The Creative Collaboration Project Fund, launched in August 2008, has now come to a successful close, supporting 25 distinct projects taking place all across the UK and South East Europe in 2009-10, a press release issued by the CTO has said.
A new, inspiring, multilingual theatre work, The Bar of Lost Souls, weaves together experiences and expressions from different nationalities and cultural backgrounds. It focuses on ports and places of mobility, migration and creativity, imagination and shared histories. It is an international co-production combining new technologies with narrative and physical theatre techniques.
The inspiration for the piece arises from the notion of Mediterranean ports as cultural melting pots, space of ”heterotopias”, where national borders and identities are challenged by the ever-changing mix of ethnicities and nationalities. Set in an imaginary bar in an imaginary European seaport in the early 20th century, this new theatre work is a magical realist exploration of the importance of the Mediterranean to the psyche of the New Europe.
The collaboration is complemented and extended by a genuine cross-cultural exploration of workshop techniques aimed at young theatre professionals and theatre lovers. By focusing on the practice of story-telling and the use of multimedia techniques, the educational programme will enable young participants to articulate their own accounts of living on the border’s edge and their own perception of the modern world.
Part of the material which will result from the workshop will be posted on the programme’s website, (www.talesfromthebarofthelostsouls.com). Significant material will be used in performances in Athens (16-20/9), then in Nicosia (24-26/9) and at a third stage in a tour of the UK.
The venue in Athens will be at the Sichrono Theatro Athinas and in Cyprus at the Cyprus Theatre Organisation New Stage.
Financial Mirror, August 04, 2009
