FLANEUR PRODUCTIONS Presents: Dérive 2

This August, Open Eye Figure Theater will host Flaneur Productions' Dérive 2 , the

second iteration of Flaneur's annual evening of short performance works. This year's

Dérive will feature short performance pieces by Flaneur's Jim Bovino , Bedlam Theater's

John Bueche , contemporary dance duo HIJACK (Kristin Van Loon & Arwen Wilder),

and the International Novelty Gamelan .

 

Dérive 2 will be presented :

 

Thursday through Saturday, August 21-23 and 28-30

Monday, August 25

All Shows at 8:00pm

At OPEN EYE FIGURE THEATER , 506 East 24th Street, Minneapolis Admission $14 , but no one will be turned away for lack of funds

 

As in last year's edition, Flaneur has provided artists creating work for Dérive 2 with a

text to respond to as a starting point for their work - this year, the text is Samuel

Beckett's 1983 short play What Where. Like most of Beckett's works, What Where

resists an absolute interpretation, but it does feature interrogation which may or may not

be violent, and disappearances which may or may not be permanent - timely themes for

the 2008 Republican National Convention.

With a nod to the Situationists' derive (pronounced "dehr eve"), a group stroll with a

known starting point but no fixed destination, Dérive asks participants to embark on a

journey together, reexamining anything they encounter along the way.   Artists - chosen

by Flaneur - are all given the same "obstructions" as starting points (2007's obstructions

were an out-of-context fragment of Portuguese literature and empty room in an old coffin

factory), then encouraged to work with absolute creative freedom in creating short

performance works from them.   As in a dérive , they are asked to interrupt their everyday

patterns to embark on a journey with an unknown destination.

A significant change in structure for Dérive 2 will be the introduction of a "control" piece

into the evening's experiment.   Flaneur's co-Artistic Director Jim Bovino will direct the

evening's first piece - What Where, as written, without alteration or interpretation. The

work that follows - pieces by Bueche, HIJACK, and the International Novelty Gamelan -

will be based in part on Bovino's work, as well as on the text itself.

As thousands of activists flood the Twin Cities to protest the politics of the Republican

Party. Arts groups will present pointedly political work that criticizes eight years of

Rightist domination of the national discourse.   As an alternative to strict polemics, Dérive

will feature multi-disciplinary work that raises questions rather than answering them.

 

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For more information about Dérive 2, please contact Flaneur Productions co-Artistic

Director Don Mabley-Allen, at (612) 203-9560, or don@flaneurproductions.com.