JAVAAD ALIPOOR the Believers Are but Brothers
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Friday, November 6, 7 PM EST JAVAAD ALIPOOR The Believers Are But Brothers Moss Arts Center HomeStage Series JAVAAD ALIPOOR The Believers Are But Brothers A private livestream from HOME in Manchester, U.K. The Javaad Alipoor Company Artistic Director Javaad Alipoor Producer Nick Sweeting General Manager Sarah Kingswell Administrator Javairya Khan Board Members Anamaria Wills (chair), Sophie Collins, Eileen McAuley, Jennifer Reynolds, and Nadia Batool javaadalipoor.co.uk Inquiries: [email protected] As part of the performance, audiences will be asked to join a private WhatsApp group chat for the show (optional, but will enhance the experience). WhatsApp is an instant messaging service, much like text messaging or iMessage. For more information about WhatsApp, where to download the app, and how to join the group chat, please click here. About The Believers Are But Brothers From the postcolonial Middle East to the E.U. and U.S.A., old orders are collapsing. Tech savvy extremist groups are ripping up the rule books while a generation of young men burn with resentment and unfulfilled self-entitlement, whilst falling into online worlds of fantasy, violence, and reality. This bold show weaves together their stories. The Islamic State is a terrorist organization with a media presence like no other. Where groups like Al Qaeda broadcasted their acts with grainy handheld video recorders, ISIS trades on a visual language that owes as much to Game of Thrones and Call of Duty as it does the to aesthetic of other violent non-state actors. Its violence is as theatrical as its propaganda, crafted by its well resourced and staffed Ar-Raqqah Media Centre operatives in Syria. In early 2016 Javaad Alipoor made contact with a number of young Muslims who run ISIS-supporting social media accounts, as well as young men active with the online alt right. Working with journalists and specialists, Alipoor made relationships with the curators of IS news sites and their supporters. Delving deeper, he found himself lost in an electronic maze of terrorists, neo fascists, fantasists, and police spies. This play tells this story, and invites an audience into that web; to engage with the resentment, violence, and networks of power that are eating away at the structures of 20th-century liberalism and social democracy. Alipoor reframes the rise of violent and apocalyptic Islamic extremism in the crucible of an international crisis of masculinity and the toxic underground networks of the internet that it breeds. Biographies JAVAAD ALIPOOR, performer, writer, and co-director Javaad Alipoor is a Fringe First Award-winning and Total Theatre Award -nominated artist, director, writer, and activist who regularly makes theatre with and for communities that don’t usually engage in the arts. Alipoor’s shows have been described as “Full of dark poetry and sheer analytical power” (The Scotsman) and “Bold and gut twisting” (The Stage). His projects are grounded in his political and social commitments as he strives to create work thats’s true to the cosmopolitanism and political provocations that growing up with Middle Eastern refugees and political exiles has instilled in him, tackling the big international political questions in a way that ties them to the here and now. He is a founding member of the Alliance in Support of Iranian Workers, an activist with Syria Solidarity U.K., and has contributed chapters to two books about the Arab Spring. As associate director of Theatre in the Mill, he was responsible for mentoring and dramaturging work by working class artists and artists of color, as well as rewriting their diversity and digital strategies. He is artistic director of the Javaad Alipoor Company, which that focuses on making work with and for hard to reach Muslim and BIPOC communities. In 2017 his play, The Believers Are But Brothers, opened at Transform Festival in Leeds before transferring for a sold-out, critically acclaimed run at the Edinburgh Fringe, where it received a Scotsman Fringe First Award. The production then ran at London’s Bush Theatre before its world tour. In 2018 he directed the stage adaptation of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest for Sheffield Theatres, to mark the end of his three- year tenure as associate director at the Crucible Theatre. Last year he premiered the second part of his “digital theatre trilogy,” Rich Kids: A History of Shopping Malls in Tehran, at The Traverse Theatre, winning a second Fringe First Award. As the COVID-19 pandemic prevented its London transfer, Alipoor and his creative team adapted the piece as an online digital experience, which has subsequently attracted widespread praise. Biographies, continued ROSS McCAFFREY, performer and technician Ross McCaffrey is a performer, writer, technician, and musician from Manchester, U.K. McCaffrey’s work focuses on politics, power, and mental health issues. He is a founding member of award-winning theatre company Powder Keg and is a regular collaborator with Manchester- based artist Caitlin Gleeson. His first solo show,Sometimes History Needs a Push, has been commissioned by Word of Warning and Contact. He has also worked with Daniel Bye, Stacy Makishi, and Barrel Organ. Additionally, McCaffrey has been supported by ARC Stockton, the Royal Exchange, Gob Squad, and others. LOUISE GREGORY, production manager Louise Gregory works as a production and stage manager and lighting and sound designer. Gregory’s credits include The Believers Are But Brothers and Rich Kids: A History of Shopping Malls in Tehran (Javaad Alipoor Company); salt., Race Cards, and The Missy Elliott Project (Selina Thompson); and The Department of Distractions and Partus (Third Angel). Gregory’s forthcoming design credits include lighting designer for The Disappearing Act (Open Sky). KIRSTY HOUSELY, co-director Kirsty Housely is a director, writer, and dramaturg. Housely’s recent work includes creating The Long Goodbye with Riz Ahmed for MIF/ BAM; Mephisto (A Rhapsody) at the Gate Theatre (director); Rich Kids: A History of Shopping Malls in Tehran with Javaad Alipoor Company (co-creator); Tao of Glass for Manchester International Festival (co- director); Avalanche: A Love Story at The Barbican and Sydney Theatre (dramaturg); Phillip Pullman’s Grimm Tales at The Unicorn (director); I’m a Phoenix, Bitch for Bryony Kimmings (director); Misty at The Bush and the West End (dramaturg); Myth at the RSC (co-written with Matt Hartley); A Pacifist’s Guide to the War on Cancer for Complicite, National Theatre, and HOME Manchester (as dramaturg in 2017, and as writer/director on the 2018 international tour); and The Encounter for Complicite (co- director). Housely is currently developing new work with the National Theatre, Complicite, Clean Break, and Hampstead Theatre. Biographies, continued CHRIS THORPE, dramaturg Chris Thorpe was a founding member of Unlimited Theatre. Thorpe is also an artistic associate of live art/theatre company Third Angel. He has worked with, among others, Forest Fringe, Slung Low, Chris Goode, RashDash, Belarus Free Theatre, and Portuguese experimental company mala voadora—his fourth piece for the company, Your Best Guess, opened at Lisbon’s Almada festival in 2015. He also plays guitar in Lucy Ellinson’s political noise project #TORYCORE and works with the National Student Drama Festival. Thorpe is an ssociate at the Royal Exchange, Manchester. His play for the Exchange, There Has Possibly Been An Incident, was selected by Simon Stephens for the Stuckemarktin Berlin in 2014. It has been produced in Denmark and Sweden, on German radio, and is has been produced in Saarbrucken and Vienna, with more productions in the pipeline. BEN PACEY, designer Ben Pacey has extensive experience of design and lighting design for theatre, dance, devised-performance, and galleries/installations. Pacey’s recent design credits include Greg Wohead’s Comeback Special (also lighting); Chris Thorpe and Rachel Chavkin’s Confirmation (design consultant); Sophie Nuzel’s Adventures of the Little Ghost; Kiln Ensemble’s A Journey Around My Skull (also lighting); and Melanie Wilson’s Landscape II (co-design). Recent lighting design credits include Sleepdogs’ Dark Land Light House; Abuelo for Birmingham Rep; Family Portrait for Leila McMillan; Uninvited Guests’ This Last Tempest, Make Better Please, and It Is Like It Ought To Be; Kiln Ensemble’s The Furies; Melanie Wilson’s Autobiographer; Parallel Lines for Candoco; Rise for Tom Dale Company; and Quick! for Nina Rajarani/The Place. Engagement Events Monday, November 9, 2020 Tuesday, November 10, 2020 VIRTUAL CLASS VISITS In three separate engagements, Javaad Alipoor spoke with Virginia Tech students about the themes and research process associated with The Believers Are But Brothers. These interdisciplinary sessions bridged the following classes: East Meets West (History), Cybercriminology (Criminology), Creativity and the Artistic Experience (Fine Arts), Theories of Crime and Delinquency (Sociology), and Global Conflict and War (International Studies). Special thanks to Thomas Dearden, Carmen Gitre, Eric Jardine, Audrey Reeves, and Alan Weinstein Go Deeper How does the integration of WhatsApp into The Believers Are But Brothers change the experience of live theatre? What effect does it have on your feelings of isolation, community, or being “seen?” In the Galleries We’re so pleased to welcome you back for another season of exciting and evocative exhibitions in the Moss Arts Center galleries! JASON MIDDLEBROOK: ANOTHER WORLD Through Sat., Nov. 21 Ruth C. Horton Gallery American visual artist Jason Middlebrook envisions, creates, and then digitally renders a new 15-by-28-foot site-specific commissioned work of art inspired by the soaring architecture of the Anne and Ellen Fife Theatre. This panoramic work invites viewers into another place—a place of inspiration, visual complexity, and delight. ART AND SOCIAL CONSCIENCE Calling attention to sociopolitical issues and the need for change FOUR FREEDOMS: HANK WILLIS THOMAS AND EMILY SHUR IN COLLABORATION WITH ERIC GOTTESMAN AND WYATT GALLERY OF FOR FREEDOM Through Sat., Nov.