ABOUT

Under the direction of Lin Hixson, artists Selma Banich and Mislav Cavajda from Zagreb, and Chicagoans Stephen Fiehn of Cupola Bobber and Matthew Goulish, propose an encounter between Croatia and the US through responses to an unlikely, “equidistant” third entity, Swedish filmmaker Ingmar Bergman. Yugoslavian responses to Bergman, derived from the work of Dusan Makavejev (Sweet Movie), and American responses to Bergman (and Makavejev) extracted from philosopher Stanley Cavell, provide the foundation for a theatrical work that engages in the histories of utopianism and revulsion/revolt in an unjust world. Film becomes a basis for choreography, a catalogue of abandoned practices offers a degree of humor, and theater frames an encounter of difference in the delicacy of the present.

Supported by a grant from the Trust for Mutual Understanding, co-produced with OOUR and Centre for Drama Art with further support from the City Office for Culture Zagreb, The Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Croatia, ekscene platform in collaboration with CeKaO "Zagreb", The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and FACE Croatia; and is a National Performance Network (NPN) Creation Fund/Forth Fund Project co-commissioned by Performance Space 122 in partnership with Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago,Fusebox Festival and NPN. The Creation Fund is supported by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, Ford Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts (a federal agency). The Forth Fund is supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.