ACTRESS
Close the Borders!
Close the Borders! Aboagora -Between Arts and Sciences 24.8.2023
Close the Borders! Aboagora -Between Arts and Sciences 24.8.2023
Close the Borders! Aboagora -Between Arts and Sciences 24.8.2023
Close the Borders! Aboagora -Between Arts and Sciences 24.8.2023
Performance series 2023
Tehdas Teatteri Turku, Tampere Workers Theater, Sibelius Museum Turku
Finland
Fascinating Fascism and its Affective Heritage in Finnish Culture is a research project that combines research and artistic activity, funded by the Kone Foundation in 2021–2024. Its researchers and artists are creating a series of collaborative performances that will build a unified work of art (Gesamtkunstwerk) called Close the Borders!, framed initially as a “Machine Opera”, that will be premiered in 2024. The project also produces other public events and several academic publications. In Aboagora 2023, the project will present its research that feeds the artistic work, as well as a workshop module that the artistic group is currently working on, with public engagement.
Director Fiikka Forsman
Actors
Anu Almagro, Volodymyr Andrushchak, Paul Olin, Terhi Suorlahti, Antti Silvennoinen
Composer Petri Kuljuntaus
Light designer Eero Erkamo
Costume Designer Jaana Kurttila
Orchestra
Turku Synth Club Opera Orchestra
Self-portrait- dreams of the life and art of Ellen Thesleff
Premiere 15.10.2021 at Tehdas Teatteri
Tehdas Teatteri Premiere click here!
"Self-portrait- dreams of the life and art of Ellen Thesleff" is a play by a team of two actors, a musician, an art historian, a scenographer and a light designer to visualize an impressionistic dream-like world on stage in a series of self-portraits. Inspiration for these scenes comes from the life and art of one of the first Finnish expressionists; Ellen Thesleff (1869-1954). Her letters, spoken during the performance in five different languages she spoke, bring the voice of the artist in to this day. One of her most well known pieces; "the Self-portrait" is a product of one year of drawing with pencil and sepia on paper. The performance is a result of a long lasting academic and artistic research taking the creative team to several expeditions and work-in-progress presentations to Kuopio, Murole, Oulu, Helsinki and Turku. The performance presents an idea that history is not just something left behind but instead is present in our everyday life and the play explores the ways of remembering and expressing the past. The stage, which represents the canvas, is painted in to a series of moving portraits via physical theatre, electro-acoustic music and visual art; screens and light.
Performance is a collective creation by:
Actor Anu Almagro
Actor Johanna Jauhiainen
Art historian Hanna-Reetta Schreck
Musician Pauli Lyytinen
Scenographer Jaana Kurttila
Light designer Janne Teivainen
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SEVEN GATES OF THEBES
First part of the Anty-Gone Triptych
Premiere: November 2018
A rhythmic and loud performance; a distinct rock opera. Each rhythm played on medieval cauldrons is the rhythm of ancient Greek poetry. Each tells a different emotion, a seperate event. Creon’s world is one caged in anger and chaos; filled with violence and usurpation. Every strong emotion is torture to others. Creon fights with a woman – Antigone. Out of fear of this woman, a murderer emerges. Why does the ruler dread her? The stage is filled to the brim with masculine elements; aggressive, merciless. Pervaded with melodeclamations, dialogue and chants, the music fits the text of Greek tragedy.
Director: Grzegorz Bral
Dramaturgy: Alicja Bral
Greek rhythms on drums: Radosław Nowakowski
Electric guitar: Kamil Abt
Drums: Przemysław Michalak
Composition and arrangements: Dimitris Varkas, Kamil Abt
Translations into Greek: Dimitris Varkas
Choreography: Julien Touati
Costumes: Alicja Gruca
Scenography: Robert Florczak, Grzegorz Bral
Sound: Waldemar Trzaska
Lighting: Wojciech Maniewski
Cast: Kamil Abt, Anu Almagro, Gabriel Almagro, Mikołaj Bońkowski, Jakub Lechki, Dominik Kujawa, Bogdan Koca, Julien Touati, Przemysław Michalak, Dimitris Varkas
The Golden years are now
PREMIERE 29th of September 2017
Centre of Performing Arts Mitos Limassol, Cyprus
In a world where the subconscious bleeds and time and space are fluid, the woman Hedda Gabler is re-imagined, her unborn child watches from a different dimension. This fragmented fairytale reaches inside the bodies of these characters revealing their deepest desires and flickers of ancient memory. A friendly competition turns sour, unearthing remnants of an everlasting history. Songs of mourning bring fractured family back together. Mother and daughter finally meet each other and find their story together, the story that started all of this.
Written and directed by Cara Dinley
Cast and Creative Collaborators:
Anu Almagro
Saale Kreen
Yorgos Onisiforu
Julien Touati
Theatreologist, Costume designer Myrto Sarma
Electronic music composition Doris Hallmägi and Saale Kreen
Lighting designer and technician Lukasz Walewski
Photo by Dawid Linkowski. Gdansk Shakespeare Theatre Festival. Song of the Goat Theatre.
Photo by Dawid Linkowski. Gdansk Shakespeare Theatre Festival. Song of the Goat Theatre.
Photo by Dawid Linkowski. Gdansk Shakespeare Theatre Festival. Song of the Goat Theatre.
Photo by Dawid Linkowski. Gdansk Shakespeare Theatre Festival. Song of the Goat Theatre.
HAMLET - A COMMENTARY
Premiere: 2 JULY 2017
Hamlet - A Commentary is based on Shakespeare's drama and it is an intense interpretation, a vibrant reflection, a full expression of what was merely mentioned and not said explicitly by the author.
The show takes place two months before the proper play's plot – on the night when the old king was murdered. The night turns into a Shakespearian vigil, similar to pagan festivals in honour of the spirits of the dead. On the stage there are some characters who were featured in Shakespeare's play and some who were not.
We look at what goes on in the characters' heads and conjecture about what led to the tragedy. On the surface of the relations, nothing seems to be going on while painful secrets awaken in the characters. It's a drama about energy which demands to be revealed and Hamlet is its medium.
The show is based on the polyphonic song structure. Fourteen actors interpret the characters, events and emotions through sounds. "Hamlet – a commentary" is a theatre experiment. The text is given a melody. It is not presented in a traditional narration but as musical harmonies. The words and music reflect the characters' and family's inner structures.
Director: Grzegorz Bral
Music: Jean- Claude Acquaviva, Maciej Rychły
Dramatist: Alicja Bral
Costumes: Alicja Gruca
Stage design: Robert Florczak
Conductor: Lilianna Krych
Lighting: Wojciech Maniewski
Cast: Anu Almagro, Julianna Habel - Bloodgood, Jenny Kaatz, Olga Kunicka, Natalia Voskoboynikov, Magda Wojnarowska, Volodymyr Andrushchak, Mikołaj Bońkowski, Rafał Habel - Bloodgood, Dominik Kujawa, Julien Touati, Dimitris Varkas, Łukasz Wójcik, Bogdan Koca, Maciej Rychły
Photo by Mateusz Bral, Song of The Goat Theatre
Photo by Mateusz Bral, Song of The Goat Theatre
Photo by Mateusz Bral, Song of The Goat Theatre
Photo by Mateusz Bral, Song of The Goat Theatre
CRAZY GOD
Premiere: 1-4 JULY 2016
An inspiration for “Crazy God”, a new performance of the Song of the Goat Theatre, is William Shakespeare’s Hamlet. The classic text was clashed with a brutal work by Heiner Müller, Hamlet Machine and with Allan Ginsberg’s Howl.
The performance asks a hard-line question about the limits of human brutality. How deep can a man immerse in madness when profit and power become his goal?
The artistic team, consisting of performers of fourteen different nationalities, searches for an answer to questions posed this way, relating to different social and religious systems and the figure of a man, who filled with pride felt to be a god on the earth.
The performance joins physical actions with text and polyphony, which is characteristic for the Song of the Goat Theatre.
Director: Grzegorz Bral
Composer: Katarzyna Szwed
Costume Design:Alicja Gruca
Scenography: Robert Florczak
Dramaturgy: Alicja Bral
Instrumental compositions and arrangments: Adam Clifford
Choir preparation: Kelvin Chan
Cast:
Anu Almagro
Jenny Kaatz
Ifi Ude
Julianna Bloodgood
Olga Kunicka
Natsumi Kuroda
Kasia Jaekowicz
Colette Dalal Tchantcho
Adam Clifford
Henry McGrath
Rafał Habel
Dimitris Varkas
Kelvin Chan
Haitham Assem Tantawy
Angelo Romagnoli
Julien Touati
Peyman Fallahian Sichani
Songs of Lear
Songs of Lear is a non-linear dramatic event that shows the world of subtle energies and rhythms that govern Shakespeare’s tragedy. The ensemble members have chosen crucial scenes from King Lear to weave a story out of gestures, words and music. Each song is a starting point for another ‘dramatic poem’. Here the music becomes character, relationships and events. The creative process has been divided into several phases: preparation of the concert, dramatizing the songs (an oratorio), creating movement and visual structures, integrating text, music and movement and finally molding the performance into a mature shape. Songs of Lear is a constantly evolving creative research project in which audience may witness a very intimate artistic process.
Songs of Lear had its international premiere during Fringe Festival in Edinburgh in August 2012, where it received three prestigious awards: Scotsman Fringe First, Herald Archangel and Musical Theatre Matters Special Award. Songs of Learwas also enlisted on the very top of The List as the highest ranked performance during the 2012 festival.
Anu Almagro was nominated by the Polish Theatre magazine "Teatr" as one of the best actresses in Poland in 2013 for her performance as Cordelia in Songs of Lear.
Director: Grzegorz Bral
Music: Jean–Claude Acquaviva, Maciej Rychły
Preparation of songs: Kacper Kuszewski
Actors: Anu Almagro, Monika Dryl, Julianna Bloodgood, Emma Bonnici, Jenny Kaatz, Kacper Kuszewski, Rafał Habel, Gabriel Gawin, Henry McGrath , Łukasz Wójcik and Maciej Rychły
Portraits of the Cherry Orchard
Premiere Autumn 2013
“Portraits of The Cherry Orchard” is based on Anton Chekhov’s drama „The Cherry Orchard” and is directed by Grzegorz Bral. The musical interpretation of Anton Chekhov’s drama has been composed by Guy Pearson and Maciej Rychły. It is the story of a lost paradise in which the eponymously squandered „Cherry Orchard” is symbolic of spoiled values becoming poetical myth. The characters’ memories of a former existence become an unreachable perfection. The Director has created for each character a story which is expressesed through individual gesture, movement and dance. Underlined by an ever present musical score, relations are formed, actions and characters defned and using Osip Mandelstam’s and Anna Akhmatova’s lyrical poetry, he creates notable musical poems.
Director: Grzegorz Bral
Choreography: Agata Makowska
Music: Guy Pearson, Maciej Rychły
Musicians: Guy Pearson, Maciej Rychły
Cast: Dimitris Varkas, Anu Almagro, Paolo Garghentino, Emma Bonnici, Henry McGrath, Julianna Bloodgood, Katarzyna Janekowicz, Łukasz Wójcik, Olga Kunicka, Rafał Habel
Clowns Without Borders Finland in Estonia 30.8.-7.9.2010
Clowns Without Borders Finland in Estonia 29.8.-7.9.2010
Clowns Without Borders Finland in Petroskoi Russia 21.-27.8.2011
Clowns Without Borders Finland in Estonia 30.8.-7.9.2010
Clowns Without Borders Finland
Anu is a founding member of Clowns Without Borders Finland and since the beginning of the Finnish chapter of the international organization in 2009, Anu has been clowning and organizing clown/music/circus performances for children:
2014 Bosnia-Herzegovina, organizer
https://klovnitilmanrajoja.org/wp/kuvagalleriat/bosnia-hertsegovina-2014/
2012 Poland, creator and organizer
https://klovnitilmanrajoja.org/wp/projektit/puola-2012/
2011 Karelia Russia, creator and clown
https://klovnitilmanrajoja.org/wp/projektit/karjala-2011/
2010 Estonia, Clown
https://klovnitilmanrajoja.org/wp/projektit/viro-2010/
"There is only one witch in this production but Anu Salonen does enough work for three. More enchanting than supernatural, she dances around the stage manipulating characters and handing them wooden swords and bamboo canes that are used with frightening precision. Salonen grapples with Anna Zubrzycki’s Lady Macbeth, seeming to transform her into the provoking accomplice of her husband and then comforts her after she has been impaled on enough sticks to look like a game of human kerplunk. Both women join the men in striking combative choreography and have stunning voices, deeply melodic and playful or shrill as the need arises.
It is the music that really sets this Macbeth apart. The ensemble performs a variety of polyphonic chants and when they apply this musicality to Shakespeare’s verse the result is breathtaking. This Macbeth is beautiful, not a word you normally associate with the most bloody of plays."
4.11.2010 London Magazine
Edward Lukes
Macbeth in Barbican Centre London
Macbeth
Premiere December 2008 Wroclaw Teatr Piesn Kozla
Song of The Goat Theatre company's Macbeth is an ongoing exploration of the musicality of the sounds and dynamic physicality of Shakespeare's poetic drama.
Corsican polyphonic singing together with music creates a dream-like ground for the text, action and feeling of the tragedy.
"Words make you think a thought. Music makes you feel a feeling. A song makes you feel a thought." E.Y.Harburg
DIRECTOR: Grzegorz Bral
COSTUME DESIGN: Cristina Gonzalez
STAGE DESIGN: Mira Żelechower-Aleksiun, Grzegorz Bral
LIGHTING: Robert Baliński
INSTRUMENTS: Rafał Habel
MUSIC: arranged on the basis of songs of A Filetta (Corsica)
CAST:
Macbeth – Gabriel Gawin
Lady Macbeth – Anna Zubrzycki
Macduff – Ian Morgan
Duncan – Janusz Andrzejewski
Malcolm – Ewan Downie
Banquo – Kacper Kuszewski
Witch– Anu Salonen
