Since what you ask is worth the telling, hear the answer to your question-- She was once most beautiful, and the jealous aspiration of many suitors// Of all her beauties none was more admired than her hair-- They say that Neptune, lord of the seas, violated her in the temple of Minerva// So that it might not go unpunished, Jupiter’s Daughter changed the Gorgon’s hair to foul snakes// And now- to terrify her enemies- numbing them with fear-- the goddess wears the snakes that she created, as a breastplate.
Echoes of the past; glimpses of the future.
Collectif Baba Yaga has continued to build on the creative practice of artists who participated in devising Medusa in 2019 and 2020 in London, Piacenza, Paris, and Chicago.
And this is how Ovid seals the myth of Medusa. A simple paragraph that grants no voice, no perspective, no alternative to the protagonist of this story. The story of Medusa is told by men who praise her beauty and fail to tell us about her identity: her ancestry, her social function, her singularity. Ovid then reports that Poseidon abuses Medusa in the temple of Athena, without any details about the event. He tells us how the other woman in the story, the "chaste" Athena, punishes Medusa - and not Poseidon - for this outrage. Medusa is therefore the only condemned woman, robbed of her beauty because she is the cause of this affront, transformed into a hideous monster doomed to sow destruction and terror even to death.
C'est le jour des Panathénées, les festivités organisées par les mortels en l’honneur d’Athéna. Méduse, sa grande prêtresse, invoque la déesse pour ouvrir la cérémonie. Dans un défilé de divinités toutes plus fantasques les unes que les autres, Poséidon, subjugué par la beauté de Méduse, lui fait ses avances. Leur jeu de séduction, d’abord subtil et amusant, dérape violemment…
TARIFS : 16€ en tarif plein et 14€ en tarif réduitBilletterie : https://bit.ly/3BMRytIRéservation possible par téléphone au 01 42 29 78 79Paiement possible sur place le jour J, en espèces ou par chèques, dans la limite des places disponibles.Pass sanitaire obligatoire.
The Baba Yaga Collective was born from the meeting of five strong and complementary artistic identities. Baba Yaga is the feminine figure par excellence: she is supernatural, she is a white witch , benevolent, but cruel when necessary. Baba Yaga is a fighter, an Amazon, who fiercely defends her daughters and puts in her place whoever harms them. She is a guardian of respect for women.
Her legend has been handed down in Russia for several generations, where she is alternately cruel ogress, diabolical witch, wise counselor, beautiful young woman or old rombière. An image still marked by the fundamental fear of female power in our current societies.
Its image is like our collective: changing, polymorphic, protean; with the clear objective of deconstructing monstrous figures to reveal what is hidden behind the so-called “fundamental” values of our societies.
We choose her face as the protector of our creations, a witch freed from all dominions, on the way to the truth.
POCOAPOCO
Denise Yvette Serna and Anna Donnell will spend the month of August 2021, living, learning, and creating with artists in Oaxaca, Mexico. Anna and Denise are participating in the POCOAPOCO residency, which they were accepted into before the global Covid-19 pandemic that slowed the world in 2020.
While in residency, Anna and Denise will learn and create with the other multidisciplinary artists in residence, and will investigate the intersections between story-telling, food justice, community care, and cultivation.
EASY MEDITERRANEAN COOKING
Carolina Migli Bateson takes us on a serial culinary journey, from her kitchen in Piacenza, Italy. Carolina guides cooks of all skill levels in healthy, local, flavorful recipes, that celebrate her history and her garden!
Check our youtube channel for new installments! And if you want more where that came from, consider subscribing to Carolina’s cooking lessons on our Patreon!
CLASSICS UP CLOSE
A Patreon Performance Series
A collaboration with Fusion Theatre Company
Eliza Harris and Nell Hardy in Grimm's Fairy Tales
We exist to change the way theatre is experienced by breaking down barriers and moving away from conventional norms. Thus far, we have supported ourselves and our productions from within, but as our collective expands, there is a need to create some kind of sustainable life for the artists who work so hard to create exciting and enjoyable art. In response to a global pandemic and it’s effect on our creative practices, we recognized the need to forge a new path for theatre.
We want to create theatre that can reach many people, theatre that can cross borders, theatre that is not too expensive, and theatre that can bring audiences and artists together. Projects fueled by passion should be compensated, and we were determined to keep innovating and creating, while finding a way to support the individual artists of this collective.
By subscribing to our very first Patreon Performance Series, a group of generous people in our international community directly supported artists in England, Italy, France and the United States to adapt, rehearse, record, edit, market, and caption digital performances of classic literature.
INTERNATIONAL CONNECTOR PROJECT
This project brings artists together who are interested in collaborating remotely with artists of other disciplines from around the world. These digital hives share their individual practices and experiences and create something meaningful together. GHL facilitates the sharing of that creation with our network of artists and citizens - giving life to new creative ideas and collaborative exchanges.
We encourage responses from all disciplines, walks of life, including perspectives, experience and practices. Creative work from folks of all ages, all gender identities, levels of formal and informal training, cultural traditions, languages, abilities, and cultural/subcultural visibilities are welcome.
Global Hive Laboratories has been experimenting with global performance practices and integrating technology into devised creation for years. From the first workshops in London with friends, to the digital devising we’ve done with the International Connector Project.
Innocence by Georgia Couver, Inspired by a poem by Niall Mcneil
Georgia Couver is a Chinese Canadian, Vancouver-born music composer, violinist and visual artist with a passion of the arts for celebration of queer femininity.
@GeorgiaCouver
ATLANTIDE
The project ensemble consists of international artists representing five different countries. The international devising cycle began in Piacenza, Italy in February 2020. In conversations with local artists and community members, facilitator Carolina Migli Bateson identified the feeling of impending destruction as a potent stimulus for devising.
Italians of the region have acutely witnessed the effects of the changing climate in the recent years; recent flooding has put Venice in a precarious position, and the all-too-recent drought of the River Trebbia (The first work presented by Migli and Dassoni with GHL for CCTA Chicago [2017] was a short film titled The Nymph of the River about the drought.)
As we explore the creation, destruction, legacy, inheritance, and the uncertain future that faces the next generation of humanity, we turn toward the myth of Atlantis: the most popular (though certainly not the only) legend of a great city - advanced, intelligent, powerful - lost to time and its own arrogance.
The theme of connecting global cultures and identifying universal struggles shared by seemingly unrelated communities has been explored by the ensemble in Piacenza, the ensemble at Aurora University in Illinois, and facilitated by River Coello and Denise Yvette Serna.
Access Design is coordinated by Anna Donnell, with support from Project Assistant Julia Petterson, facilitated by John Jack Paterson.
Atlantide, in collaboration with Teatro Trieste Trentaquattro, Chez Arts, and BoucheWHACKED! Theatre Collective.
MEDUSA
I’m foul mouthed now, foul tongued,
yellow fanged.
There are bullet tears in my eyes.
Are you terrified?
Be terrified.
It’s you I love.
So better by for me if you were stone.
The project ensemble consists of international artists representing four different countries. Their common desire to challenge themselves and create a global rehearsal room, brings together the talent, passion, and experiences of many identities committed to breaking down barriers that might exclude portions of the population from artistic dialogue.
In conversations around the contemporary social issues that were most pressing to the ensemble, the themes of intersectional feminism, a wider societal mistrust of women and femmes, and the role of powerful women in patriarchal power structures brought the most resonance.
In an effort to find an anchor to frame our experiences of these issues, we turned to the mythical figure of Medusa; common ground to all our countries and cultures.
Through devised theatre workshops in London, Paris, Piacenza, and Chicago, we will create opportunity for the audience to encounter Medusa’s journey, physical transformation, and isolation through all 5 senses, challenging the objectification of women, and humanizing Medusa’s experience.
We aim to examine Athena’s position as a woman in a place of power within a patriarchal power structure, women’s position as oppressors of other women within that structure, and the ramifications of punishing victims of sexual violence, rather than their aggressors.
We aim to deconstruct the legacy of mythology, and the historical precedent for the oppression, objectification, and exclusion of those whose identities fall outside of the majority, with specific focus on gender expression and ability.
We aim to create an abstract sensorial journey to encourage audiences to reevaluate how they experience storytelling. We hope to create multiple access points for audience members, with intentional focus placed on the experience of people with disabilities, language barriers, and the aesthetics of access design.
The London based Production company Fusion Theatre Company will be supporting the fifth workshop of Medusa in London this autumn, and mounting the production that we bring together from all this work!
If you are interested in supporting this exploration, please visit our fundraising page and share with anyone you think would be excited to support revolutionary, intersectional, anti-exclusionary devised theatre.
All donations will be used for compensation for artists, budget for British Sign Language Interpretation, and production costs.
Climate Change Theatre Action Chicago
A Curated Conversation
In an effort to reduce waste, we chose to go paperless for our play programs!
Check out the contributing artists on our digital program page.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
27 OCTOBER 2017
Climate Change Theatre Action - Chicago
A Curated Conversation
November 14-16, 2017, 6:30pm
The Pride Arts Center, 4147 N. Broadway, Chicago
Chicago – Producers Denise Yvette Serna and Iris Sowlat are pleased to present Climate Change Theatre Action - Chicago, three evenings of readings and performances on the topic of global climate change in support of the United Nations COP23 meeting chaired by Fiji and hosted in Bonn, Germany. This multi-disciplinary international event features short films, dance, puppetry, live performances, and a call to activism. Developed with artists from China, France, Italy, Slovakia, Spain, The United Kingdom, Canada, across the United States and Chicago, this collective effort supports and encourages individual action on climate change and steps towards a better future for all. Performances are pay what you can, and will have general admission and re-seating all evening.
Climate Change Theatre Action (CCTA) is a worldwide series of readings and performances of short climate change plays. The series features 50 playwrights representing over 25 cultures, from industrialized and developing countries, urban and rural areas from every inhabited continent on the globe. Some are from low-lying island nations threatened by sea level rise, others are from countries facing severe heatwaves, floods, or droughts. Some are recent migrants, some inhabit the country their ancestors chose or were brought to, and many live on and fiercely protect the land where they were born. Together, they create an incredibly diverse and talented group with widely different perspectives.
With collaboration from Global Hive Laboratories, Pride Arts Center, BoucheWHACKED! Theatre Collective, La Compagnie Certes, Fusion Theatre Company, and in association with the Center for Sustainable Practice in the Arts, NoPassport Theatre Alliance, The Arctic Cycle, Theatre Without Borders, and York University, the event will include live performances directed by producer Denise Yvette Serna, producer Iris Sowlat, Olivia Lilley, Carolina Migli Bateson, Ryan Oliveira, and material developed with artists across the globe.
Readings will include new works by Elaine Avila, Carolina Migli Bateson, Amy Berryman, Clare Duffy, Angella J. Emurwon, Kendra Fanconi, Jordan Hall, Lisa Schlesinger, Marcia Johnson, Hiro Kanagawa, Sarena Parmar, Katie Pearl, Ryan Oliveira, Caridad Svich, and Jordan Tannahill.
Check out our event, and others worldwide at the official website of Climate Change Theatre Action 2017.
Links to Participating Theatres:
Global Hive Laboratories: globalhivelabs.org
The Arctic Cycle: www.thearcticcycle.org/ccta-2017
NoPassport Theatre Alliance: www.nopassport.org
BoucheWHACKED! Theatre Collective: www.bouchewhacked.com
The Center for Sustainable Practice in the Arts: www.sustainablepractice.org
Theatre Without Borders: www.theatrewithoutborders.com
York University: http://www.yorku.ca
Pride Films & Plays: pridefilmsandplays.com/
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