Pyramus and Thisbe 4 You or a "Wondrous Strange" Tale of Contemporary Romanian Theatre

Like its title, Pyramus and Thisbe 4 You, Alexandru Dabija’s production at the Odeon Theatre, Bucharest, was a tongue-in-cheek invitation to the audience that at once aimed to tease past and recent Romanian endeavours and to tease out the stage potential a Shakespeare play holds today. My examination of the production re-constructs the local cultural contexts the production plays with and against, referring to the Romanian ways of making Shakespeare this production enters into dialogue with. Take 1, an all-female version casting the mature stars of the Odeon, I read against both Elizabethan all-male stage practice and Andrei Serban’s all-female Lear at the Bulandra (2008). Take 2, “an old device” (V.1.50): a teacher-student “devising” session at the Academy of Theatre and Cinema, I read against critics’ “more strange than true” (V.1.2) parlance on “theories of perception and reception” and against hi-tech Shakespeare dominating the Romanian stages in the first decade of the third millennium. Take 3, local political banter on ethnic discrimination, I read as “satire keen and critical” (V.1.54) on both communist censorship and the recent rise of nationalism in Romania. Take 4, a “cold” reading-cum-improvisation performed by the technical crew – this production’s mechanicals – I read as “palpable-gross play” (V.1.376) on both acting and spectating practices. What I argue in this article is that Dabija’s production goes beyond its local context and mores, and proposes a re-assessment of Shakespeare’s cultural currency in (European) Romania and Europe at large by exposing current tyrannies in Shakespeare studies: from translation and adaptation, through directing and acting, to viewing and reviewing.

"You Don't Have to be Filmish": The Toronto Jewish Film Festival

The Toronto Jewish Film Festival is a one-week celebration of Judaism and Cinema that occurs in downtown Toronto, at the Bloor Cinema, early every May. The folkloristic literature on festival notes that these kinds of events are ways that communities and groups celebrate themselves, and although film festivals are frequently excluded from consideration of traditional festivity, I shall demonstrate that such an omission is unfortunate, since like traditional festivity, film festivals, in particular ethnic film festivals, explore the same issues of liminality for the celebrating culture.

Relocating the Frame: Object-Oriented (1.) and Locative Art (2.) Environments

The locative project is in a condition of emergence, an embryonic state in which everything is still up for grabs, a zone of consistency yet to emerge. As an emergent practice locative art, like locative media generally, it is simultaneously opening up new ways of engaging in the world and mapping its own domain. (Drew Hemment, 2004) Artists and scientists have always used whatever emerging technologies existed at their particular time throughout history to push the boundaries of their fields of practice. The use of new technologies or the notion of ‘new’ media is neither particularly new nor novel. Humans are adaptive, evolving and will continue to invent and explore technological innovation. This paper asks the following questions: what role does adaptive and/or intelligent art play in the future of public spaces, and how does this intervention alter the relationship between theory and practice? Does locative or installation-based art reach more people, and does ‘intelligent’ or ‘smart’ art have a larger role to play in the beginning of this century? The speakers will discuss their current collaborative prototype and within the presentation demonstrate how software art has the potential to activate public spaces, and therefore contribute to a change in spatial or locative awareness. It is argued that the role and perhaps even the representation of the audience/viewer is left altered through this intervention. 1. A form of electronic imagery created by a collection of mathematically defined lines and/or curves. 2. An experiential form of art which engages the viewer both from within a specific location and in response to their intentional or unintentional input.