- By Kitchen Theatre
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Co-presented as the inaugural offering of Theatre Incognita, and supported by an Individual Project Grant from the Cornell Council for the Arts, Rêves/Rimbaud is a collaboration between student artists at Cornell and Wells and artists from the Ithaca community exploring the life and poetry of Arthur Rimbaud, the great French symbolist poet and “bad boy” of literature.
Infamous as a teenager for his wild affair with the married poet Paul Verlaine, Rimbaud becomes one of the great enigmas of literature when he leaves all poetry behind with his adolescence, instead spending his last decade transacting shady business in Africa.
In late January, students in dance, film and acting at Cornell and Wells got together with project leader Ross Haarstad and other members of the Ithaca theatrical community to workshop this project “from scratch.”
Workshop participant/presenters are Cornell students Tyler Herman, Cherise James, Spalding Powers Warner and recent alum Kate Shearing, Wells student Christina Miglino and Ithaca community theatre artists Christina Collura, Maggie Goldsmith, Kit Wainer and Matthew Winberg. Other artists contributing are local film/video artists Jason Livingston and Felix Teitelbaum; and from Cornell: Tom Schneller, grad music (composer); Cornell video/film students Savinien Caracostea and Saramoira Sheilds; student choreographer Jacob Slominski and sound designer Ryan Oliveira. Chris Clarey (Ithaca College) and Jessi Pollack (Cornell) will stage manage.
Project leader Ross Haarstad states, “I was inspired by the work not only of Rimbaud, but of contemporary theatre artists such as Anne Bogart, Charles Mee and Mary Zimmerman on the national scene and the work I’ve been exposed to from Cornell Professor Beth Milles (Theatre, Film and Dance), especially in The Nero Project. There is a physical beauty in their work that comes from a philosophy of ensemble work and the notion that theatre is ‘creating something from nothing.’
“After directing over thirty scripted plays, this is a refreshing departure into the unknown for me and my collaborators and we are eager to share our work to date with the community,” Haarstad adds.
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