SummerStage Brings New Show For Adults to the Swedish Cottage

City Parks Foundation is thrilled to announce a new commissioned, site-specific work debuting at the historic Swedish Cottage Marionette Theatre in Central Park this October. Oltra mar, directed, choreographed, and designed by Luca Veggetti, fuses dance with the art of puppetry. The work was inspired by and is set to the music of celebrated Finnish composer, Kaija Saariaho.

The Swedish Cottage, an historic space that is beloved by generations of children, will be converted into a black box theater for adults for an intimate and immersive performance. The work reflects City Parks Foundation's interest in connecting and celebrating our City's exceptional variety of culture, while advancing new forms of artistic expression, catalyzing collaboration between artists working in traditional and contemporary puppetry, and activating its historic building as a stage for new work.

The intimate production, to run for four days only, will feature one live dancer/puppeteer, Morgan Hurst, as well as two of the Swedish Cottage's very own marionette puppeteers. The performance is set to Kaija Saariaho's Oltra mar (1999) and Lonh (1996), two musical works at the origin of her masterful debut opera L'Amour de loin (2000) -- a medieval tale of idealized love between two lovers intimately connected and yet set apart by the sea.

Oltra mar (2016), which means "across the sea" in ancient French, embodies the poetic and dramatic situations contained in Saariaho's Oltra mar and Lonh through visuals and dance. The imagery of sea and separation, evoked by the choir in Oltra mar, is expressed in the production through images of isolated figures and distant landscapes, as well as two string puppets, themselves controlled from afar by marionette puppeteers on the theater bridge. These images contrast with the dancer who, by manipulating the movements of the rod puppet she is intimately attached to, represents the more internal sense of longing in the single female voice of Lonh.

"Oltra mar aims at a form of poetic theater where dance and puppetry are connected on a structural level, and a musical world where dancers and puppets emanate from one another, while together, embodying the expressive power of the human voice," said creator and choreographer Luca Veggetti. "The simple black box aesthetic of the Swedish Cottage is perfectly suited to merge these artistic elements and create an immersive experience for the audience."

"We are so excited to present Luca Veggetti's Oltra mar at the Swedish Cottage," said longtime Swedish Cottage Artistic Director Bruce Cannon. "Our mission at the Swedish Cottage is to carry on the art of traditionAl Marionette puppetry, while presenting original works that will appeal to contemporary audiences. Veggetti's innovative production beautifully incorporates marionettes with modern movements and rod puppetry to illustrate the themes of Saariaho's music."

"SummerStage is thrilled to join forces as a co-presenter of Oltra mar with the Swedish Cottage," said Erika Elliott, Executive Artistic Director and SummerStage producer. "We recently launched a monthly SummerStage indoor showcase series with the goal of exposing our audiences to new and important works from around the world. Oltra mar is the work of an important choreographer, relying on music by one of the world's most renowned stars in contemporary music, and includes a modern use of puppetry in a way that feels authentic to our festival's mission. It is especially exciting to see how Veggetti has been able to use our historic Cottage to create a site-specific work that engages our audience and captivates our imagination in a new way."

The debut of Oltra mar (2016) at the Swedish Cottage on October 6 will mark the beginning of a fall season of performances across New York City highlighting Saariaho's work. On October 12, Juilliard will present a night of Finnish music, including Saariaho's Light and Matter (2014). On October 13 & 14 Esa-Pekka Salonen will conduct the New York Philharmonic in a full evening of Saariaho's music at the Park Avenue Armory. On November 7, The Guggenheim's Works & Process series will present excerpts of Saariaho's opera L'Amour de loin (2000), in advance of The Metropolitan Opera's new production of the work by Robert Lepage, set to debut in December. Additional events are planned at the Chamber Music Society, 92nd Street Y, and The New School.

Oltra mar is the second commissioned piece by Veggetti for the Swedish Cottage Marionette Theatre. His first, Orestia, was presented by the Swedish Cottage in 2010. A third has been commissioned and is planned for 2017.

About the Swedish Cottage Marionette Theatre

The enchanting Swedish architecture and craftsmanship of the Swedish Cottage which was suggestive of a model schoolhouse caught the eye of Central Park creator Fredrick Law Olmsted, who brought it to Central Park in 1877. A traveling marionette company was founded in 1939 and in 1947 the Swedish Cottage became home to the company. In 1973, a permanent theater was constructed inside the Swedish Cottage, designed for marionette performances. Since then, hundreds of thousands of children and families from around the world have enjoyed its original productions. Under the direction of City Parks Foundation, the Swedish Cottage Marionette Theatre and CityParks PuppetMobile continues to thrill audiences from around the world, entertaining upwards of 65,000 people each year.

About SummerStage

SummerStage, a program of City Parks Foundation, is New York's largest free performing arts festival. SummerStage annually presents over 115 free performances in sixteen parks throughout the five boroughs from May through September. With performances ranging from American pop, Latin and world music to dance, spoken word and theater, SummerStage fills a vital niche in New York City's summer arts festival landscape. Since its inception thirty-one years ago, more than six million people from New York City and around the world have enjoyed SummerStage. SummerStage is presented by Capital One Bank.

About City Parks Foundation

City Parks Foundation is the only independent, nonprofit organization whose mission is to offer programs in public parks throughout the five boroughs of New York City. At City Parks Foundation, we are dedicated to invigorating and transforming parks into dynamic, vibrant centers of urban life through sports, arts, community development, and education programs for all New Yorkers. Our programs and community building initiatives -- located in more than 350 parks, recreation centers, and public schools across the city -- reach 425,000 people each year. Our ethos is simple: we believe thriving parks reflect thriving communities.

Pictured: Oresteia, by the same director, Luca Veggetti, also at the Swedish Cottage. Photo courtesy of Alessandro Camoni.