CONTINUOUS CITY timeline
Work in progress, Krannert Centre, University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana, July 2007.
Through 2007-8, The Presence Project will be closely following the development of The Builders Association's current project, CONTINUOUS CITY. As the project evolves, so this site will offer insights into the company's process and this project's developing character and implications.
CONTINUOUS CITY considers the sense of place within a global context, and how electronic connection contributes to--and complicates--that sense of place. We are at a watershed moment where more people in the world are living in cities than in rural environments – from the megaslums of Lagos and Mumbai to the gated communities of Palm Springs. CONTINUOUS CITY is a meditation on how contemporary experiences of location and dislocation stretch us to the maximum as our ‘networked' selves occupy multiple locations. During the development of the project, company members will travel to various megacities around the world to create and collect video material, including Mumbai, Lagos, and Mexico City. The company has begun to develop the frame for these components during residencies at the Krannert Center and the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana.
Integral to CONTINUOUS CITY is a website designed as a performance space where members of the public may participate in the project by joining a chorus, entering into dialogue with characters and uploading images, all of which may be added to the theatrical production. Uploaded material may also be viewed from the site.
Visit [link] to explore and participate in this part of the project.
As this process develops in close collaboration with the company, this page will provide access to a changing timeline of key events and collaborations, with contributions from Marianne Weems, Artistic Director of The Builders Assocaition, as well as company members and project contributors. The site will also provide commentary and analysis by Presence Project collaborators.
Ranging from extracts from Marianne Weems' preparatory notebooks to interviews at key moments with company members to analyses and accounts of process and outcomes, this process will provide a unique dialogue between The Presence Project and the evolution of a major theatrical work.
timeline
notes towards CONTINUOUS CITY
Krannert centre, July 2007
Work in progress, Krannert Centre, University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana, July 2007.
UC Berkeley workshops, September-October 2007
CONTINUOUS CITY: Excerpts from a work in progress by The Builders Association, Zellerbach Playhouse,
UC Berkeley Art Museum Theatre, 5-7, 11-13 October 2007.
script development, january 2008
design development workshop, february 2008
residency at The Kitchen, NYC, june 2008
rehearsal, spring/summer 2008
opening, fall 2008
All images courtesy of The Builders Association.
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