Yara Arts Group presents "Circle" in cooperation with Buryat theater (03/19/00)

Yara Arts Group presents "Circle" in cooperation with Buryat theater

NEW YORK - The Yara Arts Group and artists from the Buryat National Theatre of Ulan Ude, near Lake Baikal in Siberia, have created "Circle," a new performance art piece.

For the last four years members of Yara have traveled each summer to Siberia to work with the Buryat artists and to create international collaborative theatre pieces. "Circle" is based on legends and songs the collaborators collected last summer during a research expedition to the Ust-Orda Buryat region west of Lake Baikal.

This world premiere, directed by Virlana Tkacz, takes place at a contemporary wedding in Siberia where ancient legends, traditional music, shaman chants and post-Soviet reality intermingle to create an outrageous look at contemporary life in Buryatia.

"Circle" expresses the Buryat notion that the spirit world is constantly with us. The audience enters into the lobby of La MaMa's Annex Theatre, which is decorated like a contemporary Siberian wedding hall. The pre-wedding games are in full swing: the bride is kidnapped and the groom must pay "ransom" to get her back (the piece is performed with audience involvement).

As the performance moves into the main playing area, the atmosphere shifts, realism is abandoned and spirits whirl in a wild round dance with the living. At the center is a shamanist totem. The wedding is sent up over it, just as the real world is layered over the spirit world. A Gypsy wedding band arrives "to make sure everything goes wrong."

Into this mayhem, a beautiful girl appears singing traditional Mongolian songs. The groom will be enchanted and will fall in love with her. Grandmothers will transform into girl-spirits who want to carry off the bride, and a legendary ghost will appear to claim the fire that was stolen from her.

The music is by Buryat composer Erzhena Zhambalov and Eugene Hutz. The production features the soaring vocals of Badmahanda Aiusheyeva and Erzhena Zhambalov, with traditional Buryat Mongolian music played live on the morin khur (horse-head fiddle) and limbe (Mongolian flute) by the Battuvshin, a master musician and throat singer recently named Honored Artist of the Buryat Republic.

Movement is by Igor Hrihurko, who heads AsiaArt Movement Theater in Ulan Ude. The production is designed by Watoku Ueno, a recipient of the NEA/TCG Design Fellowship and has costumes by Rachel Comey of a Rose Has No Teeth Design. Andrea Odezynska has created the video for the production.

The cast includes Yara ensemble members Laura Biagi, Marina Celander, Yoko Hirayama, Allison Hiroto, Akiko Kiuchi, Tom Lee, Akim Ndlovu, Tristra Newyear, Jina Oh, Eileen Jin Park, Angela Rubino, Catherine Scarboro, Mariko Shibata, Shigeko Suga, Eunice Wong and Meredith Wright. The members of Gogol Bordello, Eugene Hutz, Vlad Solovar, Alexandr Kazatchkoff and Sergei Rjabtsev, appear as a Gypsy wedding band that adds its own supernatural heritage to the event.

This multilingual piece is easily accessible to English-speaking audiences and includes traditional Buryat songs translated into English by Sayan Zhambalov, Ms. Tkacz and company, which are to be published by Agni Review and Shaman Drum.

Erzhena Zhambalov and Sayan Zhambalov are the premier artists of their generation at the Buryat National Theatre in Ulan Ude, Siberia, and have been recognized as Honored Artists of the Republic for their achievements.

Previously, Yara collaborated with the Buryat artists on the creation of "Virtual Souls" and "Flight of the White Bird" in Ulan Ude, New York and Kyiv. Critic Bert Wecsher (New York Theatre Wire) cheered "Virtual Souls" as perhaps the most complete and satisfying show I have seen at La MaMa" and urged readers "Forget Broadway. See 'Virtual Souls.'"

The Yara Arts Group is a resident company of La MaMa Experimental Theatre in New York. Founded in 1990, the group created original pieces that explore timely issues rooted in the East, and especially in Ukraine. Yara's theatre pieces include: "A Light from the East," "Explosions," "Blind Sight," "Yara's Forest Song" and "Waterfall/Reflections" in collaboration with legendary Ukrainian singer Nina Matvienko. Additional information on the Yara Arts Group is available at http://www.brama.com/yara/.

"Circle" will be presented March 24 to April 9 at La MaMa E.T.C, 74A E. Fourth Street, New York, Thursday-Saturday at 8 p.m., Sunday at 3:30 p.m. and 8 p.m.; Friday and Saturday, $20; Thursday and Sunday, $15. Call (212) 475-7710 for information.

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