Microsoft word - joyce_pressrelease_2011.doc

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Anna Kadysheva
CEC ArtsLink
June 6th, 2011
212-643-1985 x17
[email protected]
Russian Artists Create Site-Specific Performance for Joyce SoHo
Wednesday, June 29th, 2010 at 7:30pm
For The Time Being: An Interdisciplinary Performance
Joyce SoHo
155 Mercer Street (bet. Houston and Prince), NYC
Free. Seating is limited.
RSVP online at http://www.cecartslink.org
Three Russian dance and theater artists will come to New York in June to stage a brand-new interdisciplinary performance at Joyce SoHo. Kseniya Petrenko, Kirill Vytoptov and Aleksei Zherebtsov are creating For The Time Being specifically for the occasion, and performing the work on one night only–June 29th–before returning to Russia. Their visit and performance are organized by CEC ArtsLink, a nonprofit organization whose mission is to support international exchange in the arts and introduce American audiences to works by innovative artists from abroad. For The Time Being will incorporate a variety of media in a performance that invites the audience to explore and experience the concept of time. “How do you capture time?” Petrenko, the show’s artistic director, writes. “It runs through our fingers, leaving behind memories, photographs, home videos. Combining music, dance, poetry and film, we are composing a message to ourselves in the future, knowing that it will become past, but that it is present for the time being.” The artists have also extended an open invitation to Russian and US photographers and videographers to collaborate by submitting their own artistic interpretations of the theme, some of which will be included in the show. Such unconventional interdisciplinary work isn’t novel to the Russian trio. Petrenko, Vytoptov and Zherebtsov all work with LIQUID Theatre, an experimental site-specific theater collective with branches in Moscow and Chelyabinsk. The artists will arrive in New York on June 26th, having never set foot in Joyce SoHo before, with just three days to rehearse together on-site. However, all three are seasoned in pulling off such feats and can draw on the experience of their previous New York performances, which successfully took place under similar conditions. Petrenko and Zherebtsov first came to the US on a residency through CEC ArtsLink in 2009. They took part in the Choreographers Lab at Jacob’s Pillow and created a site-specific performance at the Storefront for Art and Architecture in New York. They later received an ArtsLink grant as members of LIQUID Theatre to return to Storefront in 2010 with a new performance, Instead of a Letter. Vytoptov was on residency at Jacob’s Pillow in 2010, and together with three other Russian collaborators created and performed HEAT at Dance New Amsterdam. “Heat looked fresh, and one knew why its programme note finally proclaimed that heat can “melt the coldness in our hearts,” – wrote critic Jack Anderson of the performance in the London Dancing Times. The artists’ US visit and performance are made possible through partnership and funding from the Renova Group of Companies.
CEC ArtsLink promotes international communication and understanding through collaborative, innovative arts
projects, supporting and producing programs that encourage the exchange of visual and performing artists and
cultural managers in the United States and abroad. The organization was founded in 1962 to enable citizens of
the United States and the Soviet Union to accomplish what their governments would not do–open doors, share
ideas and build mutual trust. As an international organization, CEC ArtsLink believes that the arts are a society’s
most deliberate and complex means of communication and that the work of artists and arts administrators can
help nations overcome long histories of reciprocal distrust, insularity and conflict. CEC ArtsLink’s lasting
partnerships abroad enable it to build and broaden its international reach, as today’s transformed and complex
world makes citizen diplomacy more urgently necessary than ever.
LIQUID Theatre is one of the very few theaters in Russia which create site-specific works. Performances grow
out of the territory on which the directors and actors find themselves here and now (a factory, a park, a residential
courtyard, a stairwell). A new performance doesn’t require a play or script - it requires an impulse, a theme, a
spring which will push the actors in different directions. Finding themselves in different points of the same space,
they begin to work, putting to use and refining all their skills - dance, acrobatics, acting. Drawing on experience
from street, physical and visual theater, “liquids” compose their own plays. LIQUID Theatre received the Aktsia
award in support of theater initiatives in Russia in 2008 and the prestigious Golden Mask award in the
Experimental category in 2009. The theatre regularly presents work at theater festivals across Russia and abroad.
The Renova Group of Companies is among Russia's leading private sector initiatives, with interests in mining,
oil, metallurgy, mechanical engineering, chemicals, real estate development, energy, telecommunications,
nanotechnologies, utilities and financial services in Russia and internationally. The Renova Group is a significant
supporter of philanthropic initiatives and active contributor to the arts, international relations, education and
environment. Renova USA represents the Group in the United States and since 2004 has focused largely on
philanthropic initiatives. Renova USA seeks to promote better relations between Russia and the United States
through supporting Russian-US arts and culture, education, civil society, media, social and development
programs and organizations, and government and intergovernmental relations.
The Joyce Theater Foundation, a nonprofit organization, has proudly served the dance community and its
audiences since 1982. One of the only theaters built by dancers for dance, The Joyce Theater has provided an
intimate and elegant New York home for more than 310 domestic and international companies. The Joyce has
also commissioned more than 130 new dances since 1992. The organization has long maintained a dance
education program for schools, families, and adults, as well as residency and advisory programs for dancers and
choreographers. In 1996, The Joyce created Joyce SoHo, a dance center providing highly subsidized rehearsal
and performance space to hundreds of dance artists. Since 2009, The Joyce has also been responsible for Dance
Art New York (DANY) Studios, nine affordable studios, located at 38th Street and Eighth Avenue, that are
appropriate for rehearsals, auditions, classes, and workshops. The Joyce Theater now features an annual season
of approximately 48 weeks with over 340 performances for audiences in excess of 135,000. Additionally, for the
past seven years The Joyce has co-presented a summer series of free outdoor dance performances in Lower
Manhattan as part of the River To River Festival.
For more information, please contact Anna Kadysheva, Program Coordinator, CEC ArtsLink, at (212) 643-1985 x17 or [email protected]. To learn more about the artists mentioned here, and opportunities for artists and arts organizations administered by CEC ArtsLink, please visit www.cecartslink.org.

Source: http://cecartslink.org/pdf/Press-Release-Joyce-2011.pdf