
The right to react and to have an opinion on issues of gender identity and the appreciation of LGTBIQ+ people is strengthened. This artistic action was performed in different pulic places during July 2017.”
Dirección: Jenniffer Alegría
Interpretes: Rodrigo Jorquera, Cesar Cisternas, Camila Escala y Alan Carrasco.
Vestuario: Daniel Bagnara
Cámara y edición: Anibal Caballero

Ministère de la Nouvelle Normalité vs. Suncor, RBC and Garda
Ministère de la Nouvelle Normalité
(Montréal, in French)

“The jury is you in this comedy play presented as a trial of three companies – Suncor, RBC and Garda – for the crime of ecocide. Through witnesses from the past, present and future, the Prosecutor and Defence Counsel make their cases and then let the audience decide. While the trial is a farce, all legal arguments are based on real facts and law. In the Prosecutor’s case, the audience will be confronted with the true history of how companies hid the science behind global warming from the public. The audience will then hear arguments in the Defence Counsel’s case that are often made by companies to obfuscate the truth. The audience is asked to render a verdict, prompting a discussion of how society should deal with the actions of the fossil fuel industry.”

The Ministère de la Nouvelle Normalité is a satirical group of Montreal climate activists that uses art and humour to make people aware of the climate crisis. The MNN acts as a para-governmental agency that takes action when other governments fail to act.
Playwrights & performers: Barbara Bedont, Elza Kephart & Kelly McKinney, plus
Lucile Siraut, Juliette Rigaul, Kai McCall, Sepideh Anvar, Bruce Mellett, Marguerite Kephart, Anne Marie D’Amour & Anne-Marie de la Sablonniere.

Peter & Emma’s Café, An Operetta
Against Again Theatre Troupe of Taiwan
(Taiwan, in Cantonese with English subtitles)

“Peter & Emma are stuck in Taipei during the COVID pandemic and want to do something worthy without wasting their time. They search for a place to start a bookshop/café where people can gather, something typical for 1930s Berlin and Paris. In the operetta, friends drop by, including a farmer, a baker, a sex worker and an overseas student to meet up and share stories. The operetta is a situational/geopolitical idea of songs and stories written by Lenny Kwok from Hong Kong.
It is a theatrical production with no director, no script, and no rehearsals as such.
It does not entail a group of definite actors; it could be different at times.
The actors in the filmed performance at the Witch House Taipei in 2021:
Lenny kwok as Peter
June zhu as Emma
Brian Wong, the dead soldier
Vivian Dai, the chef
Unchi wong, the independent farmer
Lala Lau, the sex-worker
Guojia, the mainland student
and, Zigang Lin, the whistle-blower poet.
The program of songs included stories from people spanning more than a hundred years.”

The Conundrum of Revolution
DAH Teatar
(Belgrade, Serbia, in English)

“The performance creates an alternative reality in which Rosa Luxembourg gets to meet revolutionaries and poets from across the world – four revolutionaries – Rosa, the Red Army Faction’s member Ulrike Meinnhof, Castro’s comrade-in-arms Camilo Cienfuegos, and Lenin’s assassin Fanny Kaplan, as well as the poets Kharms and Mayakovsky, walk through time and speak to one another, and to us, “from the other side.” Their spirits still breathe down our backs. What are they saying to us today? What is justified in order to gain power and preserve the revolution? How far can the revolution go in preserving its own values?”

DAH Theater is an independent, professional, contemporary theatre troupe and artistic collective that uses modern theatre techniques to create engaging art and initiate positive social change, both locally and globally. DAH Theatre uses methods of devised theatre, while its productions develop on the crossroads between theatre, dance, and visual arts. Starting with a problem or a theme, continuing through research and elaborate rehearsal process, DAH Theatre productions are the result of a long-term creative process. DAH Theatre develops highly artistic plays with the vision of nurturing a non-violent and tolerant society. “In today’s world, we can oppose destruction and violence with the creation of meaning.”

DAH Theater was founded by directors Dijana Milošević and Jadranka Anđelić in 1991, out of the need to experiment and research further in their theater work.
The Center has organized and realized many events: specific workshops (Laban technique, Alexander technique, the legacy of Maga Magazinović, work with stilts, Butho, Suzuki technique, etc.), international festivals and meetings with important artists from all over the world (Odin Theater – Denmark, Joshi Oida – France / Japan, Shiro Daimon – France / Japan, Sonia Kehler – Germany, Jill Greenghalgh – Great Britain, David Zinder – Israel, Ron Jenkins – USA, 7 Stages Theater – USA , Bond Steet Theater – USA, Anna Zubrzicky and Grzegorz Bral – Poland, Stella Chiweshe – Zimbabwe, Gennadi Bogdanov – Russia, among others). In 2016, DAH Theater celebrated its 25th anniversary as the first book on DAH Theater was published – DAH Theater – A Sourcebook (Lexington Books, Iowa, USA).

Video of the DAH Theater’s performance CONUNDRUM OF REVOLUTION. Project REBUILDING THEATRE TOWARDS A NEW FUTURE 2020. / Video baziran na sceni iz predstave DAH Teatra ZAGONETKA REVOLUCIJE. Projekat PREOBRAŽAJ TEATRA KA NOVOJ BUDUĆNOSTI, 2020.
Funded by the International Relief Fund of the German Federal Foreign Office, the Goethe-Institut, and other partners. / Finansiran od strane Međunarodnog fonda za pomoć nemačkog saveznog Ministarstva spoljnih poslova, Goethe-Instituta i drugih partnera.
Režija predstave : Dijana Milošević
Dramaturgija: Dubravka Knežević
Igraju: Evgenija Eškina Kovačević, Ivana Milenović Popović, Ivana Milovanović, Ivan Nikolić
Scenografija: Neša Paripović
Muzika: Uglješa Majdevac
Kostim: DAH Teatar i Snežana Arnautović
Savetnica za semiotiku predstave: Amy Sarno
Video Režija / Director: Eveline Costa
Direktor fotografije / Director of Photography: Nemanja Maraš
Montaža / Editing: Nemanja Maraš, Eveline Costa
Ton / Sound techician: Aleksa Račić
Dizajn zvuka / Sound design: Miloš Mijailović
Asistent / Asssistant: Aleksandar Milošević
Društvene mreže / Social media: Marko Milojević
Prevod / Translation: Duca Knežević
© 2020 DAH TEATAR

Sunday, going to Mass
Molly Siboulet-Ryan

Inspired by the history of the creator’s maternal lineage, Bloom attempts to draw out of the shadows lives tainted by secrecy, shame and oppression. From the exploration of characters and stories, small universes are born to offer to the spectator, small time capsules in which to lose oneself for an evening.

Design and performance: Molly Siboulet-Ryan – Co-design and video : Maude Archambault-Wakil – Text: Sheila Ryan – Musical composition: Brittany Dubson – Costume design: Julianne Decerf.