Sneak Preview Of The 2008 NZ Int'l Arts Festival

17th July 2007

The Highly Anticipated Sneak Preview Of The 2008 NZ International Arts Festival Has Been Released

A whirlwind of outstanding theatre, dance, and music has been named in the first release for the 2008 NZ International Arts Festival under the direction of new Artistic Director, Lissa Twomey.

Speaking today Ms Twomey says, "I have spent the last 16 months listening to the city and its communities in order to understand what makes the Festival tick and how best to serve NZ audiences. I've structured a programme that I know will excite and invigorate, entertain and challenge and most importantly seize the public's imagination. I'm thrilled that I now have the opportunity to share some of these gems with you."

Straight from the National Theatre of Scotland, the smash hit of the 2006 Edinburgh Festival, Black Watch is a piece of physical political theatre from acclaimed Scottish writer Gregory Burke.

Winner of four major Critics Awards last month, including best director and best ensemble, as well as a 2006 South Bank Show Theatre Award, the production dramatises Burke's conversations with former soldiers from the famed Scottish division who served in the Iraq War.

This powerful play uses music, movement and song to catapult the audience between a pool room in Fife, Scotland, and the war-torn streets of Iraq, exploring the historical accomplishments versus the grim reality of modern warfare for one of the oldest of Scottish regiments, along the way. The impressive young cast of 10 will come to New Zealand following debut performances in New York and Australia.

In a Festival coup, super-ballerina, Sylvie Guillem will make her debut in New Zealand performing the physically and emotionally compelling work Sacred Monsters with gifted contemporary dance exponent, Akram Kahn.

Guillem has inspired the greatest choreographers of our time from Maurice Béjart and Mats Ek to Rudolf Nureyev. "Monstres sacres" was a term first coined in the 19th century, for the almost divine status conferred upon the biggest icons of the arts and sports world. This cosmopolitan event will allow New Zealand audiences to experience one of the most famous ballerinas of today as she commemorates and challenges her own 'divine status'.
Interwoven with Khan's Indian dance form, Kathak, this is a cross-cultural performance that confronts both dancers' 'monsters'.

Book of Longing is the long awaited new concert work from legendary composer Philip Glass; a musical celebration of the provocative and playful poetry of internationally celebrated poet and singer/songwriter Leonard Cohen, this performance will be an Australasian premiere.

The work sets poems from Leonard Cohen's book of the same name to music. Featuring a quartet of singers and a seven-piece instrumental ensemble drawn from indie rock, classical, and new-music circles, the rich, warm score incorporates 22 poems, spoken word and imagery that touch on love, humour and the provocative musings that ascribe to Cohen's superstar status.

"Making economic globalization work will be of little use if we cannot solve our global environmental problems". Professor Joseph Stiglitz
Nobel Laureate (economics), John F Kennedy Memorial Fellow and former economic adviser to Bill Clinton Joseph Stiglitz will headline the Festival's popular Writers and Readers Week.

A former chief economist of the World Bank, Stiglitz is a strong critic of the policies of international financial institutions, making him a hero among globalisation critics. He has expansively explored these issues in his books Globalization and Its Discontents and Making Globalization Work and will talk comprehensively on the social, political, environmental and economic issues surrounding this subject which affect us all.

The exciting programme of Writers and Readers Week events will involve leading writers and literary work from across the world and will take place on 11-16 March 2008. Professor Stiglitz's participation is assisted through the John F Kennedy Memorial Fellowship Fund, established by the New Zealand Government in 1963 for the purpose of bringing eminent Americans to New Zealand and administered by Fulbright New Zealand.

These world-class events are part of a diverse and entertaining 2008 NZ International Arts Festival programme of music, performance, literature and visual arts, which will be launched on 1 November and staged from 22 February to 16 March 2008 in Wellington.

The New Zealand International Arts Festival has released these events as part of their Season Ticket launch. Dedicated Festival goers take advantage of the Season Ticket to secure priority access for the hot ticket items of the Festival. Further information is available on www.nzfestival.co.nz or by ringing the Festival office on 04 4730149.

Critical Acclaim

Black Watch

"Black Watch is one of those shows that comes along very, very rarely, where everything works, where every judgment is right, where the whole is far greater than the sum of its parts.

"I've been going to the theatre for 40 years, 30 of them professionally, one way or another. It is among the five best shows I have ever seen."
Convener of the Critics Awards for Theatre in Scotland (CATS), Robert Dawson Scott

"The show's thrilling combination of complex political argument, hard-edged naturalism, barrack-room banter, deep regimental history, spectacular visual effects and superb music and movement remains as mind-blowing as ever."
The Scotsman (5-star review)
"Black watch is an astonishing artistic whirlwind that, despite its localised setting, is utterly international in its approach. The world must see this play. Immediately."
The Herald * * * * *
Sacred Monsters
...."Khan shows off his prowess in traditional Kathak, a display of fluidity, speed and whirring power that is so sensational it takes the breath away." Sarah Crompton Daily Telegraph Sacred Monsters at Sadler's Wells

"They react to each other with an intimacy that is hard to resist and towards the end, when they merge into each other's dance languages, their exchanges also become very beautiful."
Judith Mackrell, The Guardian . Thursday September 21, 2006

"...the meeting point of two great artists in a shared language born of childhood passion and a lifetime of adventure." Times Online

"There's playful contact, intimacy, even a suggestion of romance, but it all seems to come from what Khan and Guillem love about dancing."
Lewis Segal, LA Times 4 May 2007

Book of Longing

"Cohen's writing is full of turbulence, ambivalence and brash self-revelation. It has added punch, thanks to projections of his stunning drawings done in a Japanese woodblock style with hints of Picasso's late, haunted-looking self-portraits. All this clearly has inspired some of Glass' most overtly sensual, richly colored, deeply theatrical music in a score with echoes of Schubert, Kurt Weill and Cohen." Hedy Weiss, Chicago Sun Times 15 June 2007

"The overall experience [of Philip Glass' latest multimedia creation], the big festival premiere Book of Longing, with its pack of solid vocalists and players backing up the poetry of Leonard Cohen, was well worth the ticket.

The semi-choreographed action, creative staging, a running slideshow of Cohen's remarkable drawings and sketches, and theatrical lighting gave the senses plenty to chew on." Lindsay Koob, Charleston City Paper 20 June 2007

ENDS

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