FIAF Presents Annie Dorsen's THE GREAT OUTDOORS at 2017 Crossing the Line Festival

As part of the 2017 edition of its celebrated Crossing the Line Festival, the French Institute Alliance Française (FIAF), New York's premiere French cultural center, is pleased to present the US Premiere of Annie Dorsen's The Great Outdoors, Thursday, September 21, through Saturday, September 23, at FIAF's Florence Gould Hall.

Commissioned by Crossing the Line and supported by the Hermès Foundation's New Settings program, The Great Outdoors welcomes audiences into the darkness of an inflatable planetarium, where a lone performer takes them on a sublime journey through inner space, stitching together the internet comments of countless individuals.

Around this virtual campfire underneath the stars, audience members gather around a flickering projector, listening to a range of voices, thoughts, jokes, and stories compiled from online chat sites. A computer program constantly gathers comments posted to these sites; then, on the afternoon of each performance, software designed by Dorsen's collaborators Miles Thompson and Marcel Schwittlick creates a unique script from a sampling of comments posted over the day leading up to the show.

We tend to think of comments as the Internet's id, and as human communication at its worst-unrestrained, protected by anonymity. Where does this id come from, and how does it function? Is this id a roiling sea of primal drives? Or a thoroughly structured and colonized territory? As fragments of narrative emerge from the chatter, Dorsen invites us to see these comments as speech artifacts from the world, inviting us to hear these voices from the ether with more sympathy, and human curiosity.

Dorsen explains, "I've been wondering about how we know what we know about the world, how we learn about who is out there, what they think, how they live, how they express themselves. Our most direct access to people outside of our own personal, local relationships is through social media. So I started thinking about the world out there as a virtual landscape made of language, made up of all this chatter from millions and millions of people all typing away in isolation, but nonetheless wanting to communicate with each other, to be together."

She describes the piece as "a kind of love letter to the world. But it's not a young, naive, rose-colored love. It's more like an older and wiser one-where you see the flaws and the complexity and the good and the bad, and despite it all you're still entranced."

The Great Outdoors is a co-production of BIT Teatergarasjen & Bergen International Festival (Bergen, NO), Crossing the Line Festival/French Institute Alliance Française (New York, NY), and Noorderzon/Grand Theatre Groningen (NL).

The Great Outdoors is supported by the Hermés Foundation, within the framework of the New Settings program.

The Great Outdoors is created with the support of King's Fountain, developed in part by Live Arts Bard at the Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College, where it was previewed; and supported by a residency at Abrons Arts Center (New York, NY).

About Annie Dorsen (Concept / Direction / Starshow Design)
Annie Dorsen is a writer and director who works in a variety of fields, including theatre, film, dance, and, as of 2009, algorithmic performance. Most recently, her algorithmic music-theater piece, Yesterday Tomorrow, premiered at the Holland Festival, and has since been seen at MaerzMusik (Berlin), T2G as part of Festival d'Automne (Paris), Le Maillon (Strasbourg), Théâtre Garonne (Toulouse), PS122's COIL Festival (New York), and others. Her previous algorithm project, A Piece of Work, premiered at On the Boards (Seattle), and was presented at Parc de la Villette (Paris), Brooklyn Academy Of Music's Next Wave Festival (NYC), and others. Her 2012 Spokaoke, a participatory karaoke project that uses political and historical speeches in place of pop songs, was presented at FIAF's 2013 Crossing the Line Festival. Her first algorithmic theatre piece, Hello Hi There, premiered at Streirischer Herbst (Graz) in 2010, and has been presented at over 20 theaters and festivals in the US and Europe, as well as, in installation form, at Bitforms Gallery in New York. She is the recipient of a 2017 Foundation for Contemporary Art Grant to Artists Award, the 2014 Herb Alpert Award in the Arts for Theater, and a 2008 Obie award for her work on the Broadway musical Passing Strange. She teaches in the Theatre and Performance Studies Department at University of Chicago.

About Onome Ekeh (Dramaturg)
Born and raised on both sides of the Atlantic, Onome Ekehstarted out as a painter, gravitated towards design and fell in love with cinema. Somewhere in the collusion she went digital. She has produced works for film, theater, and radio and is the recipient of several fellowships including the Jerome Foundation, Greenwall Foundation, and the Künstlerhaus Buchsenhausen Fellowship. She is the co-founder and conceptual gear-machinitrix behind Featurezoo.net. She has worked as a dramaturg on projects including Grisha Coleman's Echo System, David Thomson's Venus, and Okwui Okpokwasili's Bronx Gothic, and has collaborated with other artists such as Knut Asdam, Clarinda Mac Low, and Paul Boocock.

About Ryan Holsopple (Starshow Design / Video Programmer)
Ryan Holsoppleis a Designer, Performer and Programmer for performance. Ryan is the founder of the performance group 31 Down, and received a Doris Duke Charitable Trust Grant to develop Data Purge, in collaboration with PS122. Recent projects include: Sound Design for Jim Findlay's Vine of the Dead (Westbeth Arts); Radiohole's Tarzana (The Performing Garage); Video Systems Design for Annie Dorsen's Yesterday Tomorrow (Holland Festival; world tour); Interaction Design for Mallory Catlett's This Was The End (The Chocolate Factory; 2014 Bessie Award for Visual Design); Associate Video Design for Annie Dorsen's A Piece of Work, (BAM; On The Boards); Interaction Design for Mantra Percussion's performance of Timber, by Michael Gordon (BAM). Ryan is a graduate of NYU's Interactive Telecommunications Program and currently teaches Dynamic and Interactive Media Performance in the PIMA Graduate Program at Brooklyn College.

About Kaija Matiss (Performer)
Kaija Matiss is an actress, voice over artist and filmmaker currently pursuing an MFA in the Performance and Interactive Media Arts Program at Brooklyn College. She played Mary-Kate on Showtime's The Affair and her first short film Detritus premiered at Slamdance where it won the Kodak Directors Prize.

About Alexandra Rosenberg (Management / Producer)

Alexandra Rosenberg is a manager and producer with a focus on forward-thinking artists working in contemporary performance, and founded her company Rosie Management in 2013 to support new work in development, touring projects, and general management. Alexandra currently represents Maria Hassabi, Annie Dorsen, Jen Rosenblit, and Royal Osiris Karaoke Ensemble, and has also developed projects with Ann Liv Young, Alex Waterman and Robert Ashley, Faye Driscoll, Dynasty Handbag, among others. She has produced work at venues, festivals, and exhibitions around the world, including the Whitney Biennial, Holland Festival, Festival d'Automne, documenta 14, Walker Art Center, The Kitchen, Melbourne Festival, among many others. Alexandra lives and works in Brooklyn, and is a graduate of Bennington College.

About Sébastien Roux (Music / Sound Design)
Sébastien Rouxwrites electronic music and presents it in diverse formats, from CDs and records to public listening sessions, sound installations, sound walks, and radio pieces. In 2011 he began to develop an approach focused on principles of translation, analyzing the structures of pre-existing art works (visual, musical, literary) and transposing them into musical scores for new works. Along with his solo works Roux maintains significant collaborations, including writer Célia Houdart and set designer Olivier Vadrot, choreographers DD Dorvillier, Sylvain Prunenec and Rémy Héritier, at Ircam, Paris as a musical assistant to Georges Aperghis, Bruno Mantovani and Gérard Pesson, and as a musical assistant to Morton Subotnick. He is a Rome Prize winner for 2015-2016.

About Marcel Schwittlick (Text Programming)
Marcel Schwittlick is an artist living and working in Berlin, Germany. With his work he is examining the possibilities of generative systems and modern technology, working with a variety of media, ranging from digital images, physical and interactive installations, generative poetry and conceptual video. In 2015 he co-founded Lacuna Lab, a Berlin based artist group and community working on the intersection of art and science. His work has been exhibited internationally, among others at International Symposium on Electronic Art (Hong Kong, China), Union Chapel (London, UK), Harwood Museum of Art (Taos, NM, USA), Lehrter 17 (Berlin), Transmediale Festival (Berlin), School for Poetic Computation (New York City, USA), Bienal de la Habana (Havana, Cuba), The New Sublime (Brighton, UK), Spektrum (Berlin), and Art Jog Jogja National Museum (Yogyakarta, Indonesia).

About Miles Thompson (Text Programming)
Miles Thompsonis a computer programmer and former CTO of a well-known New York financial research company. He now lives in New Zealand with his wife and four children and runs a small programming consultancy. In recent years he has explored the application of machine learning and Artificial Intelligence to text and media through projects involving semantic classification of social media as well as text generation with recurrent neural networks and the exploration of data prints in woven textiles. He holds a BSc Hons I in Mathematics from Canterbury University and a BA in Sociology from Otago University.

About Crossing the Line 2017

Crossing the Line is an international arts festival for New York City produced by the French Institute Alliance Française (FIAF) in partnership with leading cultural institutions. The festivalis co-curated by Lili Chopra, FIAF's Executive Vice President and Artistic Director; Simon Dove, Executive and Artistic Director of Dancing in the Streets; and Gideon Lester, Artistic Director for Theater and Dance at the Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College.

France has a long history of supporting national and international cultural practices, welcoming and nurturing new ideas and influential perspectives from around the world. FIAF, as the leading French cultural institution in the US, critically maintains that practice through the Crossing the Line Festival, presenting leading-edge artists from France and the US alongside their peers from around the world.

Since its inauguration in 2007, Crossing the Line has cultivated an increasingly large and diverse following, and received numerous accolades in the press including "Best of" in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, The New Yorker, Time Out New York, Artforum, and Frieze. Festival performances have earned multiple Obie and Bessie awards. crossingtheline.org

About the Partnership between Crossing the Line and the Hermès Foundation's (Fondation d'entreprise Hermès) New Settings Program

Crossing the Line is thrilled to partner with the Hermès Foundation (Fondation d'entreprise Hermès)'s New Settings Program for a fifth consecutive year. Launched in 2011, New Settings supports new performing arts productions that shift borders between disciplines to create innovative art forms. This year, works by Annie Dorsen, Bouchra Ouizguen, and Alessandro Sciarroni are presented within the framework of Crossing the Line. www.fondationentreprisehermes.org.

About FIAF
The French Institute Alliance Française (FIAF) is New York's premiere French cultural and language center. FIAF's mission is to create and offer New Yorkers innovative and unique programs in education and the arts that explore the evolving diversity and richness of French cultures. FIAF seeks to generate new ideas and promote cross cultural dialogue through partnerships and new platforms of expression. www.fiaf.org

Merci!
Crossing the Line 2017 is made possible with generous leadership support from Air France and Delta Air Lines, the official airlines of FIAF; The Edmond de Rothschild Foundations; The Florence Gould Foundation; The Hermès Foundation (Fondation d'entreprise Hermès) within the framework of the New Settings program; and JCDecaux; and with generous major support from Cultural Services of the French Embassy; Enoch Foundation; FACE; Howard Gilman Foundation; National Endowment for the Arts; New England Foundation for the Arts; NYC Department of Cultural Affairs; NYSCA; New York State Council on the Arts; Pommery; Perrier; and Performing Arts Fund NL.

Our Producer's Circle: Sarah Arison, Michel G. Bernard, Ron Guttman, Isabelle Kowal, Didier Lestienne & Pierre Rouy-Cartier, Marie Nugent-Head, and Elisabeth Wilmers.

FIAF would like to thank the following for their generous support of Crossing the Line 2017:

British Council; Consulate General of the Netherlands in New York ; Institut Français; King's Fountain; Omaha Foundation; Robert de Rothschild; and SACD (Société des auteurs et compositeurs dramatiques).

Photo Credit: Julieta Cervantes, courtesy of Live Arts Bard