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Found on-line:Texas Performance Labs
presentsZero LibertadMarch 20-21 (Saturday-Sunday) and March 25-28 (Thursday-Sunday), 8 p.m.
The Vortex Cafè, 2307 Manor Road
Tickets: $10-$30 Sliding Scale
512-478-LAVA (5282) or www.vortexrep.org
Thursday and Sunday 2-for-1 admission with donation of 2 non-perishable food items for Safe Place Pantry.
Limited seating. Advanced purchase recommended.
Texas Performance Labs proudly presents Zero Libertad, an inter-modal arts guerilla-pop spectacle that channels war-survivor Zero Libertad’s life while entangled in the Contra conflict of Nicaragua. Written and performed by Alana Macías and directed by Heather Barfield. Macías portrays Zero Libertad, performing betwixt and between the living and the dead, integrated with music, film, visual and live art, high and low culture, pain and pleasure, glam and slam. Audiences will be bombarded with velocity and stimuli in order to experience on a visceral level how the Contra war of Nicaragua was experienced by one broken spirit.
Zero Libertad combines electronic beats, found sound, film treated with animation techniques, a live 60’s-style girl group, gestural language, and cultural intersections from 1980’s & 90’s Miami. This explosive piece aims to strangle you with a velvet glove. Zero Libertad wants you but she may kill you instead.
Co-starring the illustrious Yvonne Oaks, Katherine Craft, Jorge Sermini, with live DJ accompaniment by Zach Landreneau and animation by Adam Flemming. Texas Performance Labs is Alana Macías , Heather Barfield and Martha Lynn Coon.
Alana Macías is a founding company member of Texas Performance Labs. Alana holds an MFA in Writing for Performance from CalArts in Los Angeles, CA. Her work has been produced by the Theater Key West New Plays Festival, the Ford Amphitheater Latino Playreading Series, Ground Zero Theater Company, and Kitchen Dog Theater. She was a Finalist for the 2007 Sundance Screenwriters' Lab, the 2007 Jerome Fellowship at the Playwrights' Center, and the Public Theater's 2007-2008 Emerging Writers Program.
Heather Barfield has been an active player in Austin performance for nearly two decades. She is currently a doctoral student in Performance as Public Practice at the University of Texas at Austin, with an emphasis on feminist performance art and post-modern shamanism.
This project is funded in part by the City of Austin through the Cultural Arts Division. Produced with the support of VORTEX Repertory Company.
The Rude Mechanicals' Dionysus in 69 is a charming exercise in theatre archeology, one that captivates us by illustrating how sincere, how naive and how lucky we were to be living back in the dark, dark days of 1968.Back in 1968, the Performance Group's interpretation of Euripides' The Bacchae resounded with the times. Their canny staging of the ancient classic about violence, ritual, unknowing and ecstasy scandalized conventional citizens and captured the imagination of the young -- that earnest generation of forty years ago who were about the age of the Austin's Rude Mechanicals today.The nudity sold the show then, and the Rudes' press photos suggest that they understand well that aspect of the marketing. And these young folk are without exception all very handsome in their skins, displayed confidently and unselfconsciously in key group rituals portraying of birth, death, and murder. The Rudes' re-enactment is based on films of the original and it benefits from workshops and discussions with Richard Schechner, director of that path-breaking production. Schechner is now an eminence grise, a venerable elder and NYU professor. He was invited to Austin by UT's Humanities Institute and was scheduled for a discussion and talk-back for the second performance on Friday, December 4.Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .
Published on-line, October 29:“Artaud’s Daughters in New Media Culture”
The Américo Paredes Center for Cultural Studies presents a talk by Theatre & Dance PhD student Heather Barfield.Monday, November 3, 12-1pm
E. P. Schoch building – EPS 1.128 University of Texas at Austin
Austin theater company Rubber Repertory is pushing the limits of theater and live performance into the 21st century. In their latest production, The Casket of Passing Fancy, they ardently integrate interactivity without apology. “You must choose,” demands the Duchess who sits at the helm of the parlor. You must take your chances and honor the infinite possibilities of presence and liveness; you decide whether you want a tame or taboo offer; you initiate the transaction by raising your hand. You realize there is a precipice to pass behind those curtains: what will happen to you is a mystery that pumps adrenaline through your excited body. You must shed some fear about human-to-human contact, stranger-to-stranger relations, in order to fully engage the senses and take pleasure (or pain) in the performance made just for you. You are thrust from complacent and passive spectatorship.
This production astutely captures the essence of Antonin Artaud’s manifestos on “cruel theater” practices. Also, because the performances are individual and personal, they are performed only once, aligning with Peggy Phelan’s arguments about the ephemeral nature of performance. Taboos are temporarily suspended for the sake of pleasure and fetishistic notions of experiencing something “new.” This theater offers a radical and unique twist on notions of representation and mimesis in live performance.
Heather Barfield is a PhD Candidate in Theater and Dance with an emphasis on Performance as Public Practice. She has been an active player in Austin theater for over 15 years.
[Click for further info from the ALT listing of The Casket of Passing Fancy]
