OTRO TEATRO

luciana achugar

A solo performance.

OTRO TEATRO is the initiation in a new canon of work by award winning luciana achugar. OTRO TEATRO, which translates both to “another theater” and “other theater”, examines the role of dance as a form within the context of theater; proposing another kind of theater, a theater of the Other– giving voice to the arcane spirit, instinct and desire that is innate in our bodies. OTRO TEATRO is a dance to be FELT as it is SEEN; it is an occasion for communion.

Initially inspired to make this piece while watching Guillermo Kuitca’s “theatre collages” (visual representations of European Theater houses, as viewed from the stage, crumbling) the image of a collapsed theater strongly resonates as a metaphor for the looming collapse of our current socio-economic system. OTRO TEATRO is placed metaphorically in the ruins of a collapsed theater; and the performance is meant as a way to metaphorically re-build the theater and ourselves. As in all of achugar’s work, the ultimate aim of OTRO TEATRO is to move the audience towards a visceral experience and understanding of dance; and to shift our consciousness from a dualist Cartesian framework where body, mind and spirit are separated to a phenomenological mode in which experience, connection and compassion are given value as true sources of meaning. OTRO TEATRO is the continuation of achugar’s previous research that concerns itself with the social contract between audiences and performers.OTRO TEATRO offers an immersive experience for the viewer that relies on real-time transformation.Ultimately, a transformation will occur for everyone present, performers and viewers.

OTRO TEATRO is her seventh collaboration with Bessie Award winning artist and performer, Michael Mahalchick.

The world premiere of OTRO TEATRO was at the Walker Art Center in February and New York Live Arts in March/April 2014. A public space installation version, “OTRO TEATRO: The Pleasure Project” premiered in le mouvement- Performing the City Festival in Biel/Bienne, Switzerland.

“achugar effectively ’emancipated the spectator’ à la Rancière—we experienced an empathetic catharsis rather than an internal one.” – Elena Light

“It was an experience of a space that held all the bodies, and it was also a mass revolt. It was our task to be in this together, to allow ourselves to be overcome, and to surrender to sensation.” – Marissa Perel

OTRO TEATRO is supported by the Hatchery Project, a collaborative residency initiative between The Chocolate Factory, Live Arts Brewery/Philadelphia Live Arts Festival, Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography at Florida State University, and Vermont Performance Lab and is made possible with major funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and additional support by the National Endowment for the Arts.

OTRO TEATRO is a National Performance Network (NPN) Creation Fund Project co-commissioned by The Walker Art Center in partnership with [New York Live Arts and NPN. The Creation Fund is supported by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, Ford Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts (a federal agency).

This project is made possible in part by support from the NPN Performance Residency Program. Major contributors include the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, Ford Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts (a federal agency). For more information: www.npnweb.org

OTRO TEATRO was originally commissioned by The Walker Art Center and New York Live Arts. OTRO TEATRO was supported, in part, through a commission from New York Live Arts’ Studio Series program with generous support from the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, the Foundation for Contemporary Arts and the Puffin Foundation.

OTRO TEATRO is also supported, in part, by the Jerome Foundation; MAP Fund, a program of Creative Capital; and the New England Foundation for the Arts’ National Dance Project, with lead funding from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, and additional funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

OTRO TEATRO was developed during an LMCC artist residency in 2013 as part of Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s Extended Life Dance Development program made possible in part by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

OTROTEATRO is a project of Creative Capital.

This performance is brought to you in part by the Redd Carpet Fund, providing artists and arts organizations access to the professional facilities at the Joe R.and Teresa Lozano Long Center for the Performing Arts.