The UCSB Department of Theater and Dance Presents SPECTRAL FREQUENCIES This Month

The UCSB Department of Theater and Dance will present Spectral Frequencies, a new play devised and directed by our graduate student Jo Palazuelos-Krukowski. A ghostly tapestry of Australian aural dramas brought to life for the stage, Spectral Frequencies is a wondrous amalgam of scary stories showcasing the island continent's rich legacy of twentieth-century horror radio. The show runs from February 22nd to 27th in the Performing Arts with special Friday performances at 2 pm and 10 pm.

Jo Palazuelos-Krukowski is a doctoral candidate in theatre at UC Santa Barbara specializing in the cross-cultural ghost in performance. She has worked as a producer for the Moth and a consultant at the Royal Shakespeare Company. Her research is published under the Methuen Drama imprint at Bloomsbury. Palazuelos-Krukowski has had the pleasure of directing Shakespeare in the Park with Isla Vista Arts and theatre for youth with Nuestra Voz.

The idea for the show comes from Palazuelos-Krukowski's research which has focused on the ghost in performance, and how artists often use the idea of the ghost to address sites of cultural tension - the dreaming awake of our greatest fears. Ghost stories convey so many elusive truths about the communities who tell them, and the horror radio play is a technological extension of the folktale: it's a campfire story told wide enough to blanket a nation. Discovering the archives of Australian horror radio on a chance trip to Melbourne felt like she had found buried treasure.

As a deviser and director. Palazuelos-Krukowski describes working on the project as "loving every minute of it". She continues: "I started doing theatre in earnest in South Korea with the ex-pat community there, putting up plays on a shoestring budget in the basements of dance clubs in Itaewon. We were used to doing everything ourselves - writing, acting, directing - so it was good practice for a project as dynamic as this one. And it's really nice to be able to take decades old-stories, adapt them for contemporary audiences, hear those adaptations performed, and then make those adaptations stronger. It's just been a joy."

Join the UCSB Department of Theater and Dance in this unique journey through the area of Australian horror stories. Please visit theaterdance.ucsb.edu for most up to date COVID-19 protocols as they are changing rapidly. More information and tickets are available at the UCSB Theater and Dance box office, by phone at (805) 893 - 2064, and online at www.theaterdance.ucsb.edu.