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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Tamar Fortgang
213-237-2873 (do not publish)
REDCATpr@calarts.edu
REDCAT presents Los Angeles premiere of Alladeen,
a multimedia and cross-cultural collaboration by
New York's The Builders Association and London's motiroti,
Directed by Marianne Weems
March 3 -7
REDCAT
8:30 p.m.
$34 - $38 general admission
View the event
"A riveting exploration of the social, cultural, economic, intellectual and emotional magic carpet ride we all are on at this moment." Chicago Sun-Times
Los Angeles, February 12 -- From March 3-7, 2004, CalArts' REDCAT performance space will present five performances of Alladeen, a new large-scale multi-media performance work conceived and produced by The Builders Association, New York, and motiroti, London. Developed in the United States, India, and the United Kingdom, Alladeen premiered in New York at BAM Next Wave Festival 2003 and will travel worldwide through Spring 2005.
Directed by Marianne Weems, Alladeen interweaves new video techniques, electronic music, and live performance. The performance pioneers a combination of new media with live action in a vibrant, engaging form which questions how technology impacts us as human beings in the global marketplace. Aladdin's fantasy of personal transformation is played out in the surreal "call centers" of Bangalore ("India's Silicon Valley"), where Indian phone operators are trained to "pass" as Americans in order to serve American customers. This is a world where Indians, answering calls made in the U.S., conjure up fictional American lives and practice broadening their vowels to convince Americans 8,300 miles away that they are just next door.
"What would it feel like to have anything you want--instantaneously--including boundless wealth and complete personal transformation? These questions lie at the heart of the Aladdin story and, across thirteen centuries, still drive popular culture today. In the call centers of Bangalore, we found a perfect setting to explore how such transformations are enacted, and the ways in which cultures continually reinterpret each other's signs and stories," says Marianne Weems, director. "Certainly the story of Aladdin has been filtered through viewpoints as disparate as burlesque, Bollywood, Pier Paolo Pasolini and Walt Disney."
Alladeen encompasses three collaborative works. As well as the cross-media stage performance directed by Weems and co-conceived by motiroti co-directors Ali Zaidi and Keith Khan, there is a music video directed by Ali Zaidi featuring the London British Asian sound of the celebrated composer Shrikanth Shriram (whose recordings are distributed internationally as "Shri and Badmarsh") and visuals by Peter Norrman. The Alladeen website has also been directed by Ali Zaidi and designed by web artist Petra Goebel. Although distinct, these three works have been created in tandem and have been conceived together by Weems, Zaidi, and Khan. They each draw on a common pool of imagery and information, with materials from each interwoven into the others.
The Builders Association creative team includes Marianne Weems as director, and longtime collaborators Jeff Webster and Heaven Phillips, as well as new company members, Tanya Selvaratnam and Rizwan Mirza (performers); Jennifer Tipton (lighting); Dan Dobson (sound design and original music composition); Christopher Kondek (video designer). It also includes dramaturg Norman Frisch, who has collaborated with both companies in the past. The motiroti team includes Keith Khan and Ali Zaidi along with performer Jasmine Simhalan. Kim Whitener is executive producer for the performance.
Following is an excerpt from The New York Times' review of Alladeen, shown at the Brooklyn Academy of Music's "Next Wave" Festival in December 2003.
"Silent movies always make me envy the thrill audiences have when form is new .... Lucky us, it turns out. Video technology can bring the same kind of thrill to theater.... Alladeen will haunt you. Wit keeps morphing into seriousness. Narrative and abstraction play games with each other. It's unsettingly clear that the literal boundaries of America's global empire stretch as far as the boundaries of our imagination." The New York Times
Co-producers for the project are Arts International, Barbican BITE:03, Le Maillon, Strasbourg and Melbourne International Arts Festival. Co-commissioners are the Wexner Center for the Arts, Museum of Contemporary Art (Chicago), the Walker Art Center, REDCAT (Roy and Edna Disney/CalArts Theater), and the MIST Residency Program at The Kitchen, NYC. Major US support has been provided by The Daniel Langlois Foundation for Art, Science and Technology; The Greenwall Foundation; the Lila Acheson Wallace Theater Fund, established in the New York Community Trust by the founders of The Reader's Digest Association; the Jerome Foundation; The Curtis W. McGraw Foundation; the National Endowment for the Arts; the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency; The Rockefeller Foundation Multi-Arts Production Fund, the Tin Man Fund and the Emma A. Sheafer Charitable Trust. Major UK support is provided by London Arts, the British Council, the PRS Foundation for new music, and Asian Music Circuit.
THE BUILDERS ASSOCIATION creates theater projects exploring the interface between live performance and media. Directed by Marianne Weems, its OBIE award-winning work re-animates theater for a contemporary audience, using current tools to interpret old forms. The company's productions combine texts with sound, video, and architectural sets to create a world onstage that reflects contemporary culture.
Since 1994, with a growing circle of artists, it has collaborated on seven large-scale theater projects, including MASTER BUILDER (1994), THE WHITE ALBUM (1995), IMPERIAL MOTEL (FAUST) (1996), JUMP CUT (FAUST) (1997), JET LAG (1998-2000) with Diller + Scofidio, XTRAVAGANZA (2000-01), and Alladeen (2003-05) with motiroti. The company has also created two installations that were presented at the Clocktower Gallery and the STOREFRONT for Art and Architecture. Its work has been presented widely in Europe and the U.S. Since April 2003, Alladeen has been presented at venues including MCA Chicago, the Singapore Arts Festival, the Barbican Centre, Romaeuropa Festival 2003, BAM 2003 Next Wave Festival in New York and will continue to tour through Spring 2005 to REDCAT, Los Angeles, the estival Iberoamericano de Teatro de Bogota 2004 and the Bergen International Festival among many others.
www.thebuildersassociation.org
motiroti exists to create innovative, inspirational, intelligent thought-provoking art. Founded in 1990 by Keith Khan and Ali Zaidi, the London-based company has won to Time Out London Dance and Performance Awards and is the recipient of BBC Asia's Award for Achievement in the Arts. Khan and Zaidi first gained international acclaim for creating the first Bollywood musical-Moti Roti, Puttli Chunni, a co-production with East London's Theatre Royal Stratford East.
www.motiroti.com
Notes to Editors:
The Alladeen website is on line at www.Alladeen.com
The performance will also be presented at The Barbican Centre, London; the Singapore International Theater Festival; RomaEuropa; and many other venues through spring 2005.
Credits:
Headline credit:
The Builders Association/motiroti's Alladeen
Performance credit:
Directed by Marianne Weems
Conceived by Keith Khan, Marianne Weems and Ali Zaidi
Design by Keith Khan and Ali Zaidi
Video design by Chris Kondek
Sound design and original music composition by Dan Dobson
Lighting by Jennifer Tipton
Text (Part Two) by Martha Baer, all additional material created or transcribed by the company
Website credit:
Directed by Ali Zaidi
Conceived by Keith Khan, Marianne Weems and Ali Zaidi
Designed by Petra Goebel
Music Video credit:
Directed by Ali Zaidi
Conceived by Keith Khan, Marianne Weems and Ali Zaidi
2003-04 SEASON SPONSORS: Shamrock Holdings; KCRW, Official Public Radio Sponsor; LA Weekly, Exclusive Alternative Weekly, English Language Print Media Sponsor; the Standard, Official Hotel. Additional media sponsorship provided by Los Angeles Downtown News.
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