BRAMA Theatre Events Workshops Translations Series Newsletter Calendar Store Yara Home





photo: k.kava

RAVEN


experimental performance piece created by Yara Arts Group
exploring unknowable boundaries
based on poetry by Oleh Lysheha

KYIV:
June 11-14, Saturday-Tuesday 19:00
Kyiv-Mohyla PASIKA Theatre Center, Illinska 9, Kyiv,
reservations (044) 425-2154; kmc@ukma.kiev.ua

LVIV
June 22-23, Wednesday-Thursday 19:00
Les Kurbas Theatre, Les Kurbas St 3, Lviv
Information 272-4824, box office 272-4914

Runs less than one hour.

Yara Arts Group from La MaMa Experimental Theatre in New York will present “Raven,” an original, experimental performance piece featuring actors from America and Ukraine. The production will perform Saturday to Tuesday June 11-14 at 19:00 at the PASIKA Theatre Center at the University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy on Illinska Street 9 in Kyiv. “Raven” will also travel to Lviv where it will perform at the Kurbas Theatre June 22-23, 2011.

The bi-lingual performance was created by Virlana Tkacz with American and Ukrainian artists, based on Oleh Lysheha’s poem “Raven.” In America, Oleh Lysheha is acknowledged by many to be the best contemporary poet in Ukraine, a “poet’s poet.” In 1999 the book The Selected Poems of Oleh Lysheha (Harvard University Press) was awarded the PEN Translation Prize. Lysheha is the author of the collections: The Great Bridge (1989) To Snow and Fire (2002) and Friend Li Bo, Brother Du Fu (2010).Yara Arts Group staged Lysheha’s poem “Swan” at La MaMa Experimental Theatre in New York and at Harvard University in 2003. For Oleh Lysheha’s poem see:  www.brama.com/yara/lys11.html

“Raven” speaks to our desire to explore unknowable boundaries. Sharply delineated details from everyday life, transform to reveal the true nature of reality. Birds, trees and fruit bear messages for the careful observer. The forest protects the secrets of the invisible path. Yara’s performance features Andrew Colteaux, who previously appeared in Yara’s “Swan” based on Lysheha’s poetry. In “Raven” he is joined by Mykola Shkaraban, who appeared in the first Yara pieces, Larysa Rusnak, actress from the Franko Theatre, and Victoria Shupikova, member of the Pasika Theatre Center. All four artists created their roles last March during a Yara workshop in Kyiv. Music is by electronic composer Alla Zagaykevych who combines traditional classical music with contemporary multidisciplinary projects such as installations and performances and has been a leading proponent of electronic music in Ukraine since the 1990s. American singers Aurelia Shrenker and Eva Salina Primack (who perform together as the duo Ash / Æ) can be heard singing both Appalachian and East European songs they have specially recorded for this production. Additional music is by Julian Kytasty and movement is by Yara’s choreogrpaher Shigeko Suga. The lights are designed by Evhen Kopyov, a resident designer at the Kurbas Theatre Center in Kyiv, while the projections, including images of scared mural and nature are by Mikhail Shraga (New York) and Volodymyr Klyuzko (Kyiv).

The production of “Raven” was developed in Kyiv in March and premiered at La MaMa in New York in April where it was well received by audiences and press. “Raven incites this ensemble to glorious flight. The path flown by Raven is, by turns, intoxicating in both its simplicity and complexity. I encourage you to follow where it leads,” wrote Amy Lee Pearsallfor nytheatre.com. “This is a show you can and want to watch many times. Each time you discover something new, as I can testify, wrote Lydia Korsun in Svoboda, while Ihor Slabicky called it “a magical event that captures you and does not let you go.”

Virlana Tkacz is the artistic director of Yara Arts Group and has created twenty one productions with the company, all of which had their American premieres at La MaMa. Last year Virlana Tkacz staged "Scythian Stones" with Nina Matvienko and Kyrgyz artists. The production was shown at GogolFest, the Pasika Theatre Center and La MaMa Theatre. New York theatre critic Michael Bettencourt named it “Pick of the Week” and wrote: “The performance builds what good theatre should always build: an alternate world that allows us to re-learn and reflect upon the great questions at the core of our being human.”

Founded in 1990, Yara Arts Group, a resident company of La MaMa, creates original pieces which explore the cultures of the East.. The artists bring together poetry, song, historical and epic material to create what one critic called “an extended meditation on the idea.” The company has created eleven pieces based on materials from Ukraine and Eastern Europe, including: “A Light from the East,” “Blind Sight,” “Yara's Forest Song,” “Swan,” “Winter Sun,” and “Waterfall/Reflections.” Yara has also created six theater pieces with Buryat artists from Siberia, three with artists from Kyrgyzstan and two based on Japanese material.

The production of “Ravenat the PASIKA Theatre Center was made possible with the support of the US Embassy in Kyiv, Coca Cola Refreshments and the friends of Yara Arts Group. Yara Arts Group, a resident company of La MaMa Experimental Theatre in New York. For more information please see www.brama.com/yara

Raven at La MaMa |plus Theatre Reviews and Pictures from La MaMa
Ворон - Пасіка - Київ - 10-14 червня 2011
and workshop in Kyiv - майстерня у Києві

Yara Home


If you would like to be included on our mailing list
send us your name and full postal address

or write to:

Yara Arts Group
306 East 11th St., #3B
New York, NY 10003 USA

Phone/Fax: 212-475-6474
Email: yara@prodigy.net

Let us what you think of our work and site.

Top of page | Arts & Culture | Yara Homepage
BRAMA, Inc.
Copyright (c)1995-2011 Yara Arts Group; all rights reserved. Graphic by Myhail Shraga.

BRAMA Home -- UkraiNEWStand -- Community Press -- Calendar
Advertise on BRAMA -- Search BRAMA
Copyright © 1997-2011 BRAMA, Inc.tm, Inc. All Rights Reserved.