Wednesday, December 04, 2019
The Theater Olympics Bring a World of Drama Together
The New York Times: The event happens in a different city every few years and participants from all over the world are thrilled to take part. Crowds rush to buy tickets for events they might never otherwise see. It was founded in Greece, and international cooperation and good will are high on the list of aims.
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3 comments:
The Theatre Olympics? Wild. With one hundred and four productions, I am shocked that I’ve never heard of this before. The images within this article are incredible. The colorful costumes, detailed puppetry, the insane rigging, and the overall production value of this is really incredible. I appreciate that this article acknowledges that this festival is not spoken about in Western culture. I asked a couple people while reading this article if they had heard of it and they said “theatre olympics?” I’m really disappointed that the festival has not had the opportunity to come to America for a season, however, knowing how Europe’s laws work in regards to performing arts... I am not surprised. Originating from a series of talks and seminars for theatre directors and academics, the theatre olympics have evolved into something much grander than their initial conceptualization. I love the mission of this festival. An inclusive space where all cultures are able to show their theatrical traditions, supporting a spirit of conciliation and freedom. Really cool.
When I first saw "The Theater Olympics" I thought that this was some sort of competition and I was interested in seeing how they took the different elements of theatre and put them into competition format. I imagined something like load in/strike competitions, playwriting competitions, model making competitions, dance competitions, etc. This is a bit different. This more like a festival- like a theatre convening of some sort to get together and celebrate different forms of theatre in different cultures, while also learning a thing or two. In a way, that may be better than having competitions, especially for artists who may be constantly dealing with being compared to each other or struggling with feelings of not measuring up. I wish this was something that was more well known. I had never heard of it and I'm sure lots of people haven't either. This would be a good opportunity for people to experience some of the things that we have read about in theatre history classes or only seen pictures of online. It is also a beautiful way to unify the theatre world and be able to appreciate each other. Hopefully as things progresses, this becomes something bigger and the western world becomes more involved.
I have never heard of Theater Olympics before I read this article. I think this might suggest how this event is isolated from the mainstream theater industry. Seeing the photos in the article, I can not help but think of the benefits of being a decentralized festival. These images are showing that the productions invited into the Theater Olympics have really distinguished aesthetics and forms of performance. With the main portion of them coming from Russia, and joining by other Asian country, I believe the dynamics between different cultures are going to be astonish. There are also big names like Robert Wilson and Tadashi Suzuki, which made that fact I do not know this event very awkward. They are the foundation of my theater knowledge system. After researching the whole event, I am thrilled to find out there are many famous artists from Japan, which makes their productions available to people outside of their country.
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