WHAT: Maratini: A Twelve Hour Improvisation Marathon
 
with Ecotone Physical Theatre

WHEN: Friday, October 26, 2007, noon to midnight

WHERE:

516 Central Avenue SW, between 5th & 6th Streets, Downtown Albuquerque

IMAGES:

Please contact Suzanne Sbarge, 505-242-1445

PUBLIC INFO:

516 ARTS: tel. 505-242-1445, www.516arts.org

HOW MUCH:

Free

516 ARTS is pleased to host a twleve hour Improvisation Marathon with Ecotone Physical Theatre. The pubilc is invited to view the performance for any amount of time through the front windows of 516 ARTS on Central Avenue in Downtown Albuquerque. The group will perform continuous improvised materials for twelve hours straight. Ecotone merges dance, music, technology, video and drama into a style of theatre all its own.

What is Ecotone?

eco•tone

(Gk: oeco-household + tonos-tension): a transition area between adjacent ecological communities; a borderland; a place of strange encounter

Ecotone Physical Theatre is an Albuquerque, New Mexico-based performance ensemble that mines the veins of improvisation: sonic, kinesthetic, textual, visual. This diverse ensemble consists of dancers, actors and musicians. Each performance is utterly unique, completely made up on the spot before your eyes, a blend of slapstick dramedy, angular sound and gesture, rife with potential for hap and mishap. Ecotone Physical Theatre makes extensive use of computers and digital technology, random props and costumery, inscrutable ritual, reluctant audience participation and a little backyard voodoo to transmogrify performers, audience and environment to the point where, really, anything can happen.

Ecotone Physical Theatre was formed in the spring of 2006 when Jewell and Company Dance Theatre and the experimental music ensemble Incus joined forces to collaborate on a series of improvisational performances called "Ecotone". The collaboration was so fruitful and well received, they decided to merge, taking the name of the performance as the name of the company. Its members are directors Donna Jewell and Kevin Paul along with Rufus Cohen, Lisa Nevada, Jessica Searer, Mary Margaret Moore, along with costume designer Stacia Smith.

About the Directors of Ecotone

Donna Jewell is the Head of Dance in the Department of Theatre and Dance at the University of New Mexico and is the Artistic Director of Jewell & Company Dance Theater. Ms. Jewell received her MFA from Tisch School of the Arts at New York University and for the last fifteen years has been choreographing, performing, and teaching in Europe and the United States. She was a full-time faculty member of the Salzburg Experimental Academy of Dance in Salzburg, Austria for four years while giving company classes and workshops in Germany, Austria, Denmark, Finland, and Slovenia. Ms. Jewell taught all levels of Modern, Ballet, Jazz, Choreography, Dance Analysis, Improvisation and Contact Improvisation. Her choreography has been purchased and commissioned by various schools, including Brown University in Rhode Island and the Turku Conservatory in Finland. As the dance teacher in the Theater Department of the College for the Fine Arts Mozarteum in Salzburg, she began investigating interdisciplinary teaching, choreographing and performing while working with actors, expanding as a performer into the theater discipline and becoming a member of Cabula6 Theater of Vienna, where she continues to perform as a guest actor. Ms. Jewell is a contributing free lance dance critic for

Attitude Magazine based in Brooklyn, NY. Currently creating site specific work and dance/theater pieces for video for her own company, she continues to work as guest choreographer and rehearsal director for Lawine Torren in Austria, a company devoted to theatrical works for large machinery (helicopters, snowmobiles, airplanes, trucks, tanks, and cranes) and humans (actors, dancers, BASE jumpers, and skiers). This coming April will see the sixth annual performance of a theater and dance work performed on a glacier south of Innsbruck with Lawine Torren. Ms. Jewell also works as a coach for various companies and performance artists, working in rehearsal with other directors and choreographers on independent projects.

Kevin Paul is a multimedia artist and performer, director, sound designer and writer. He works extensively with computers and other digital technology. He has performed in many new music ensembles, including Gamelan Encantada, Incus, Ethicspill and the Zulu Brake Torque Society. His soundscapes have recently been featured at

Soundwalk Sound Art Festival in Long Beach CA, Sounding the Landscape in Albuquerque, and on radio at WDET-FM and KUNM-FM. He has advanced degrees in Sculpture and Playwriting, as well as extensive movement, dance and martial arts training, and he is a contributing writer to albuquerque ARTS Magazine and The Collector’s Guide.

About 516 ARTS

516 ARTS is a nonprofit arts venue presenting collaborative programs with museums and organizations in the region and beyond. Its mission is to present high quality arts exhibitions and arts programs, provide educational outreach, and develop community and audiences for the arts in Downtown Albuquerque. 516 ARTS offers free gallery talks, educational tours, music and poetry performances year-round at the newly renovated 5500 square foot museum-style gallery space in the center of Downtown. 516 ARTS is made possible in part by the generous support of McCune Charitable Foundation, the City of Albuquerque, New Mexico Department of Tourism, and many New Mexico businesses including Bank of Albuquerque, BGK Group, Charter Bank, Coldwell Banker Real Estate, First Community Bank, First National Bank of Santa Fe, Goodman Realty Group, Grubb & Ellis, Heritage Hotels & Resorts, John & Jamie Lewinger, J.T. Michaelson, Mosher Enterprises, New Mexico Bank & Trust, New Mexico Business Weekly, Paradigm & Company, SG Properties, Stewart Title of Albuquerque, Sunrise Bank, and Technology Ventures Corporation. For more information, please visit

www.516arts.org.