Fort Point Theater Channel today announced its tenth anniversary plans, beginning with Dhalgren Sunrise in June. This scripted/improvisational, interactive, multimedia performance project is based on Dhalgren, a groundbreaking work of American magical realism by the noted African-American science-fiction writer Samuel R. Delany.
FPTC has received a Boston Foundation Live Arts Boston (LAB) grant for Dhalgren Sunrise. LAB is designed to respond directly to the needs articulated by Boston's arts community through Boston Creates. LAB provides critically needed, flexible, project-specific grants to Greater Boston's performing artists and small nonprofit performing arts organizations to create, produce, or present artistic work for Greater Boston audiences.FPTC co-artistic director Mitchel Ahern adapted Dhalgren Sunrise and directs the project. As Ahern explains, "Movement artists, musicians, and readers have created a performance vehicle inspired by the novel's diverse themes: identity, family, urban living, violence, and sexuality, and the nature of time and reality."
Beginning with Dhalgren Sunrise, FPTC will present a year of challenging works, guided by a mission of creating and sustaining new configurations of the performing arts. The company plans two major projects in its 10th anniversary year in addition to Dhalgren Sunrise: August Strindberg's The Ghost Sonata and Jeanne, a new work created by FPTC co-artistic director Mark Warhol.
In 2018, FPTC, Ensemble Warhol, and the Doppelgänger Dance Collective will present an excerpt from the new opera Jeanne by FPTC co-founder Mark Warhol. Jeanne tells the story of a woman trapped in a narrowly defined, frustrating, day-to-day existence due to her beliefs and values, fate and circumstance. "Idealism awakes in her the desire to change her life," says Warhol.
Also during the anniversary year, FPTC will continue its free Exclamation Point! series of theme-based evenings blending various arts. Ideas under consideration include "Onscreen/Offscreen," combining live and projected action, and "The Colors of the Rainbow Are Yellow," on the precarious position of Asian-Americans in the local arts scene. For the next phase in FPTC's Basra-Boston Project, a workshop in Dubai will bring together Boston-area and Iraqi artists to support Iraqi women's voices.Videos