Multimedia performances / Postmodern viewpoints

Brazil, France, Spain, Switzerland

This year, the 4th International Forest Festival hosts four productions from Switzerland, Spain, France and Brazil, all of which belong to the umbrella category of "Multimedia Performances / Postmodern Viewpoints". The performances range between on-stage minimalism and complex multimedia narratives, but all test the limits and possibilities of theatre. At the same time, they seem to share a common concern with the meaning of truth and reality in art, life and politics.
 
With his Attempt on Dying, Boris Nikitin transforms the personal into the political through the simplicity of a stage set which is abstract in the extreme and the autobiographical narration of episodes from his life, which brings private issues into the public sphere.
 
In contrast to Nikitin's completely stripped down set, the Spanish group Agrupación Señor Serrano use projections, live video recordings, model sets, drones and digital masks in their performance The Mountain, as they try out different materials as components of a postmodern performance in which the concept of truth is explored through wide-ranging data and multiple narratives.
 
In Julia, Christiane Jatahy uses the tools of cinema to engage in a conversation with Strindberg's classic play, bringing its dynamics into the present day in a riveting performance that renegotiates the boundaries between stage, screen and reality.
Finally, Encyclopédie de la parole record the sounds of the city and puts them on stage through actors' voices in their site-specific performance Jukebox Thessaloniki, which captures the soundscape of Thessaloniki to create a living jukebox.
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