UK's Forced Entertainment to Return to New York in TOMORROW'S PARTIES

As part of the 2016 edition of Crossing the Line, the French Institute Alliance Française (FIAF)'s celebrated contemporary arts festival, FIAF will present Forced Entertainment, returning this year with the New York premiere of their provocative and darkly comic performance, Tomorrow's Parties. In a stunningly simple narrative format, the force of this superb work showcases imaginative storytelling in a mesmerizing meditation on human possibility, and what is yet to come.

In a Crossing the Line and Times Square Arts presentation, Forced Entertainment's artistic director, Tim Etchells brings the world premiere of his specially created multi-channel video installation Eyes Looking to the electronic billboards as part of Times Square's Midnight Moment, the largest coordinated effort in the history of this iconic site to display synchronized, cutting-edge creative content.

"We're interested in making performances that excite, challenge, question, and entertain audiences; we're interested in confusion as well as laughter." - Forced Entertainment

Forced Entertainment: Tomorrow's Parties (New York Premiere)

Wednesday, September 28, Friday, September 30 & Saturday, October 1 at 7:30pm

FIAF Florence Gould Hall, 55 East 59th Street (between Park and Madison Avenue)

FIAF Members $15; Non-Members $20

International innovators Forced Entertainment present a captivating performance that imagines a multitude of hypothetical futures. Two performers marooned on a wooden pallet under a string of carnival lights invite you to crash the tail end of a party-or maybe it's the end of the world-as they serve the audience with their wildest predictions and deepest concerns for the future. Shifting between utopian and dystopian visions they reveal the vulnerability of optimism in the face of adversity, and the pleasures of invention that arise from addressing our fears.

In Tomorrow's Parties, theater is pared down to perfection in a language-based performance that treads the line between the serious and the playful. With just two performers, this seemingly minimal performance soon reveals itself to be a lo-fi theatrical explosion. From magical realism to science fiction, political nightmares and absurd fantasies, Forced Entertainment deliver a thought-provoking survey of hopes and fears as they speculate on what the future might bring. A compelling blend of social commentary and dark humor, the delirious ruminations of these two late-night philosophers offer a poignant, comic look at the world we live in.

Tim Etchells: Eyes Looking

(World Premiere, a CTL 2016 and Times Square Arts Presentation)

Co-presented with Times Square Arts and Times Square Advertising Coalition (TSAC)

Saturday, October 1 through Monday, October 31, from 11:57pm-midnight

Times Square

Free & open to the public

Artistic Director of award-winning theater company Forced Entertainment, Tim Etchells' work shifts between performance, visual art, and fiction. Eyes Looking is at once a specially-created multi-channel video installation, a poem, and a performative sculpture. It combines a dynamic use of text with a highly visual form, utilizing the electronic billboards in Times Square to create a contemplative counter-rhythm to the city. Etchells' texts at the heart of Eyes Looking draw attention to the human beings who pass through Times Square in the present, as well as those who have been there in the past. The work highlights the small actions and human details that bring us together, generating an awareness of the multitude of living, breathing, and moving bodies present in public space.

"I'm interested to create moments of thoughtfulness and playful encounter in a public setting; the work is public but private at the same time, trying to draw each person that encounters it into a space of intimate reflection." - Tim Etchells

British company Forced Entertainment is known all over Europe for their inventive, playful, and subversive performances. Founded in 1984 and based in Sheffield, they have created dozens of critically acclaimed performance works that have been shown at major festivals and theaters around the world.

The group has sustained a six-way artistic partnership for more than 30 years, producing a continuum of provocative work questioning what theater might mean in contemporary life. Led by the acclaimed writer-director Tim Etchells, they push familiar forms of performance beyond breaking point. Their distinctive, playful, and chaotic style goes beyond theatre, and has resulted in gallery installations, site-specific pieces, books, photographic collaborations, and even a mischievous guided bus tour. As the group's name suggests, their work exhibits a constant desire to contrast opposing forces.

"We liked the name and its combination of something positive and friendly-entertainment-and this word "forced" which points to something problematic and uneasy. I don't think we knew it at the time, but in many ways this duality has been at the heart of our work since the beginning... so the name became a kind of manifesto." - Tim Etchells

Since its inception, the group has sustained a unique artistic partnership confirming their position as trailblazers in contemporary theater. The company's substantial canon of work reflects an interest in the mechanics of performance, the role of the audience and the machinations of contemporary urban life. The work is distinctive and provocative, delighting in disrupting the conventions of theatre and the expectations of audiences. Forced Entertainment's trademark collaborative process-devising work as a group through improvisation, experimentation, and debate-has made them pioneers of British avant-garde theatre and earned them an international reputation. Their work continues to open new and invigorating dialogues with contemporary audiences, and has influenced a generation of theater-makers worldwide.

This year, the group's surprising and vital work was recognized with two major awards-the 2016 International Ibsen Award and the 2016 Spalding Gray Award (for Tim Etchells).

"The work we make tries to explore what theatre and performance can mean in contemporary life and is always a kind of conversation or negotiation, something that needs to be live." - Tim Etchells

Midnight Moment is the largest coordinated effort in history by the sign operators in Times Square to display synchronized, cutting-edge creative content on electronic billboards and newspaper kiosks throughout Times Square every night. The program premiered in May 2012 and is organized and supported by the Times Square Advertising Coalition in partnership with Times Square Arts, the public art program of the Times Square Alliance, with additional partners of participating sign holders and artists.

Each night, Times Square becomes a digital art gallery through dazzling visuals on select billboards and newsstands. Every show begins at 11:57 p.m. with a ""countdown"" that signals the start of the three minute nightly presentation. Past artists featured in the program include Jennifer Steinkamp; Soundwalk Collective; Lorna Mills; Peter Fischli and David Weiss; Laurie Anderson; Antony Nagelmann; Jesper Just; Shahzia Sikander; Rashaad Newsome; Osgemeos; Eric Dyer; Richard Garet; Andy Warhol; Peggy Ahwesh; Marco Brambilla; Rafaël Rozendaal; Sebastian Errazuriz; Charles Atlas and Antony; Noah Hutton; Ryoji Ikeda; Daniel Canogar; Alfredo Jaar; Isaac Julien; Robert Wilson; Tracey Emin; Seoungho Cho; Vicki DaSilva, Surabhi Saraf, and Elly Cho; Erika Janunger; Takeshi Murata; Bel Borba with Burt Sun and André Costantini; Zach Nader; BrIan Gonzalez (aka Taxiplasm); Björk; JR; Ryan McGinley; Jack Goldstein; Nature Theater of Oklahoma; Ezra Wube; Laleh Khorramian; Brian Dailey; Leslie Thornton; and Yoko Ono. For more information on past projects, visit www.timessquarenyc.org/times-square-arts/projects/midnight-moment/index.aspx.

Times Square Advertising Coalition (TSAC) is a trade association comprised of major advertisers, retailers, real estate firms, media companies, and other businesses involved in the outdoor sign industry in Times Square, along with organizations representing Broadway and the community. Members of TSAC include: ABC Regional Sports & Entertainment Sales, Clear Channel Spectacolor, Daktronics, D3 LED, Digital Domination, Hines Management, Jamestown One Times Square, Lamar Advertising Company, Landmark Sign & Electric, Metro Media Technologies, Newmark Knight Frank, North Shore Neon, P.R.omotion!, Sherwood Outdoor, SL Green, Times Square Alliance, The WOW Factor and Thomson Reuters. For more, visit www.timessquareadcoalition.org. Follow TSAC on twitter at @TSACNYC.

Times Square Arts, the public art program of the Times Square Alliance, collaborates with contemporary artists and cultural institutions to experiment and engage with one of the world's most iconic urban places. Through the Square's electronic billboards, public plazas, vacant areas, and popular venues, and the Alliance's own online landscape, Times Square Arts invites leading contemporary creators to help the public see Times Square in new ways. Times Square has always been a place of risk, innovation and creativity, and the Arts Program ensures these qualities remain central to the district's unique identity. Generous support of Times Square Arts is provided by the. New York State Council on the Arts, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, and the National Endowment for the Arts. Visit www.timessquarenyc.org/times-square-arts/index.aspx for more information. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram at @TSqArts.

Crossing the Line, now in its tenth year, is an annual citywide festival that engages International Artists and New York City audiences in discovery and dialogue to re-imagine the world around us. The festival is produced by the French Institute Alliance Française (FIAF) in partnership with leading cultural institutions. This year's edition of the festival takes place from September 22-November 3, 2016.

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 tradition 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. The festival has been voted "Best of 2009," "Best of 2010," "Best of 2012," "Best of 2013," and "Best of 2014" by The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Time Out New York, Artforum, and Frieze, with performances earning an Obie and several Bessie awards. The New York Times states, "For terrifically unusual, unpredictable, unnameable performance, we've come to expect a lot from ... the curators of the French Institute Alliance Française's interdisciplinary festival," and The New Yorker says, "This interdisciplinary festival...goes from strength to strength." For more information, visit www.crossingtheline.org.

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. Go to www.fiaf.org.

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