Why don’t we do it in the road, and in warehouses, office buildings, parking lots, parks and other alternative sites? Well, for one thing, it’s far more difficult. Without stage, lights, seating, creating a theatrical production in the street or in an empty building is not only a daunting logistic undertaking, but requires an entirely different conceptual approach.
Street C.A.T. BATYAM, the Bat Yam International Street Theatre Festival will take place from August 23 – 25, 2011, featuring a wide range of site specific and street theatre performances from Israel and abroad. To the extent that theatre is an encounter between performer and audience in the context of an environment, taking theatre out of the traditional venues brings new voices into the conversation, introducing new challenges, a multitude of variables, and a wild dance with the unexpected.
Now in its 15th year, the festival sports a new name and logo – C.A.T. stands for Creative Artistic Theatre, and new joint artistic directors Lisa Jacobson and Gil Becher ofArma Theatre. Jacobson said they chose the cat to represent the festival for its “street savvy, chutzpah, and daring” – all the qualities of a good street artist. Inviting artists to “look around and understand the power of the street,” Becher noted in a press meeting held this morning in Bat Yam, that street theatre makes a statement that is cultural and political as well as aesthetic. Becher said, “The audience meets the performer at eye level, and the performer is confronted with the audience without an intermediary, in real time.” Becher and Jacobson hope to introduce the art of street theatre to a wider audience, as Becher said, “to provoke artists to go out into the street, because it is ours, it belongs to everyone.”
There will be 6 Israeli premieres in the festival, 8 guest performances from abroad, and several special productions for the festival. Among the special productions will be STREET, a breakdance parcours skate board hip hop event; Chat Roulette (for adults or children with adult supervision) in which chats with random participants will be screened on the walls of a building; Playback theatre; a site-specific dance greenhouse project; a performance by third year students of the Sandciel Circus; and InsideOut – ThisSideUp a multimedia theatrical circus performance created by Orit Nevo.
Israeli premieres include: The Red Balloon, a site specific physical theatre work inspired by Albert Lamorisse’s wonderful 1956 film, in which the main character is a red balloon; Cabaret Voltaire, with Muhammad Bakri performing for the first time in the street theatre festival; Simantov – a three person physical theatre performance about a woman in search of a wedding; Bubble reel – giant bubble created through the movement of the performer’s bodies; Hadlatot (the doors) – a community theatre project from the Kiryat HaYovel neighborhood in Jerusalem, each door opens on a new person and story; The Audience – using creatively constructed chairs this performance is a reflection on the audience.
STREET C.A.T. is FREE and open to the public – the festival website will be online in the near future with additional information.
