Between the Seas Festival: Politically Charged Mediterranean Dance and Theater

Details

Parent Category: Other Festivals

Category: Theater

Published on Friday, 17 August 2012 21:24

Written by Renzo Adler

A fairly new festival only in its second year, the Between the Seas Festival of Mediterranean Performing Arts (August 20 – 26, 2012) at Wild Project (195 East 3rd Street, NY) brings together theater and dance from Mediterranean countries. Between the Seas features artists from:

• Israel
• Lebanon
• Greece
• Italy
• Denmark

Between the Seas has a strong focus on dance, with troupes from the Arab world like Mancopy Dance Company and their piece EVERY last BREATH, which reflects on living a life of perpetual risk and danger. The Spanish dancer Rebeca Tomas performs Tradiciones Nuevas, a decronstruction of Flamenco musical traditions.

The plays being performed are similarly culturally and politically charged, like the Greek play When the red Toyota went off the road and sank in black water, about a politician coping with the inadvertent manslaughter of a woman he just met. I.D. is a Lebanese play about four transgender people from around the Mediterranean dealing with their new lives.

Between the Seas will host a free screening of The Glass Wall, a documentary by Iranian-American filmmaker, theatre artist, educator, and scholar, Mahmood Karimi-Hakak, and a special guided performance/tour at the The Lower East Side Tenement Museum called A Visit from Victoria.

There will be two play stage readings:  Benedictus, which brings together acclaimed artists from Iran, Israel and the United States and This Time, a new play written by Sevan Kaloustian Greene and directed by Kareem Fahmy about a woman fleeing 1960’s Egypt for having an affair with an American professor. 

Strange and niche, yet extremely relevant, Between the Seas looks to break new ground in dance and theater.

To learn more, go to http://betweentheseas.org

Between the Seas Festival of Mediterranean Performing Arts
August 20 - 26, 2012

Wild Project
195 East 3rd Street
New York, NY 10009

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