Cultural Connections - on stage and beyond…

The Tribes Project is committed to international collaborations for the development of contemporary, cross cultural performing arts experiences.

BAJA, MEXICO
Wake of the Horse World Tour continues…

In collaboration with The University of Washington and Asociacion de Artes del Marde Cortez, Tribes brought Wake of the Horse to Los Barriles in Baja Mexico. With the success of Wake in Kosovo, we decided: why not attempt to retranslate our epic tale of the fall of Troy into another language and work with local youth to produce the show in yet another country. The El Caballo Despierta production was both tremendously challenging and successful. Working with a cast of young people, many of whom had not even seen a theatre performance to say nothing of performing themselves, we put up a show of sublime effort - rough, raw, and real.

KOSOVO
Remounting the Horse

Directly following The TRIBES’ Alumni US production of Wake of the Horse, (go to the Alumni page for more info on the “US - Wake” production) founding director, J. Paul Preseault, and cast members Emy Johnston and Cameron Brown traveled to Kosovo to work with Global Motion on the creation of a Kosovar version of the play. Called: Zgjimi I Kalit, the production featured cast members from all over Kosovo, as well as from Macedonia, Norway, and America - performing in Albanian, Serbian and English.

Zgjimi I Kalit performed twelve times in towns and cities across Kosovo. Some of the theatres we performed at had not had a performance on their stage since the war in 1998. We were both honored and awed by the historic nature of our performance tour and the commitment of the young Kosovar’s who poured their truth into the production.

Click on image to view a video clip of Zgjimi I Kalitperforming at the Dodona Theatre in Prishtina, Kosovo

Click on the image to view a video clip of Wake of the Horseperforming at the Bathhouse Theatre in Seattle, Washington

LONDON
The Conference of the Birds

For three weeks The Tribes Alumni Ensemble collaborated with Theatre Venture of East London. Theatre Venture, based in the borough of Newham, boasts the claim of being one of the most international neighborhoods in the world - considering there are over 120 languages spoken there, one can see why the claim is made. Exploring the theme of assimilation we created a joint production called Rites Of Passage. Rites performed at venues throughout London along with our production of The Conference of The Birds, based on the 12th Century epic Sufi poem by Farid Uddi Attar, and Theatre Venture’s version of Orwell’s Animal Farm.

SOUTH AFRICA
Novaland

The Tribes Alumni Ensemble lived and worked with members of Soweto Youth Drama Society for 25 days, creating a joint production called NOVALAND that played throughout the United Nations World Conference Against Racism in Durban South Africa. NOVALAND, featuring 9 Americans, 11 Africans, multiple languages, original and traditional songs, dance, Shakespearean dialogue, and a lot of gray-clay body-paint, made quite a statement at the conference. With feature coverage in print media, radio, internet and television from KUOW and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer to Radio for Peace International, Costa Rica, The Johannesburgh Star, and CNN, The Tribes Project made its presence felt like never before.

Mask design and construction by Cynthia Feldt