INTRODUCING: LARA WEEK - designer, producer, writer

I was introduced to Lara by our friend, Genevieve, who thought that we would "click" and found a common ground when it comes to making theatre and Genevieve was right. But before we had a chance to meet in person,  I saw Lara's drawings based on Witkacy's photographs and that was enough to make me want to meet and talk to her. After all: How often do you meet soemone young, on the other end of the world, who is fascinated with your home land hero? So we met, we talked and we decided to start co-operation with the WITKACY READINGS. Lara's Witkacy drawings will be on display at La Mama during our presentation on the last wekend of August.

Also: Lara joins Auto Da Fe for EVERYMAN & THE POLE DANCERS as our Production Manager and further down the track she will design ABBA I AM NOT.
Here is Lara's website: http://www.laraweek.com/

Currently Lara is working on  bringing to Australia The Tribal Soul's production of THE MAN WHO COMMITTED THOUGHT. Here is the info and the invitation:

Event page on facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/1416144178675001/

Tickets: http://www.trybooking.com/Booking/BookingEventSummary.aspx?eid=89546

Bookings for EVERYMAN & THE POLE DANCERS:  BOOK NOW

Introducing NORIKO TADANO - shamisen master

EVERYMAN & THE POLE DANCERS' music will be composed and played live by NORIKO TADANO.
Noriko became very popular after her success with Australia's Got Talent, where she performed together with George Kamikawa - the duo making it all the way to the finals ( Noriko & George @ Australia's Got Talent  ).  Her main interest lies in mixing more traditional forms of Japanese folk music with contemporary western influences. And this is exactly what attracted our attention. I believe that the way she "sees" music and theatre will fit perfectly with our style of production. The combination of traditional, exotic and deliacately beautiful on one hand with brutally modern, everydayish and simply ugly will bring us the desired impact. Noriko's music will be a vital part of it.

Links:
Noriko on ABC TV

https://myspace.com/norikotadano

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Noriko-Tadano-Official-Facebook/117639724992803

http://www.japaninmelbourne.com.au/artice439/

"Noriko Tadano plays both traditional Japanese folk songs (Minyo) as well as original pieces on the Tsugaru Shamisen (Japanese Banjo). She has been playing Shamisen since she was 6 years old and has performed in Japan, Europe, Canada, Tonga and at festivals and events all over Australia. While traditional Minyo depicts the life and feelings of 'older' Japan, centering around the themes of love, family and the close connection with nature, Noriko's original pieces explore feelings and experiences through melodic notes and often heart pounding beats.

Noriko’s recent achievements include the ‘2009 Head Judge’s Special Award’ at the National Japanese Shamisen Competition held in Hirosaki - Japan, a solo performance at the Sydney Opera House and a number of dynamic shows at the International WOMADelaide world music festival with George Kamikawa 2010. She also performed on the popular ABC music quiz TV show ‘Spicks and Specks’ in February 2010. 

Noriko is the founder of Australia’s first Shamisen group the ‘Shamys’. They formed in 2005 and have performed at cultural festivals and concerts throughout Victoria. With a mix of traditional and contemporary songs, the Shamisen ensemble creates powerful and synchronised sounds that engage the audience." (after Japan Art Directory in Australia: http://jad.jpf-sydney.org/artists/noriko-tadano/index.html )


Bookings for  EVERYMAN & THE POLE DANCERS:
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Introducing NAOMI OTA - visual instalation artist/ designer

Our designer for EVERYMAN & THE POLE DANCERS is NAOMI OTA. I was introduced to Naomi and her work by Matt Crosby, who is a big fan of hers. We met, we talked, we agreed to collaborate. Everyman & The Pole Dancers seemed like an ideal platform to start our collaboration.
Here are some links to Naomi's work:

http://museumvictoria.com.au/collections/themes/3514/naomi-ota-japanese-migrant-artist-circa-1990

www.naomiota.com

http://jad.jpf-sydney.org/artists/naomi-ota/index.html

http://www.multiculturalarts.com.au/artists/visual/naomiota.shtml

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qb5gPi9AMNQ

Naomi Ota - Visual installation artist

Naomi Ota is an installation artist whose work uses fibrous materials.  Her works ranges in scale from small detailed pieces to large spatially interactive designs. Naomi often draws on images and memories from the natural world and from the earth; places connected to emotional memory, places faraway in the imagination and calling on her memories of growing-up in Japan. Naomi’s works have been exhibited in various exhibitions in Australia, Singapore, Belgium, France, UK and Japan. Her works are in public collections, which include National Gallery of Victoria, Museum of Victoria, Art Bank and Kyoto Nishijin Textile Industrial Association. Naomi has extended her practice to include work on a range of national and international projects spanning butoh, contemporary dance, intercultural theatre, and experiential arts projects where she contributes interactive design and spatial elements. Her process is intuitive and collaborative. The result is often to lead the viewer to a more interactive sense of the performance space and an understanding of how expressive qualities of performance are multidimensional. Naomi has PhD in textile art from RMIT University and MAs in fine arts from RMIT University and the Kyoto City University of Arts, Japan 

Bookings for EVERYMAN & THE POLE DANCERS:  BOOK NOW

Friends of Auto Da Fe

Dear friends:

We need you! Quite desperately - as each theatre company needs audiences, each production needs spectators, each event needs participants...

There is a plan  in place. The plan starts with the WITKACY READINGS @ La Mama in August, followed by EVERYMAN & THE POLE DANCERS @ Metanoia Theatre in Melbourne first , then opening again in Tokyo. Then the next year our  very own Auto Da Fe Theatre  Laboratory will present  MUTE (written and directed by Matt Crosby) followed by BETWEEN HEAVEN AND HER by Dodo Gombar a very exciting playwright and the Artistic Director of the  Svandovo Divadlo Na Smichove Theatre Co. from Prague. And we will finish 2015 with ABBA- I AM NOT a sequel to EVERYMAN & THE POLE DANCERS.

In 2016 we are already planning a return co-production with Shinjuku Ryozanpaku and a Witkacy Project (most likely based on the Tropical Craze). As you can see, we are looking well into the future and we are trying to build a supporter base, which will make our endeavours worthwhile. We need to reach out to you and we need to let you know what our plans are.  And, as I said before: We need You! The friend, the spectator... We need a theatre addict, who can help us to be. Without whom our plans, our work do not make sense at all.

Matt Crosby invented a brilliant platform for our communication and mutual support: The Auto Da Fe Friends structure. You can read it, you can share your opinions with us, but most importantly: You can help us by introducing your circle of friends to the Friends of Auto Da Fe.

The details are to be found on our website: https://sites.google.com/site/autodafetheatre/friends

So, help us, please - the theatre needs You, we need You, we cannot exist without You.

Get behind us like a sports' fan gets behind his team - and we promise to do everything possible to deliver and to put on a production after production which You will be proud to be a part of.

Thank You, my friends. In advance.

Thank You, regardless of your decision - thank You for listening,

Lech

Bookings for EVERYMAN & THE POLE DANCERS:  BOOK NOW

A quick up-date on the Witkacy Project:
The first part of this long term undertaking will take place at the Melbourne's legendary La Mama Theatre - as previously announced - on the 30th & 31st of August 2014. We will perform  readings of  THE BRAVE PRINCESS, THE POOR LITTLE BOY, COCKROACHES - three of Witkacy's juvenile micro- plays, the Witkacy PORTRAIT PAINTING FIRM REGULATIONS - the most bizzare and absurd set of rules one could imagine and yet, so amazingly honest and amusing and... fun to oblige and to perform, the excerpts from THE TROPICAL CRAZE (MR. PRICE) and fragments of Introduction to The Pure Form In Theatre. The translations are in progress with the first four works done and the latter two still to be completed.
Additionaly the  Witkacologia.eu website offered us helping hand in promoting the event and possibly providing a Skype presence of one of their Witkacy specialists with a short lecture/introduction in case we need it. As our own Australian Witkacy addict, Professor John Gillies, agreed to do the intro lecture on The Pure Form and its Author, we may not need the help of the overseas men of knowledge, but it is nice to know that WITKACOLOGIA.EU people have noticed our event. They are the best experts in Witkacy work, art, philosophy and life in the world after all.

EVERYMAN & THE POLE DANCERS is now open for bookings , too.
The season starts on the 1st of October 2014 as part of the Melbourne Fringe Festival. You can book through the Fringe Festival website or through the Metanoia Theatre.
I will start introducing the cast and crew of the show soon.

Bookings for EVERYMAN & THE POLE DANCERS:  BOOK NOW

INVITATION to La Mama

WITKACY READINGS

AUGUST 30 & 31

Every so often one of those events comes along. Lech Mackiewicz, Auto Da Fe Theatre and associate artists will celebrate the 100th year anniversary of Pure Form originator Witkacy’s stay in Australia during WWI.

A bohemian mob of Melbourne’s finest will gather inside and round the outside fire. Irini Vella will play, Witkacy’s wild absurdism will sing and his ideas on the Pure Form will find air.

Directed by Lech Mackiewicz

Music improvised by Irini Vella

Performers: Jane Bayly, Matt Crosby, Maude Davey, Tom Davies, Kathleen Doyle, Lech Mackiewicz, Majid Shokor, Brendon Snow, Emily Tomlins and Reece Vella.

Sat, Sun 2pm

$15 Full | $10 Concession | Approx 120 Minutes 

La Mama Theatre

Witkacy in Australia - 100th anniversary

WITKACY

Witkacy  ! Committed suicide on 18 September 1939 ( a drug overdose combined with wrists slitting). He was 54 when he died. An eccentric artist and free thinker, not widely recognized during his lifetime nowdays he is listed as a  leading theatrical innovator and one of the outstanding artists of the European avant-garde: The Forefather of the Theatre of Absurd. The creator of  The Pure Form In Theatre. Playwright and artist Sanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz commonly known as "Witkacy", was a Polish playwright, novelist, painter, photographer and philosopher. He wrote about 40 plays, which were directly challenging (and mocking, too) the most popular theatre conventions of his times, mostly operetta, melodrama and farce. Only 21 of his works for theatre survived the World War Two. 

Why mention him now?

 This year – 2014 – marks the 100th anniversary of  Witkacy’s trip to Australia. In 1914 Witkacy was invited to take part in a British scientific expedition to Oceania as a photographer-illustrator with a task of documenting the research.  In July 1914 the expedition arrived in Australia, where Witkacy learned about the outbreak of the First World War. He decided to return to Europe.

That short stay in Australia made a big impact on the artist himself and on his later writings. It consequently resulted in Witkacy's "tropical" plays inspired by the playwright's trip to the land Down Under: 

“Mr. Price, or Tropical Madness is a drama of heightened passion and greed among British colonists in Rangoon who seem to have stepped out of Joseph Conrad's tales of the South Seas.

Metaphysics of a Two headed Calf, set in New Guinea and Australia, pits savage European imperialists against a native tribal Australia and pits savage European imperialists against a native tribal chieftain whose fetish of a great golden frog offers greater insight into the mystery of existence than the Westerners' shallow rationalism.

Both plays puncture the white rulers' poses of superiority and parody their images of the tropical” * (From the foreword to the American Edition of Witkacy’s plays translated by Daniel Gerould)

Here is our long term plan: Auto Da Fe will be revisiting Witkacy’s works in context of their relation to Australia ( Australia being a socio-geo-metaphysical phenomenon in Witkacy’s life)  as part of our research/experimental wing. The Witkacy Project will not be limited to the two above mentioned plays, but they lend themselves as a natural starting point for this kind of journey. No rush, no hurry.  We will take it step by step. 

P.S. For those interested: This year a Sydney based Australian installation artist John Gillies is planning to launch his film-installation project focusing on Witkacy’s visit to Australia - “The End Of The Line”:  http://vimeo.com/85526539