En Garde Arts To Present Irina Kruzhilina's SPACEBRIDGE At Under The Radar

La MaMa in association with En Garde Arts will present Visual Echo's World Premiere of SpaceBridge, a live performance conceived and directed by Irina Kruzhilina, presented in partnership with Under The Radar (Founding Director Mark Russell, Co-Directors Meropi Peponides & Kaneza Schaal, Festival Producer ArKtype) and educational partners at The New School of Drama and Stella Adler Center for the Arts at La MaMa Ellen Stewart Theatre, January 7-11, 2025.

SpaceBridge brings together Russian refugee children, who fled to the US due to their families' anti-war stance and now live in NYC shelters, with American peers to build lifelong friendships while coming to terms with their differences. The performance tracks immigrant children's stories as they integrate into American society and wrestle with questions of heritage, collective responsibility, and guilt by association.

SpaceBridge is devised and performed by eleven young Russian refugees, aged ten to fifteen, alongside eight American-born participants of the same age. The project draws inspiration from the 1983 peace mission to the USSR led by eleven-year-old American activist Samantha Smith, who bridged the gap between American and Russian children during the Cold War.

SpaceBridge is based on a series of creative storytelling workshops with immigrant and non-immigrant youth created and led by Irina Kruzhilina. The workshops were designed to foster interactions between local and refugee youth in various communities around the world with the intended goal of expanding the project nationally and globally, and to spark a youth-led conversation around identity and belonging. We believe that this conversation is more critical than ever in the context of the global refugee crisis.

SpaceBridge was written by Irina Kruzhilina and Clark Young (NYT Critics' Pick for Remember This: The Lesson of Jan Karski) and features Ellen Lauren (co-artistic director/founding member of Siti Company). The ensemble features Alisa Shaverdova, Anastasia Skorobogach, Anna Skorobogach, Arina Skorobogach, Artem Skorobogach, Lily Borzenko, Leon Ladia, Mark Savin, Mars Markelov, Sasha Boikova, Sonia Tsatskina, Adele Nigrini, Alex Weiner, Drake Malave, Henry MacDowell, Nate Hatter, Sabine Gutenberg, Silas MacLean, Tiera Lopper.

The creative team includes Projection Design by Peter Nigrini (Tony Award-nominee for MJ: The Musical, Ain't Too Proud, and Beetlejuice), Cinematography by Aleksei Postnikov, Sound Design by Darron West (Tony Award-winner for Peter and the Starcatcher) & Sophie Yuqing Nie, Lighting Design by Brian H Scott (3 time Henry Hewes Award-nominee), Scenic Design by Irina Kruzhilina (2024 Elliot Norton Award for The Gaaga), Choreography by Laura Peterson (Artistic Director of Open Arts Studio), Props by Jacqueline Brockel & Moira Zhang, and Puppetry by Nick Lehane & Yuliya Tsukerman with Stage Manager Max Mooney, Production Manager Thijs Beuming, Voice Coach Alba Quezada, and Assistant Directors Colin Wilson & Anamaria Willars.

Performances will take place on Tuesday, January 7 at 7pm, Wednesday, January 8 at 7pm, Thursday, January 9 at 7pm, Friday, January 10 at 7pm, and Saturday January 11 at 2pm & 7pm. Tickets ($10-$35) are available for advance purchase at https://web.ovationtix.com/trs/pr/1215448. The performance will run approximately 95 minutes, with no intermission.

Irina Kruzhilina is a New York-based director, scenographer, visual dramaturg, experience designer and educator, creating work at the intersection of visual art, live performance, and civic engagement. Her creative endeavors range from downtown theatre to large scale parades, from opera to site-responsive installations. Since 2005, her work has been shown, locally and globally, at Times Square, Tokyo Disney, BAM, Prague National Theatre, the NY Philharmonic, the XXI Commonwealth Games, Barbican Center, and others. She has collaborated with acclaimed artists and organizations including Doug Fitch, Lars Jan, Dmitry Krymov, Geoff Sobelle, En Garde Arts, Mabou Mines, and Arlekin Players. Irina is the founder of Visual Echo, a multidisciplinary performance organization, whose mission is to create physical and social environments for genuine contact between people across cultures. Visual Echo has developed several original productions, including Journey of a Dream, a cross-generational venture developed in collaboration with Peace Child International in commemoration of the UN's 75th Anniversary, "Мис"Translation, an interactive installation delving into the artistic potential of verbal and artistic mismatches, and Bridging Conversations, a sound-mediated experience for two that offered participants a brief yet impactful opportunity to immerse themselves in someone else's perspective. Irina is associate professor at the New School of Drama, where she co-developed the MFA program in Contemporary Theatre and Performance. She has served as guest lecturer and workshops leader at various educational institutions and conferences in the US and around the world, including Yale School of Drama, California Institute of the Arts, Sarah Lawrence College, La Guardia Community College, Shanghai Theatre Academy, Sibiu International Theatre Festival, the ITI World Congress, Fujairah Monodrama Festival, Baku International Theatre Conference, TCG National Conferences and the CrossCurrents Gathering. Irina is a 2023 LaMaMa resident artist, a former NEA/TCG Career Development Program awardee and Target Margin Theatre Institute Fellow. Irina received the 2024 Joan D. Firestone Commissioning Fund at En Garde Arts.

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