Pitch Sessions

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ISPA Pitch Session Summaries
Sunday, December 14, Barbican Cinema

We've received a group of diverse, challenging, exciting and very creative Pitches from all over the world – have a look at the detail, and make sure you meet the artists after the Pitch Session on Sunday at the ProEx.

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TAMASHA THEATRE COMPANY, “STRICLY DANDIA”
PITCH PANEL: Kristine Landon-Smith and Sudha Bhuchar, Artistic Directors
CONTACT: Bryan Savery, Tel. 44 20 7609 2411, bryansavery@tamasha.org.uk
Theater with dance
Kristine Landon-Smith, Director and Co-Writer and Bryan Savery, General Manager, Tamasha Theatre Company
London, England
Cast of 14
Premiered August 2003 in Edinburgh
This production has already been produced in England, however, there is room for either an international tour or further developments of the production in collaboration with another country. Tamasha Theatre Company is a British Asian Theatre Company.
A story of love across the boundaries. Set during the Gujarati mating season of Navratri, nine nights of dancing when young men and women take to the dance floor in a bid to attract the “right” partner, and the eye of the judges looking to crown the next Diwali King and Queen. Caste divisions are rife, allegiances are challenged, and when an outsider dances his way into the heart of the most eligible girl, the stakes are raised.
Choreography by Liam Steel, winner for Strictly Dandia of the Herald Angel Award at the Edinburgh International Festival. Original music by celebrated multi-instrumentalist Shri (Shrikanth Sriram).
Budget/Fee: 22,000-25,000 British Pounds

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A CHAIR IN LOVE
PITCH PANEL: Barbara Scales
CONTACT: Barbara Scales, Tel. 514-276-2694/ mobile 514-241-1363 (Montreal), scalesb@aol.com
New Opera by Welsh/Canadian composer John Metcalf and Quebec playwright Larry Tremblay
Stage Director/Producer Keith Turnbull
Scenic Designer David Gaucher, Music Director Normand Forget
Montreal, Quebec
Represented by Barbara Scales, Latitude 45
"A Chair in Love” is being produced under a three year Joint Agreement on Cultural Co-operation between the Government of Quebec and The British Council
Will premiere June 2005 at Espace Go, Montreal—European premiere at the Taliesin Arts Centre, Swansea in October 2005.
Truman, an “urban angst’ film maker wakes up to read the reviews of his film which premiered last night. He is heralded as a genius who “can make us believe in coitus between a knife and a spoon.” He rushes home, feeling in his heart a desperate need to love, goes back to his studio and falls in love with his chair. His dog gets jealous and complications ensue.
Work is conceived for four singers: Truman (baritone), the Chair (soprano), the Dog (bass) and Dogtor/Doctor (mezzo, and the wind quintet Pentaedre.
Budget: $270,000 Canadian

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VODOU NATION—a music theatre production
CONTACT: Jan Ryan—UK Arts International, Tel. 44 1905 26424, janryan@ukarts.com
Produced by UK Arts Productions in association with West Yorkshire Playhouse
Directed by Brett Bailey and Geraldine Connor
Design concept by Brett Bailey
Music composed by Richard Morse
Cast of 16
Based in Worcester, UK
World Premiere at West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds, UK in June 2004
Combining electrifying music and dance with a film-scape, exuberant costumes and pyrotechnics, Vodou Nation is built around the unique sounds of Ram, Haiti’s foremost Vodou band. With RaRa horns and Petro drums alongside rhythm and bass guitars, the show takes the audience on an ecstatic and spectacular experience that commemorates 2004, the bi-centenary of the world’s first independent Black state and the first successful slave revolt.
Vodou Nation plays in Leeds for five weeks before embarking on a short UK tour and a three week run in Edinburgh, We are remounting it in 2005 for a tour of North America, Europe and Australia.
Budget: 300,000 Pounds

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GRACE, BY JOE INK
PITCH PANEL: Joe Laughlin, Artistic Director/Choreographer and Jamie Griffiths, New Media Artist
CONTACT: Joe Laughlin, Tel. 604-255-6002 (Vancouver), joeink@telus.net;
Jamie Griffiths, Tel. 603-734-7104, spiraleye@telus.net
Dance and interactive technology
Choreographed by Joe Laughlin. New Media Artist Jamie Griffiths
Based in Vancouver, B.C., Canada
An interactive multimedia dance performance exploring the creative edge, where human power meets divine intervention, where creator and creation become one.
Will premiere October 2004 at the Scotiabank Dance Centre in Vancouver, BC.
Interactive multi-media dance: the performance technology is interactive to the dancers’ movements, allowing real-time control with the body of the visuals and sounds onstage. The Dancer is joined Visualist using start of the art motion capture video technology, who responds, adjusts, interprets and introduces new sounds and images to the stage.
Budget: $50,000 Canadian

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BUWALSKY, A ROAD OPERA, BY OPERA SPANGA
PITCH PANEL: Corina van Eijk, Art. Manager and Jonathan Levi, Librettist/Producer Buwalsky USA
CONTACT: Saskia van Roekel, Tel. 0031 204 75 1135, Mobile 0031 6513 02866 (Amsterdam) saskia@operaspanga.nl
Produced by Saskia van Roekel
Artistic Manager Opera Spanga and Director, Corina van Eijk,
Composer Mel Marvin, Librettist Jonathan Levi, Conductor Jan van Maanen
Based in Amsterdam, Netherlands
5 singers, 8 musicians, conductor
Will premiere July 21, 2004 in Spanga , The Netherlands
Buwalsky is the most unattractive man on the face of the Earth, yet his
hands radiate an irresistible attraction on almost all women. Repelled by
his own power, Buwalsky spends all his time watching television and loses his heart to Lada, the lead in a TV thriller series of the same name. As their worlds collide, romance blossoms but turns eventually to tragedy. This Wozzeck-Meets-La Femme Nikita is written in 10 scenes for 5 singers and small ensemble and 10 lushly-orchestrated filmed interludes, by Americans Mel Marvin and Jonathan Levi, the Director of the Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College.
Budget: 780,000 Euro

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ALAN PATON’S CRY, THE BELOVED COUNTRY
PITCH PANEL: Roy Sargeant, Producer
CONTACT: Michael Maas, (27)-(21)-410-9921 (Cape Town, South Africa), mmaas@artscape.co.za
Produced by Artscape, Michael Maas CEO and Roy Sargeant
Directed by Heinrich Reisenhofer, with designs by Peter Cazalet and lighting by Kobus Rossouw. Adaptation by Roy Sargeant. Music and dancing staged by Nhanhia Mavundla.
Cast of 13
Based in Cape Town, South Africa
Premiered in South Africa in June/July 2003
The first-ever professional stage adaptation of this famous novel, that deals with two fathers, one white, one black and their two sons. The black son murders the white son and from this seeming confrontation, Paton fashions a story of forgiveness and reconciliation. The play deals with two journeys, the one geographical, the other spiritual. The problems of racial divide are conveyed with simplicity, and a compassionate sincerity resulting in an absorbing and deeply moving experience. It is a story of beauty and terror, of sin, punishment, forgiveness and restitution.
Budget: RSA rands 310,000

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FRACTAL VOICES
PITCH PANEL: Tilde Bjorfors, Artistic Director and Aasa Lassfolk, Producer
CONTACT: Max Dagar, Tel. 45.35.43.33.02 (Norsborg, Sweden), maxcirk@mail.tele.dk
Contemporary circus
Produced by Cirkus Cirkör based in Norsborg, Sweden
In cooperation with Karolinska Institutet of Medical and Physical Science in Stockholm.
Artistic Director Tilde Bjorfors
Cast of 10 circus artists and 3 musicians
Will premiere in Stockholm, September 2004
The work will be a performance about the inner and outer universe of the body – the universe which is inside of every human being. The audience will follow 10 artists exploring the limits of body and the freedom of mind. The show aims to combine the most different expressions of the young and eager acrobats with the more experienced artists from the environment of Cirkus Cirkör. Together with the set, the science, the installations, the music and the artists will create an explode energy with breaks, beauty and silence within. All held together with self-ironic humor and poetic sensuality. A trade mark for Cirkus Cirkör!
Budget: $905,000 US

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TEOREMA, BY EMIO GRECO/PC AND TONEELGROEP AMSTERDAM
PITCH PANEL: Hans Dowit, Head of Toneelgroep Amsterdam and Annet Huizing, Business Coordinator for Emio Greco/PC
CONTACT: Annet Huizing,, Tel. 31 (0) 20 6167240 Mobile 31 06 15072725 (Amsterdam), annethuizing@egpc.nl
A production by Toneelgroep Amsterdam, in co-production with Emio Greco/PC and Kaaitheater.
Theatre and contemporary dance
Based in Amsterdam, Netherlands
Cast of 11
Premiered in Brussels October 10, 2003
90 minutes
Directed and choreographed by Emio Greco and Pieter C. Scholten.
Based on Pier Paolo Pasolini film of 1968. Story describes a bourgeois family—the father a patriarch and factory owner, the positions of mother, daughter, son and maid all defined accordingly. A stranger comes to visit and when he leaves, the lives of all family members have radically changed.
In this staging of Teorema, the dance of EG/PC will be exposed to language and to a narrative structure. What can dance add to text-theatre, can the directness o f bodily expression be equaled by words? Or can words be so strong they perhaps don’t even need a body?
Budget: not indicated

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ISABELLA’S ROOM, BY JAN LAUWERS & NEEDCOMPANY
PITCH PANEL:
CONTACT: Jan Lauwers, Tel. 32 2 218 40 75/ Mobile 32-495 27 17 24 (Brussels) inge@needcompany.org
Artistic Director Jan Lauwers, Lead Producer Luc Galle, General Manager Christel Simons
Based in Brussels, Belgium
Cast of 9
Will premiere July 2004 at Festival D’Avignon, France
The 103-year-old Isabella lives in a service flat that is connected to the research department of the academic hospital. Isabella is blind and she sees via a camera that directly projects images into her brain. When she was 78 years old and they had found out that she was blind she had agreed to this experiment because she thought she would live only a few years more.
Isabella’s room is plenty of memories. Every scratch or spot, every picture, press cutting or object has a story. Whether these stories are true or fictional, whether what Isabella sees is real or an image from her memory, you can no longer tell.
This production is constructed as an epic narration in which text, music and dance are equally important. Nine performers reveal together the secret of Isabella’s room with as central figure the monumental actress Viviane De Muynck.
Budget: 959,225 Euros