Yara Arts Group
Encyclopedia
Yara Arts Group is a resident company at La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club
in New York. Established in 1990, Yara is a collective of artists of Asian, African, Latino, Eastern and Western European ancestry, who come together to create original work based on traditional material from often-overlooked Eastern cultures. The artists bring together fragments of plays, poems, songs, myths and historical sources to create original work that is reflective of the culture they explore. The group has created 24 original theatre pieces based on extensive research in Eastern Europe, Siberia and Asia in Yara’s signature style of: multilingual dialogue and songs supported by evocative visuals and documentation.
Yara’s productions have examined unique moments of cultural exchange that are based on documentary material, as well as modern poetry. The shows have been well-received by audiences and press from the very beginning. Reviewing Blind Sight the Village Voice wrote: ‘There would not seem to be much hope for a play on the hardly far-ranging interaction of the Ukrainian and Japanese cultures in 1914, assuming that there was such a historical moment in the first place. Blind Sight thoroughly undercuts such assumptions... It is delicate like a ballet without dance, or a fantasy by a modernist Watteau, delicate and ethereal in the extreme, yet somehow simultaneously as tough as steel, hard as nails... That Blind Sight works at all is a minor miracle; that it works so well is a blessing.”
Roderrick Mason Faber, Village Voice, May 4, 1993. Ten years later, reviewing Yara’s production of Swan, a Voice critic wrote: “Andrew Colteaux's vibrant performance as the poem's voice integrated speaking and movement, charting a landscape of loneliness, yearning, and ultimate surrender
The Yara artistic family includes: Virlana Tkacz
(Fulbright and NEA Fellow, award-winning director and translator named Honored Artist of Ukraine), Watoku Ueno (NEA/TCG award-winning designer), Wanda Phipps
(NYFA award-winning poet), Shona Tucker (Audelco award-winning actress), Susan Hyon (Shubert Theatre Award-winning actress and Fulbright Fellow), Julian Kytasty
(virtuoso of the Ukrainian bandura), Nina Matvienko (legendary folk singer in Kyiv) Mariana Sadovska
(award-winning actress and singer), Andrea Odezynska (award-winning filmmaker), Margaret Morton (award-winning photographer), Eugene Hutz
and Gogol Bordello
(popular Ethno Avant-Garde NY band), Sayan and Erzhena Zhambalov (Honored Artists of the Republic of Buryatia, Siberia), Kenzhegul Satybaldieva (award winning Kyrgyz actress) as well as many talented New York actors.
’s verse play, Waterfall/Reflections with Nina Matviyenko Kupala with Mariana Sadovska and Gogol Bordello
, Swan based on a poem by Oleh Lysheha
, Koliada: Twelve Dishes and Still the River Flows. In 2008 a Different Light a bilingual book of translations by Virlana tkacz
and Wanda Phipps
from these productions was published by Sribne Slovo. The book includes descriptions of the performances and photographs.
Eva Yaa Asantewaa, critic for the Village Voice wrote: ““A stunningly beautiful work, Circle rushes at your senses, makes your heart pound, and shakes your feelings loose.
“It isn't often that one can enjoy such a satisfying evening of theatre perfectly fused with music. This is what good art is all about -- exhilarating, uplifting and entertaining. And for the world music lover, it is a feast of gorgeous singing, authentic costuming and masterly instrumental playing.” Michal Shapiro, Rhythm, the World Music Magazine, August 2000
, including “Rashomon
.” "Creator Watoku Ueno and the Yara Arts Group have put tremendous thought into the aesthetics of the piece. It opens beautifully, with one of the most original and intriguing set designs I have ever seen. It serves up one surprise after another… It is exquisite… The music by the composer/guitarist/sound designer Kato Hideki seamlessly merges with the striking visuals and accentuates the poignancy of the stories.”
Kat Chamberlain, nytheatre.com, April 10, 2008
Gwen Owen, Backstage, March 30, 2009
-Pick of the Week – “The performance builds what good theatre should always build: an alternate world that allows us to re-learn and reflect upon the great questions at the core of our being human.”
Michael Bettencourt offoffonline.com April 18, 2010
“Gorgeous Ukrainian and Kyrgyz traditional songs performed by women with exquisite voices accompanied elegantly by ancient instruments, as well as stunning changes of tone with the contemporary duo “The Debutante Hour” combine to create a beautiful soundscape … Scythian Stones is unlike anything I’ve heard before. Mitchell Conway Nytheatre,com ,April 17, 2010
2009 Er Toshtuk
2008 Still the River Flows
2008 After the Rain
2007 Janyl
2006 Sundown
2005 Koliada: Twelve Dishes
2004 The Warrior’s Sister
2003 Swan
2002 Kupala
2002 Howling
2001 Obo: Our Shamanism
2000 Song Tree
2000 Circle
1998-99 Flight of the White Bird
1996-97 Virtual Souls
1995 Waterfall/Reflections
1994 Yara's Forest Song
1993 Blind Sight
1992 Explosions
1990-91 A Light from the East/In the Light
www.brama.com/yara/theatre.html
La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club
La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club is an off-off Broadway theatre founded in 1961 by Ellen Stewart, and named in reference to her. Located on Manhattan's Lower East Side, the theatre grew out of Stewart's tiny basement boutique for her fashion designs; the boutique's space acted as a theatre for...
in New York. Established in 1990, Yara is a collective of artists of Asian, African, Latino, Eastern and Western European ancestry, who come together to create original work based on traditional material from often-overlooked Eastern cultures. The artists bring together fragments of plays, poems, songs, myths and historical sources to create original work that is reflective of the culture they explore. The group has created 24 original theatre pieces based on extensive research in Eastern Europe, Siberia and Asia in Yara’s signature style of: multilingual dialogue and songs supported by evocative visuals and documentation.
Yara’s productions have examined unique moments of cultural exchange that are based on documentary material, as well as modern poetry. The shows have been well-received by audiences and press from the very beginning. Reviewing Blind Sight the Village Voice wrote: ‘There would not seem to be much hope for a play on the hardly far-ranging interaction of the Ukrainian and Japanese cultures in 1914, assuming that there was such a historical moment in the first place. Blind Sight thoroughly undercuts such assumptions... It is delicate like a ballet without dance, or a fantasy by a modernist Watteau, delicate and ethereal in the extreme, yet somehow simultaneously as tough as steel, hard as nails... That Blind Sight works at all is a minor miracle; that it works so well is a blessing.”
Roderrick Mason Faber, Village Voice, May 4, 1993. Ten years later, reviewing Yara’s production of Swan, a Voice critic wrote: “Andrew Colteaux's vibrant performance as the poem's voice integrated speaking and movement, charting a landscape of loneliness, yearning, and ultimate surrender
Artists
Over the years, Yara has developed a pool of actors, singers, musicians, poets and other artists from New York, Kyiv, Kyrgyzstan and Buryatia. In the constantly fluctuating world of theatre, Yara has been able to foster allegiance among a very diverse group of artists and provide them with opportunities to create original work and perform it. Through these artists, Yara has developed an equally diverse audience base.The Yara artistic family includes: Virlana Tkacz
Virlana Tkacz
Virlana Tkacz is the founding director of the Yara Arts Group, a resident company at the world-renown La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club in New York. She was educated at Bennington College and Columbia University, where she earned a Master of Fine Arts in theatre directing...
(Fulbright and NEA Fellow, award-winning director and translator named Honored Artist of Ukraine), Watoku Ueno (NEA/TCG award-winning designer), Wanda Phipps
Wanda Phipps
Wanda Phipps is a writer living in Brooklyn, New York. She was born in Washington, D.C. and studied theater and English literature at Barnard College of Columbia University in New York City, acting at American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco, CA and poetry at Naropa Institute in Boulder,...
(NYFA award-winning poet), Shona Tucker (Audelco award-winning actress), Susan Hyon (Shubert Theatre Award-winning actress and Fulbright Fellow), Julian Kytasty
Julian Kytasty
Julian Kytasty is a Ukrainian-American composer, singer, kobzar, bandurist, flute player and conductor. He was born January 23 1958 in Detroit, Michigan, in the family of refugees....
(virtuoso of the Ukrainian bandura), Nina Matvienko (legendary folk singer in Kyiv) Mariana Sadovska
Mariana Sadovska
Mariana Sadovska is a German-based Ukrainian actress, singer, musician, recording artist and composer.-Life:Sadovska began her work with Les Kurbas Theater at Anatole Vasiliev's Festivals in St. Petersburg and Moscow. There she was tapped for the "Slavic Pilgrim Project" by Jerzy Grotowski in...
(award-winning actress and singer), Andrea Odezynska (award-winning filmmaker), Margaret Morton (award-winning photographer), Eugene Hutz
Eugene Hütz
Eugene Hütz , September 6, 1972) is a Ukrainian-born singer and composer, most notable as the frontman of the critically acclaimed New York Gypsy punk band Gogol Bordello. Hütz is also a DJ and actor.-Early life:...
and Gogol Bordello
Gogol Bordello
Gogol Bordello is a Gypsy punk band from the Lower East Side of Manhattan, formed in 1999 and known for theatrical stage shows and persistent touring.Much of the band's sound is inspired by Gypsy music...
(popular Ethno Avant-Garde NY band), Sayan and Erzhena Zhambalov (Honored Artists of the Republic of Buryatia, Siberia), Kenzhegul Satybaldieva (award winning Kyrgyz actress) as well as many talented New York actors.
East Europe
Yara has extensive international experience. In 1991 it was the first company to create a joint American-Ukrainian theatre project, conducting workshops and then performing an original bilingual theatre piece with Yara and local artists. In the Light opened the Franko National Theatre in Kyiv the week that began with the fall of the Soviet Union and ended with Ukraine proclaiming independence. Other projects based on Ukrainian material include Explosions, Blind Sight, Yara’s Forest Song based on Lesya UkrainkaLesya Ukrainka
Larysa Petrivna Kosach-Kvitka better known under her literary pseudonym Lesya Ukrainka , was one of Ukraine's best-known poets and writers and the foremost woman writer in Ukrainian literature. She also was a political, civil, and female activist....
’s verse play, Waterfall/Reflections with Nina Matviyenko Kupala with Mariana Sadovska and Gogol Bordello
Gogol Bordello
Gogol Bordello is a Gypsy punk band from the Lower East Side of Manhattan, formed in 1999 and known for theatrical stage shows and persistent touring.Much of the band's sound is inspired by Gypsy music...
, Swan based on a poem by Oleh Lysheha
Oleh Lysheha
Oleh Lysheha is a Ukrainian poet, playwright, translator and intellectual. Lysheha entered Lviv University in 1968, where during his last year, he was expelled for his participation in an "unofficial" literary circle, Lviv Bohema. As punishment, Lysheha was drafted into the Soviet army and...
, Koliada: Twelve Dishes and Still the River Flows. In 2008 a Different Light a bilingual book of translations by Virlana tkacz
Virlana Tkacz
Virlana Tkacz is the founding director of the Yara Arts Group, a resident company at the world-renown La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club in New York. She was educated at Bennington College and Columbia University, where she earned a Master of Fine Arts in theatre directing...
and Wanda Phipps
Wanda Phipps
Wanda Phipps is a writer living in Brooklyn, New York. She was born in Washington, D.C. and studied theater and English literature at Barnard College of Columbia University in New York City, acting at American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco, CA and poetry at Naropa Institute in Boulder,...
from these productions was published by Sribne Slovo. The book includes descriptions of the performances and photographs.
Siberia
With support from the Rockefeller and Ford Foundations, Yara created and performed three projects in Siberia and Mongolia. These include Virtual Souls (1996) at the National Theatre in Ulan Ude, Flight of the White Bird (1998) at the National Theatre in Ulan Ude and the village cultural centers of the Aga Buryat Region, and Circle (2001) at the Opera House in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. Yara also created the shows Obo: Our Shamanism, Howling and The Warrior’s Sister with Buryat artists. The reviewer for American Theatre Web called The Warrior’s Sister: “Multilingual, though easily accessible to English-speaking audiences, the performance reminds us of what theater should be and rarely is—the opportunity to step to a world that is virtually unknown to us…The simplicity of the approach to an epic tale is what makes it so effective. Inventiveness and ingenuity are on display in all aspects of this production, which succeeds at making the unknown familiar to us.”Eva Yaa Asantewaa, critic for the Village Voice wrote: ““A stunningly beautiful work, Circle rushes at your senses, makes your heart pound, and shakes your feelings loose.
“It isn't often that one can enjoy such a satisfying evening of theatre perfectly fused with music. This is what good art is all about -- exhilarating, uplifting and entertaining. And for the world music lover, it is a feast of gorgeous singing, authentic costuming and masterly instrumental playing.” Michal Shapiro, Rhythm, the World Music Magazine, August 2000
Japan
Watoku Ueno, a founding member of Yara and resident designer, has created two theatre productions with the company at La MaMa. Sundown was about Japan’s first photographer and After the Rain was based on three short stories by Ryūnosuke AkutagawaRyunosuke Akutagawa
was a Japanese writer active in the Taishō period in Japan. He is regarded as the "Father of the Japanese short story". He committed suicide at age of 35 through an overdose of barbital.-Early life:...
, including “Rashomon
Rashomon
Rashomon may refer to:* Rashōmon, the former main city gate in two Japanese capital cities, Heijokyō and Heiankyō * Rashōmon , a short story by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa first published in 1915...
.” "Creator Watoku Ueno and the Yara Arts Group have put tremendous thought into the aesthetics of the piece. It opens beautifully, with one of the most original and intriguing set designs I have ever seen. It serves up one surprise after another… It is exquisite… The music by the composer/guitarist/sound designer Kato Hideki seamlessly merges with the striking visuals and accentuates the poignancy of the stories.”
Kat Chamberlain, nytheatre.com, April 10, 2008
Central Asia
In 2005 Yara initiated the first Kyrgyz-American theatre project, Janyl which performed at La MaMa in 2007 and returned to Kyrgyzstan that summer to perform in the capital, as well as in the village cultural centers. In 2008 University of Central Asia published Epic Theatre in New York: Photographs by Margaret Morton, which featured 15 photographs from Janyl. In 2008 Yara created Er Toshtuk using the text of one of the oldest Kyrgyz epics. The show performed at La MaMa in April 2009. The reviewer for Backstage wrote: "The epic is full of humor and terrific physicality. Azamat Serkebaev, a Kyrgyz actor who plays Chalkyuruk, the Magic Horse, captures horsiness with each whinny, leg kick, and look. His performance ought to be a requirement for every actor in New York, particularly those interested in physical work. When the horse gets homesick and misses his herd, you want to cry too (and give him a lump of sugar). As the bride Kenzheke (and in a few other roles), American Susan Hyon has simple charm. In the title role, Kyrgyz actor Umarbek Kadyrov beautifully conveys callow arrogance growing to courage and gallantry. Er Toshtuk is a small gem bringing a new flavor to a New York palate."Gwen Owen, Backstage, March 30, 2009
-Pick of the Week – “The performance builds what good theatre should always build: an alternate world that allows us to re-learn and reflect upon the great questions at the core of our being human.”
Michael Bettencourt offoffonline.com April 18, 2010
“Gorgeous Ukrainian and Kyrgyz traditional songs performed by women with exquisite voices accompanied elegantly by ancient instruments, as well as stunning changes of tone with the contemporary duo “The Debutante Hour” combine to create a beautiful soundscape … Scythian Stones is unlike anything I’ve heard before. Mitchell Conway Nytheatre,com ,April 17, 2010
Production List
2010 Scythian Stones2009 Er Toshtuk
2008 Still the River Flows
2008 After the Rain
2007 Janyl
2006 Sundown
2005 Koliada: Twelve Dishes
2004 The Warrior’s Sister
2003 Swan
2002 Kupala
2002 Howling
2001 Obo: Our Shamanism
2000 Song Tree
2000 Circle
1998-99 Flight of the White Bird
1996-97 Virtual Souls
1995 Waterfall/Reflections
1994 Yara's Forest Song
1993 Blind Sight
1992 Explosions
1990-91 A Light from the East/In the Light
External links
For more Yara pictures and reviews of shows see:www.brama.com/yara/theatre.html
- http://www.nthword.com/issue6/Poetry_into_words_YARA_Art_Group_Olena_Jennings.phpYara Arts Group: Poetry into Theatre by Olena Jennings (Interview with Virlana TkaczVirlana TkaczVirlana Tkacz is the founding director of the Yara Arts Group, a resident company at the world-renown La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club in New York. She was educated at Bennington College and Columbia University, where she earned a Master of Fine Arts in theatre directing...
)] nthWORD Magazine, April 2010