PEP | Performers Exchange Project

Happy new year everyone!

Sian, Jennifer and Kara will be performing in THE UNEARTHING, an international exchange and site-specific installation dance theater performance directed by our friend and colleague Zap McConnell. She is an extremely creative and inspired director, choreographer, installation artist and activist. Her work is always worth experiencing. Come see us!

Wed- Sun Feb. 1-5
Wed- Sun Feb 8-12
8pm
Charlottesville, VA in the old gymnasium at the Ix complex downtown, next to PlayOn Theatre.

Here is the website for info about the project, specific dates/times and how to buy tickets:
http://www.theunearthing.com/

If you are in the area, I hope you can check it out.
love, PEP

On Nov 11 and 12, Performers Exchange Project hosted director/performer Annika B. Lewis, founder of Kassandra Production in Denmark.

First a little background of our connection to Annika:  PEP’s method of training and creating performance came from our old friend B. Stanley of Theatre Du Jour in Washington D.C., via Sian and Martha, who studied and worked with TDJ.  B. met Annika when working with his mentor Ingemar Lindh in Italy. When she received a grant this year for her first US residency, B. arranged for Annika to perform her show and discuss her work at the District of Columbia Art Center (where he is Artistic and Executive Director), and asked PEP if we could put something together in our neck of the woods.

We had a lovely weekend together of performance, workshop and lots of talking and gathering.
Our friend Paul Menzer and Mary Baldwin College generously hosted Annika for a workshop, and provided the touring group with a beautiful place to stay. Doreen hosted the gang and our friends and colleagues from Staunton in her home for dinner and drinks and talking and laughing.

Early the next morning we headed over the mountain to The Hamner Theater in Nelson County and spent the day setting up Annika’s show for a one night engagement there. Here is where we must sing the praises of Boomie Pederson and Jay Taylor at The Hamner, our wonderful co-hosts for her performance. It is an absolute pleasure to collaborate with these warm, hardworking, risk-taking people. We are so fortunate to have such a resource for original work in our community.  And the audience at the Hamner was full, warm, supportive, and enthusiastic about her funny and smart show, Let’s Get Personal.

It was our pleasure to meet and host a kindred spirit, and to have an excuse to show off our home, our colleagues and our old friends here. We would like to thank all the people who helped us make it possible:

B Stanley
Dr Paul Menzer
Boomie Pederson
Jay Taylor
Peter Coy
Larry Hugo
Thadd McQuade
Tay Strauss
Corey Lloyd
Brett Santry

and we encourage you to support local businesses that support the arts:
The Hamner Theater
Mary Baldwin College -Shakespeare & Performance
Stuart Hall School
Ingrid Berger
Market Street Wineshop
DC Arts Center

Love, PEP

PEP is thrilled to be hosting acclaimed Danish/Swedish performance artist Annika B. Lewis. She is concluding a 6 week residency in Washington DC, including a run at the DC Arts Center, and we will be presenting her performance at the Hamner Theater for ONE NIGHT ONLY.

Here are the details:

Performers Exchange Project presents

Let’s Get Personal

A performance by Annika B. Lewis

Saturday November 12^th 7:30 pm
at The Hamner Theater
190 Rockfish School Lane
Afton, VA 22920

http://www.hamnertheater.com

Suggested Donation $15
The performance is approximately 3o minutes long and will be followed by a question and answer discussion and reception.

Annika Lewis, in her Danish Arts Council-funded Kassandra Production LET’S GET PERSONAL, utilizes humor, absurdity and the self-help culture to deliver a provocative performance about the role of personal branding in attaining professional success.  Lewis, who is known for merging technology, theatre and dance, delivers this parody in the form of a motivational lecture and performance on how to successfully use blunders on Facebook and official public apologies for personal optimization. In twisting the entire milieu of motivational speaking she acidly comments on the roles of collective bedazzlement, radical political positioning, and the arts in a society increasingly driven by the experience economy.

“Let’s Get Personal” is a darkly funny riff on George Orwell’s “1984.”
– The Washington Times

Annika Lewis

Choreographer/director/artist Annika B. Lewis studied at Larssons Theatre Academy in Gothenburg/Sweden and at the Istituto di Arte Scenica (Institute for Scenic Art) in Pontremoli/Italy from 1987 to 1990.  She went on to complete her post-graduate studies in theatre in 2002 at Scut/Gitis, the state theatre school of Moscow, Russia.   Additionally Lewis has studied various forms of dance and choreography.  In 1998, Lewis founded Kassandra Production through which she has created work characterized by a conceptually strong interdisciplinary approach, mixing the trivial with the philosophical to examine modern humanity in a challenging and entertaining way.  Lewis has toured Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Iceland, Portugal, Germany, Russia, Latvia, Belgium, Brazil, the United Kingdom and now the United States with her performances, installations and interventions. Her acting credits include: Year accountancies (2010), Let’s Get Personal (2010), Body Box#1 (2009), TWIST cabaret (2009), eXtasy (2009), Full Body Treatment (2008), Life Hacking (2008), XpositionREVERSE: Aarhus-Gothenburg (2006), Dancin’ Madly Backwards (2006), Life Is Fabulous (2005), Displacement (2005), XpositionLAB (2004), My Heart Is Yours (2004), Aurora Borealis: Aarhus-Reykjavik (2003), Delusion (2003), The Experiment of Choice/Limbo.03 (2003), Symposium X (2002), Real Time Open Door (2000), Real Time Lab (1999), A Thorn in the Eye (1998).

Come join us!