The time has come, we're almost there! Itínera Theater is ready to launch its Indiegogo Crowdfunding Campaign this Saturday. And to make sure that we have lots and lots of donors right off the bat, we are organizing an enormous event: An 18-hour Online Festival of Performing Arts. It's scheduled to start in the European morning with a nice yoga session, but then it's going right away into music, puppetry, story-telling, dance, theater, drumming, singing, and yet more performances. 32 artists from 8 time zones are taking us through the day... and through the night, as the grand event will keep on going until late night in North America. This also means, unforeseen changes are always to be expected.
I know, you are probably burning to get straight to the source, so here is the event page on facebook. Or, you can just go directly to the sign-up link for the Zoom session. Or, if you just want to watch the show, it will be transmitted on Itínera's Facebook page.
List of Performers and Performances
Okay, so I suppose you've checked out the event page, and if you liked what you saw, you may still be wondering about the details. Well, here is a rough outline of the schedule of events:
- 9:30 a.m. CET Bright and early in Europe, our good friend and long-time yogi Rocco Filippo from Italy is going to offer a bit of stretching exercises in the morning.
- 10:00 a.m. CET This is the officially scheduled time for our campaign launch. We'll introduce the campaign, count down to the moment of pressing the button, and of course release our campaign video. There may be one or the other surprise in store as well.
- 10:30 a.m. CET After a bit of settling in, we open our first musical performance from Australia with Tommy D, our friend from the Earthship Academy. His style is described as "bluesy n proggy n rocken party". And for sure, down under where he lives, it's already party time, so it'll be a great fun-popper.
- 11:30 a.m. CET Next up is some guitar and vocals by Italian musician Gian Maria Vannoni from Overflowing.
- 12:00 p.m. CET At noon we will get a taste of literature by our prosaic friend Elia Varini from Switzerland. Take a look at his Instagram page to see more about the book he is promoting.
- 12:30 p.m. CET Next, our own member of Itínera Theater, Julia Filippo is going to present some traditional Italian music on her accordion.
- 1:00 p.m. CET Harriet Lennman is a visual artist from Germany, whose presentation is said to be "performance collage illustration".
- 1:30 p.m. CET Our next guest is Colombian puppeteer Nicolas Bernal who'll be joining us from Thailand. His specializes in creating amazing puppets, which he is going to introduce here.
- 2:00 p.m. CET Following him, there will be some more puppetry, by Edgar Cardenas from Títeres AGarrapata. He is another amazing Colombian artist, who likes to combine clowning, improvisation, and puppetry.
- 2:30 p.m. CET This corresponds to 7:30 a.m. CST so our viewers from the American continent may be joining us too by now. And they really should, as we are having Rujuta Soman live from India, presenting the ancient art of Kathak Dance, one of the oldest forms of performing art.
- 3:30 p.m. CET Next, we are going to have some intense Japanese Taiko drumming with Rita Superbi from Italy.
- 4:15 p.m. CET Singer-songwriter Roberto Camargo from Colombia is going to relate to his home country in his compositions.
- 4:40 p.m. CET Tuning in from Amsterdam, Colombian dancer Raul Saldarriaga will present an improvisation jam dance performance.
- 5:00 p.m. CET / 10:00 a.m. CST More dance is on the way, brought to you by the French impro theater group Cie Du Chien dans les Dents.
- 5:20 p.m. CET London-based story-teller Giovanna Conforto from Italy is going to treat us to some live story-telling.
- 5:55 p.m. CET Live from Brazil, we'll have theater director Isabella Irlandini offer a vocal performance.
- 6:15 p.m. CET We're kicking off the European evening with some French accordion rock by Los Troibascos, a modified lineup of Los Tabascos, the band of Itínera member Stef Ferreira, which I once wrote a post about.
- 6:45 p.m. CET German guitarist Stefan Fröhlich is going to connect from Paraguay to sing us some of his songs. Check out his website to hear and read his compositions.
- 7:30 p.m. CET / 12:30 CST It is by now afternoon in Mexico City too, and we are taking the show back to puppetry, with Cinzia Ciaramicoli. You may remember this wonderful Italian puppeteer from London, who was our guest three weeks ago. You may also check out her pages The Itiner Ants and Theatre De La Cour.
- 8:00 p.m. CET Following her, we are having another show by the aforementioned French accordion rockers, this time in another modified lineup called Twobascos and their Neighbors.
- 8:30 p.m. CET To continue with more movement and percussion, the Spanish group Mudarte Association, directed by Catherine Díaz and Miguel Moreno, promise to blow our minds with their performance.
- 9:00 p.m. CET Next up we'll have another artist from France, Aurore Lephilipponnat with a very "Happening" performance, involving live action painting, which she is going to auction off for our crowdfunding. You should be curious!
- 9:45 p.m. CET / 2:45 p.m. CST In Europe the event should be reaching its zenith, while in America it should be just getting interesting. So this is the time to bring in Cameroonian story teller living in Spain, Boniface Ofogo Nkama, treating us to some African stories. Please visit his website!
- 10:30 p.m. CET Another founding member of Itínera Theater, Manuel Ramos is going to perform an act he hasn't presented in a while, a piece from Lazarillo de Tormes, which he created with the Teatro de la Memoria in Colombia in 2008.
- 11:00 p.m. CET Continuing with more music, we'll have José Alberto Calderón from the Cuarteto Animal from Colombia. "Music" in this case, should be understood as coaxing sounds out of every-day objects.
- 11:30 p.m. CET As the last show before European midnight, Thomas Walker from New York is going to offer his piano improvisation.
- MIDNIGHT CET / 5:00 p.m. CST From their remote location in Northern California our Earthshipper friend Stefan is joining us on his violin, together with Rex on the guitar.
- 5:45 p.m. CST It's the next day in Europe, so I'll continue listing the events in Central Standard Time zone from here on. Connecting from Peru is Anabelí Pajuelo Valdez, an actress and director of two performing arts projects Ópalo and Puckllay, who is going to do a dance performance.
- 6:15 p.m. CST There is yet one more story teller coming, this time from Latin America: Walter Díaz from Colombia, living in Mexico. It will be so nice to have a story teller from three different continents!
- 6:45 p.m. CST Next, An English-Mexican duo Sandra Nicolini from Mexico City and Georgina Edwards from the UK, connecting from Zipolite, are going to present some exciting surprise. I'm putting it this way, because none of us has the faintest idea what they are going to do.
- 7:15 p.m. CST Following them, Colombian artist Andrea Corredor from the Argentinian platform object theater Ciclo Objeto, and director of Anomalía Project is going to bring everyday objects to life.
- 7:45 p.m. CST It's almost 3:00 a.m. in Europe by now, but we are far from stopping! In and from Mexico City, improvisational dancer Issabel Monge, director of the Mexican dance platform La Rodán is going to present some sweet moves.
- 8:15 p.m. CST Our final event scheduled for this great festival is Argentinian singer-songwriter Noelia Donofrio, tuning in from California.
- 9:00 p.m. CST Closing our festival, we decided to present the video we have created for our crowdfunding campaign: A beautiful piece of art, involving puppets and various amazing local puppeteers.
Online Festival ... With a Real-Life Party!
But is that it then? After all, it's barely 9:00 p.m. in Mexico, 4:00 a.m. in Europe, and noon in Japan! And after such a mega event, people are likely to keep wanting more. Anticipating this much, we have organized a LIVE party IN REAL, here in Mexico City, at the Quinta Teatro, at the following location: Cuarto de Mácinas at Efrén Rebolledo 93, Obrera, Cuauhtémoc, 06800 Ciudad de México. And depending on the mix of attendees, performers, audience, and people at the party, we may as well open up the stage during the last hours for an open mic session. And knowing Mexican parties, all I can say is: we know what to expect!
Please Share ... Share ... And Share Some More!!!
As we keep re-iterating, this entire festival is the launch event of our Crowdfunding Campaign, so it would be great if you could check out our Indiegogo site - activated on Saturday, watch our video, and maybe even support us with a donation (there are some cool perks, especially for donations in the first 24 hours), and the minimum amount is €1, so anyone can support us. But even if you have made a donation already, the other excellent way to help our effort is by telling all your friends about us, our project, our festival, and our campaign!!! We greatly appreciate it, and hope you will enjoy our festival.
