[Nettime-bold] DEAD TECH in DUMBO/NYC

[karen greco <karengreco@rcn.com>]

Dear Friend,
Things are going badly. I've got this young buck crawling up my ass. Then
there's the sweet young thing who's been hitting on me. She's obsessed.
Aline is freaking out. I feel like I'm living in an Ibsen play. Please come
see me. 
--Solness 

"The Downtown Lincoln Center!" Paper Magazine

HERE

Goes Site-Specific with the World Premiere of

DEAD TECH

A Reinterpretation of  The Master Builder Using Architectural and
Technological Texts to Recreate Ibsenıs Classic Play for the Post Modern Age
Performed at the former Puritan Iron Foundry, 56 Water Street in Brooklyn's
DUMBO

New York, New York January 3, 2002‹HERE is proud to present Dead Tech, a
site-specific, radical reworking of Ibsenıs The Master Builder.  Ibsen's
classic tale of internal conflicts and broken relationships is given fresh
treatment by HEREıs Executive Director Kristin Marting and Celise Kalke,
Dead Tech who have adapted the play and integrated it with architectural and
technological texts that speak clearly to a modern audience.  Directed by
Ms. Marting, Dead Tech begins previews on Thursday, January 31 for a limited
engagement through Saturday, February 23.  Opening Night is Monday, February
4th at 8:00 PM.  The regular performance schedule is Wednesday ­ Sunday at
8:00 PM; with the added performance for Opening Night.  Dead Tech performs
at the former Puritan Iron Foundry, 56 Water Street in Brooklyn's DUMBO.
Tickets are $15 on Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays; $18 on Fridays and
Saturdays.  For tickets and information, the general public can call (212)
647-0202 or visit www.here.org.

DEAD TECH has original music by Todd Griffin, multiple video feeds, a
panoply of 20th and 21st century architectural and technological texts, and
uses Marting's signature gesture choreography. All combine to explode new
life into Ibsen's masterpiece about the twisted world of Master Builder
Halvard Solness.

This new adaptation focuses on the central relationship Solness, an aging
architect who represents tradition, and Hilda, a young woman who represents
change.  In fulfilling a romantic promise to Hilda, Solness seals his own
fate by letting go of his established ideas to embrace change, change that
inspires and invigorates, but ultimately overwhelms.

The central question "How do architecture and technology reflect and define
our reality?" is explored by examining the structures and machines of the
past century, how these structures have changed in response to our cultural
needs, and how our cultural needs have been defined by these same
structures. This intersection of emotional/psychological and technological
revolution intrigues -- it reflects the time of the play when sentiment and
industry worked together to define social mores, as well as our own time,
when the promise of social equality through technology has yet to be kept.

Using Ibsen's play as a point of departure, Dead Tech is interwoven with
seminal writings on architecture and technology to help examine the uses and
importance of these elements of our post-modern age.  Books instrumental in
the creation of Dead Tech include Dead Tech: A Guide to the Archeology of
Tomorrow by Manfred Hamm, Rolf Steinberg and Robert Jungk; How Buildings
Learn by Stewart Brand; Body, Memory and Architecture by Kent C Bloomer and
Charles W. Moore; and Home by Witold Rybczynski.

"These writings contributed to our analysis of home as domestic
architecture, tower as institutional architecture, and castles in the air as
paper architecture," explains director Kristin Marting.  "We also explored
theories about how architecture is a reflection of self, and how self then
extends into the immediate, urban and global communities.  This expanded
into the transitory nature of all ideas, and how quickly they become
outmoded."

Dead Tech uses director Kristin Martingıs gesture-based performance style.
For the past ten years, Ms. Marting has been developing a unique hybrid
directorial/choreographic form that features a "gestural vocabulary" used as
both an emotional signifier and as a choreographic element. Martingıs
gestural vocabulary was inspired by the work of French theatre theorist
Francois Del Sarte (whose stylized approach to acting was the basis for the
development of melodrama as an acting style) and Eastern performance
traditions like Katakali and Kabuki (which communicate complex ideas through
a culturally specific body language). The gestures represent archetypal
emotions that signify outward emotion, inner conflict or a personality
trait.  When placed on the stage, the result represents a highly stylized
hybrid of movement and theatre, giving interpretation to emotions that may
not be immediately found in the scripted words.

Over the last 12 years, Kristin Marting (HERE co-founder and Executive
Director) has constructed 16 works for the stage, including six
dance-theatre pieces, five adaptations of novels and five classic plays.
She co-founded and served as co-artistic director of Tiny Mythic Theatre
Company for nine years.  She graduated from New York University in 1988.
She has been a guest artist and lecturer at NYU and Harvard University.

Celise Kalke is currently the Resident Dramaturg for Chicagoıs Court
Theatre.  Highlights of her work there include Hamlet directed by Charles
Newell and In the Penal Colony and Mary Stuart with JoAnne Akalaitis . Dead
Tech marks her third collaboration with Kristin Marting.  At HERE, she also
worked as dramaturg on the premieres of the Elektra Fugues, Cry Pitch
Carrolls and Night Vision.  She developed two new works from historical
material: American Rose about the Rosies who worked in U.S. defense plants
during WWII and Investigation of an Image on Pulitzer Prize winning
photojournalist Kevin Carter.  She has worked with Juilliard. BAM, the NYSF
and CSC.

Todd Griffinıs music and sound design has been an integral part of many New
York theatre productions, including an Off-Broadway revival of Steven Deitzı
Trust and Johanna S. Meyerıs Every Hotel TV Plays On at Dixon Place. In
1997, Griffin began scoring original works with the PS 122 production of
Wreckage, which he also co-created with Aaron Landesman.  He was
commissioned to write songs for Anne Bogartıs production of the Charles Mee
play bobrauchenbergamerica at the Humana Festival. In December of 1999,
Griffin and the film producer Esther Robinson formed Shiny Little Records to
release Tortuga, in which Griffin hit on his signature combination of
narrative songwriting and junk-store acoustic/electronic music that has been
dubbed Œporch-techno' and a surprise hit with critics and college radio. His
second CD, Light in the Aisles was released in July of 2001.  Griffin also
writes music for film (including contributions to Amber City by acclaimed
director Jem Cohen) and is currently contributing music to Cynthia Crootıs
staging of Uncle Vanya and Aaron Landsmanıs solo show Desk.

The design team for Dead Tech includes David Morris (set), Nancy Brous
(costume), Christien Methot  (lighting), Phil Buehler (video) and Sten
Severson (sound).

About HERE
Since opening in 1993, HERE Arts Center has housed New Yorkıs most daring
and unique theatre, art, music and dance in its three theatres, two art
galleries and café. Previous works originally produced by HERE include Eve
Enslerıs THE VAGINA MONOLOGUES, Basil Twistıs SYMPHONIE FANTASTIQUE , the
inaugural production of The Dream Music Puppetry Program, Camryn Manheimıs
WAKE UP! IıM FAT, and original musical and dance works created and directed
by Kristin Marting.

###

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