Theaterlab Presents Teatro Deluxe's FEMINEA - WHITE FRAME 7/8-10

Theaterlab (Carlo Altomare and Orietta Crispino, Co-Artistic Directors) announced the United States premiere of Italian theater company Teatro Deluxe's FEMINEA - WHITE FRAME at its downtown New York performance space (137 West 14th St., between 6th & 7th Ave.)

Conceived for these New York dates, FEMINEA - WHITE FRAME is a performative project, a multimedia study that relates a live performance with pre-existing video (produced by Teatro Deluxe in 2009) named FEMINEA - FIRST ANIMATION. The inspiration for this work comes from the first phase of the FEMINEA project (the video itself and photographic series that gave origin to it) and the discussions it stimulated, even beyond the authorial intentions. FEMINEA - WHITE FRAME offers a study of the relationship among different media (video-photo-body) and an invitation to ponder the identity of the contemporary body.

The first frame, then, is white. It's tabula rasa like the mind of a newborn, a new life that has nothing but instinct, which is essential to the body to overcome its limitations. The beginning of life is characterized by unconscious gesture; this project transports the audience to that part of their own lives that they don't remember, characterized as collective non-memory, although the body of each of us retains memory, more or less. FEMINEA - WHITE FRAME queries the body of a newborn, trying to re-locate the sense and the route to reach the self-consciousness. It is, therefore, a search as well as an attempt to analyze the way in which the living being becomes conscious of existing.

FEMINEA - WHITE FRAME was conceived by Claudio Oliva and Vera Michela Suprani and features Vera Michela Suprani and musician Alessandro Oliva under the direction of Claudio Oliva. Performances of FEMINEA - WHITE FRAME run July 8 through 10, 2010 at 8:00 pm at Theaterlab (137 West 14th Street, between 6th and 7th Ave., Subway: 1/2/3 or F to 14th St. or L to 6th Ave.). Tickets are $10 at www.theaterlabnyc.com.

Teatro Deluxe is an artistic research project that produces theatrical creations and video/photographic experimentations. Reborn in 2008 by Vera Michela Suprani and Claudio Oliva, the duo works in Rome and Ravenna. In June 2008, Teatro Deluxe debuted PEARL -- A PORTRAIT OF A SLEEPLESS FIGURE at Kollatino Underground in Rome (other dates are followed at Teatro Eur, Teatro Palladium and Sala Cutu in Perugia). In January 2009 Teatro Deluxe produced FEMINEA -- FIRST ANIMATION, a study on relations between different media: music, photography, motion and video. In January 2010, the company presented FEMINEA: FRAMES OF REALITY -- TOWARDS THE FORMATION OF IDENTITY at Duncan3.0 space for Contemporary Arts in Rome. The show is part of the review Cronicamente, designed to accommodate the work of young authors and companies that penetrate the territories of the mind, the madness of human aberrations.

Theaterlab, founded in 2006 by Carlo Altomare and Orietta Crispino, is dedicated to research into the nature of live performance. Altomare and Crispino have created experimental theatrical pieces, including APPEARANCE - A SUSPENSE IN BEING and SOLO PERFORMANCE WORKSHOP. Crispino also directed La Fricchettona, three monologues by Dario Fo and Franca Rame, while Altomare teamed with visual artist Naoki Iwakawa for a 13-part action painting cycle, EXCAVATION, which was presented at Theaterlab over two years (2008 - 2010). The company's artist residency program has hosted Jef Johnson, renowned principal clown of SLAVA'S SNOWSHOW, Dutch theatre artist Linda Olthof, and comedian Reno. In April 2009, Theaterlab hosted Brazilian theater legend Ze Celso in his first New York appearance and screened the lyrical film As Bacantes 2009, which documented Celso's recreation of The Bacchae. Theaterlab produced the first MMiX Festival of Interactive Technology, which featured performances by Todd Reynolds, Luke DuBois, Elliott Sharp/Janene Higgins, Dan Trueman and his Mini Laptop Orchestra, Bora Yoon and more, in October 2009.