Producer & Host: Martha Fast Horse (Sicangu Lakota)
Featured Song: “Band on the Run” by Paul McCartney & Wings
Special Guests: Rhiana Yazzie (Dine) Playwrite & Emily Johnson (Yupik) Choreographer
Pangea World theater Presents the World Premiere of Ady by Rhiana Yazzie
June 28, 2010
For Immediate Release
Pangea contact: Dipankar Mukherjee
612-203-2288 (Mobile) 612-822-0015 (Office)
dipankar@pangeaworldtheater.org
PANGEA WORLD THEATER PRESENTS THE WORLD PREMIERE OF ADY BY RHIANA YAZZIE
Minneapolis, MN – Pangea World Theater will produce the world premiere play Ady July 9 – 25, 2010 at the Playwrights’ Center. Written by Rhiana Yazzie and directed by Hayley Finn, Ady is a thought provoking story of Adrienne Fidelin (Ady), a dancer from the island of Guadeloupe. The play combines dance and image, history and imagination to bring her story to life. Ady is the final show in Pangea’s Alternate Visions Festival. This Festival has presented readings, works in progress and now this world premiere. It is supported by The Playwrights’ Center, Jerome Foundation, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian Exhibition and Publications and Expressive Arts Program made possible through a generous gift from The Ford Foundation and KFAI.
The jumping off place for this play is a Lee Miller photograph of surrealist artists including Ady, who is naked to the waist. Ady was a dancer from the island of Guadeloupe who dated surrealist photographer, Man Ray in the late 1930’s through 1941 when they were eventually separated by WWII. The two of them were surrounded by the great artists of their time including Picasso, Lee Miller, Leonora Carrington, Max Ernst, among others. Although the other women in this surrealist circle have stories with a beginning middle and end, pieced together by historians and art critics over the years, Ady’s story was lost in the narratives that made those around her great. “She comes alive through the lens of a contemporary Navajo woman who finds that they share the same face,” says playwright Rhiana Yazzie. “At last we see modern art through the eyes and perspective of Native America, a culture, like many indigenous traditions around the world that regularly used the vocabulary of surrealism and abstracts in their art and creation stories. I’ve had the opportunity to recently develop Ady not only through Pangea but also at the New York Public Theater’s New Work Now! and the Playwrights’ Center’s Ruth Easton play lab.”
“We are pleased to present the world premiere of Ady by Rhiana Yazzie,” commented Pangea’s Artistic Director Dipankar Mukherjee. “Pangea commissioned and supported the evolution of this original piece over the past two years. Rhiana’s craft and precision in creating this relevant literature is artistically rich and complex and politically relevant.” He continued, “Pangea’s commitment to Native Artists through presentation of local, national and international artists has enriched the cultural scene in the Twin Cities.”
The cast includes: Leah Nelson and Avia Bushyhead. The artistic staff includes: Rhiana Yazzie (playwright), Hayley Finn (director), Emily Johnson (Choreographer), Mike Wangen (lighting designer), Carolyn Lee Anderson (set design), Pramila Vasudevan (Media Artist), Jeffrey Stolz (Costume Designer) and Phyllis (Mel) Thorne (stage manager).
Rhiana Yazzie is a Navajo playwright originally from Albuquerque, New Mexico. This year Rhiana is a Playwrights’ Center Jerome Fellow for the second time since 2006. She is also a Playwrights’ Center Core Writer and has been jointly commissioned by the Ashland Oregon Shakespeare Festival and the NY Public Theater to write a play for American Revolutions: the United States History Cycle. Rhiana’s plays have been seen on the stages of SteppingStone Theatre for Youth Development, Teatro del Pueblo, and Mixed Blood Theatre. She is also an award-winning writer of plays for radio and for youth. Her most recent Theatre for Young Audiences play produced by La Jolla Playhouse, Chile Pod, toured to 17,500 children in Southern California. Her play Ady has also been developed through the New York Public Theater’s New Work Now! and the Playwrights’ Center Ruth Easton Lab. Her website is www.rhianayazzie.com.
Hayley Finn is the Resident Director and Lab Producer at the Playwrights’ Center where she works with some of the nation’s leading and emerging playwrights. Directing credits in the Twin Cities include Hiding In The Open by Kira Obolensky (The History Theatre), Permanence Collection by Kira Obolensky and Ed Bok Lee (Walker Art Center) and Doe by Trista Baldwin (Workhaus Collective). She has directed the New York premieres of works by Sheila Callaghan including Katecrackernuts (The Flea Theater), Scab (Greenwich Street Theater), and Metal (Here Arts Center), Gary Winter’s The Lake (The Flea Theater), Golem and Dead Reckoning (both at Cherry Lane Theatre), Randal David Cook’s Fate’s Imagination (Gotham Stage Company), Rona Munro’s Bold Girls (Urban Stages), The Shoe Box at Ebbets Field by Ross Berger (Cherry Lane Theatre), Kendra Levin’s Double Sophia (Cherry Lane Theatre), and The Apology which she co-adapted with actor Yusef Bulos (The Flea Theater). Additional credits include work by Mac Wellman such as Bellagio (the Playwrights’ Center), Fnu Lnu (Theatre Outlet), and The Bad Infinity (Mac Wellman Festival), and Caryl Churchill’s Not, Not, Not, Not, Not Enough Oxygen (Drama League). She is the director and co-creator of such projects as Jigsaw Nation (Relentless Theatre) which has toured across the country (South Coast Repertory, The Curious Theater, Ellis Island) and Hysteria: Silence in Stills (Women Center Stage Festival at the Culture Project). She has assistant directed numerous plays on and Off Broadway including the Tony Award-winning productions of A View From The Bridge and Side Man. She has been a directing resident at The Flea Theater and has directed workshops and readings for such organizations as The Public Theater, New Dramatists, The New Group, and The Kitchen. Currently an Affiliated Artist at New Georges, Hayley is the recipient of the Ruth Easton Directing Fellowship, The Drama League Directing Fellowship, the TCG New Generations Future Leader Grant. She holds both a B.A. and M.A. from Brown University.
Pangea World Theater illuminates the human condition, celebrates cultural differences, and promotes human rights by creating and presenting international, multi-disciplinary theater.
Pangea is a progressive space that brings artists from very diverse backgrounds and ethnicities together to create art for a multiracial audience. As we create work at this particular time in history, when demographics are rapidly shifting, Pangea offers itself as a place where a mutual respect for differences amongst our artistic collaborators exists, not merely a tolerance for diversity. This is a core value of our artistic vision. Since 1995, Pangea has worked to create and present new possibilities and new aesthetic realities for an increasingly diverse audience. Pangea’s artistic direction evolves out of relevant shifts in the social, cultural and political pulse of the communities in which we live and work. We bring artists together to confront stereotypes, push the boundaries of their art forms and challenge audiences with diverse perspectives and aesthetic. Each season Pangea produces, commissions and presents artistic, innovative and genre-crossing works, challenging the expectations of our artists and audiences.
Ady
Produced by Pangea World Theater as a part of their Alternate Visions Festival
Written by Rhiana Yazzie and directed by Hayley Finn
July 9-25 2010, Thursday – Sunday
7:30 PM
Post play discussions following Friday and Saturday performances
$15 General Admission
$12 Students and Seniors
Performed at The Playwrights’ Center
2301 East Franklin Avenue?Minneapolis, MN 55408
http://pangeaworldtheater.org/
Special Thanks: Production Assistant: Paul Hoffinger, Performance Coach: Rick Bernardo with Professional Performance Programs, Engineer & Talent: Justin Severson, Citadel Broadcasting, and the Institute of Production & Recording.
For More Information Contact:
Martha Fast Horse 612-619-6797
www.marthafasthorse.com
www.fasthorseproductions.150m.com
www.facebook.com/martha.fasthorse
www.myspace.com/fasthorseproductions
This Public & Cultural Affairs Radio Program of Fast Horse Productions hits the airwaves every Sunday Morning at 6:00 AM CST on KQRS (KQ92) 92.5 FM, KXXR (93X) 93.7 FM & WGVX (LOVE 105) 105.1 FM in the Twin Cities. Listen online at www.kqrs.com, www.93x.com & www.love105.fm