EPONA’S LABYRINTH Comes To HERE 4/7-23

As a 2010-11 mainstage Resident Artist production, HERE proudly presents the premiere of Epona's Labyrinth from The South Wing Theatre Company in collaboration with the Nibroll art collective hailing from Japan. Directed by Kameron Steele, this surrealist psycho-sexual drama infuses writer Ivana Catanese and Kameron Steele's original work with arresting multimedia design. This production plays 16 performances from April 7 - 23, with Official Opening set for Saturday, April 9 at 8:30 PM at HERE (145 Sixth Avenue).

Epona's Labyrinth chronicles the bizarrely erotic adventures of a man searching for his missing wife in a mysterious and vast underground hospital. When an ambulance appears in the middle of the night and takes his wife, the bewildered husband quickly discovers that things are not as they should be. His covert explorations reveal her destination to be an enormous hospital, home to a network of constant surveillance, outlandish sex experiments and an array of odd and sometimes violent characters. Pulling from Noir film, Japanese animé and post-modern theatrical aesthetics, Epona's Labyrinth showcases The South Wing's neo-expressionist style and the cutting-edge choreography and multimedia design of Mikuni Yanaihara and her Yokohama-based art collective Nibroll while suggesting a nightmarish vision of modern medicine and modern life.

Epona's Labyrinth features Gillian Chadsey, Davina Cohen, Gabel Eiben, Ximena Garnica, Nathan Guisinger, Sophia Remolde, Andrew Shulman, Benjamin Stuber and Kate Villanova.

This production features Choreography by Mikuni Yanaihara (Nibroll), Set Design by Shige Moriya, Costume Design by Mitsushi Yanaihara (Nibroll), Lighting Design by Ayumu "Poe" Saegusa, Video Design by Keisuke Takahashi (Nibroll) and Sound Design/Composition by SKANK (Nibroll).

Founded in 2003 by Kameron Steele and Ivana Catanese, Brooklyn-based The South Wing is an international company of artists from Argentina, Belgium, Japan, Mexico and the United States known for creating innovative performances and adaptations of international, classical, contemporary and original works that embrace and challenge the obstacles of language, culture, genre and tradition. Productions include an adaptation of Mishima's Hanjo at Teatro Degollado in Mexico and subsequently at HERE as part of the mexicoNOW Festival, Hanjo Redux at CRS & La Bellone, Brussels, The Bacchae at Teatro Mendoza, Argentina and later at Long Island University, Saudade at HERE, Death in Vacant Lot! based on Shuji Terayama's film Den'en ni Shisu at HERE and at LMCC Swing Space and AOI! based on Mishima's The Lady Aoi at Japan Society (2007) and the undergroundzero festival at PS122 (2009).

Director Kameron Steele (Co-Founder/Artistic Director, The South Wing) received his degree in Performance Studies from Chicago's Northwestern University and soon joined Tadashi Suzuki's SCOT company in Toga, Japan, where he has worked as an actor, translator and assistant director. In 1998, Steele began working at Robert Wilson's Watermill Center and has since performed several of Wilson's productions including Persephone, Woyzeck, DDD III: The Days Before, and the title role in Prometheus (Megaron Mousikis, Athens). Since founding The South Wing Theatre Company in 2003 with Argentinean actress and writer Ivana Catanese, Steele's directorial work has been seen in Argentina (Teatro Mendoza), Belgium (STUK, La Bellone), Spain (Teatro Galan, Institut del Teatre), Mexico (Teatro Degollado) and New York (HERE, PS122, Japan Society, LMCC, 3LD, Guild Hall, Watermill Center, Prelude, etc.). He recently directed the world premiere of Yoav Gal's indie-opera Mosheh at HERE, which earned critical acclaim and drew capacity audiences.

Writer Ivana Catanese (Co-Founder/Creative Producer, The South Wing) is a performer, co-director, producer and playwright. Originally from Argentina, Catanese works in Spanish, English and Japanese, and has translated/adapted novels, movies and created original work. Her adaptations include The Bacchae, Hanjo and Hanjo Redux, Saudade, Death in Vacant Lot! and AOI!. She has taught The South Wing's training in Argentina, Brussels, France, Japan, Mexico, New York and Spain. In Argentina, Ivana graduated with honors from Universidad Nacional de Cuyo in Theater. She co-founded the Alvarez-Catanese-Ponce company and created an adaptation of Sartre's No Exit that toured to various festivals in Argentina and the Festival de las Americas in Cuba. She received government grants allowing her to study with several theater masters in Argentina until she decided to study with Kameron Steele in 1999. She has worked with Robert Wilson, WaxFactory, Magnetic Laboratorium, Rinkogun (Japan), Spanish Repertory, Guild Hall and Odd Fellows Playhouse.

Nibroll is a multi-media art collective formed in 1997 by Mikuni Yanaihara, Keisuke Takahashi, Mitsushi Yanaihara, SKANK and Takeshi Ito. Nibroll's co-directors have artistic expertise in multiple genres, including choreography, visual art, music and fine arts. As the artistic diversity of the members suggests, their performance is best described as an amalgam of concert, play, cinema and art exhibition, leaving the task of categorization to their audience. www.nibroll.com

The South Wing's Kameron Steele and Nibroll's Mikuni Yanaihara have worked for the last ten years creating and performing in work that has toured international festivals, developing a following of artists and public attracted to their bold visions. Keenly curious about the worlds outside their homelands, Steele and Yanaihara have spent a significant amount of time working in and gaining inspiration from each other's home countries (the U.S. and Japan, respectively). As a member of Tadashi Suzuki's SCOT company, Steele has acted and taught in Japanese via various projects with Yoji Sakate, Ren Saito, Jun Fubuki and Akira Emoto. Yanaihara has toured extensively with Nibroll in the U.S. via exchanges with Attack Theatre (Pittsburgh), Dance Theatre Workshop, The Kitchen, and most recently with CUNY's Prelude Festival via their "Spotlight on Japan" series. Steele and Yanaihara aim to explode the postwar exchange format and create a process that is truly bilingual and bicultural. This desire to break the mold is the heart of The South Wing / Nibroll collaboration.

While in residence at the Watermill Center in 2007, The South Wing began exploring their earliest ideas for Epona's Labyrinth (then titled The Gospel According to Jack Vitrolo). A work-in-progess presentation appeared in HERE's Culturemart festival in January 2008. Later that year, Steele traveled to Yokohama to share the concept of this work with Mikuni Yanaihara and the Nibroll team, and in April 2009, the companies engaged in a ten-day collaborative residency. Following that period, Ivana Catanese traveled to Argentina to continue working on the script while Steele further developed the production design with Nibroll. Over the course of its development, Epona's Labyrinth appeared again at HERE in Culturemart in January 2009 and later in a Staging/Design Residency at North American Cultural Laboratory (NaCL, Highland Lake, NY) in April 2009. The Spring 2011 production at HERE marks the world premiere.

Since 1993, the OBIE-winning HERE, Kristin Marting, Artistic Director and Kim Whitener, Producing Director, has been one of New York's premier arts organizations and a leader in the field of producing and presenting new, hybrid performance viewed as a seamless integration of artistic disciplines-theatre, dance, music, puppetry, visual, multi-media art. Past notable productions include Basil Twist's Symphonie Fantastique and Arias with a Twist, Hazelle Goodman's On Edge, Trey Lyford & Geoff Sobelle's all wear bowlers, Young Jean Lee's Songs of the Dragons Flying to Heaven, Corey Dargel's Removable Parts and Taylor Mac's The Lily's Revenge, among many other standout works. HERE's work is challenging and alternative and offers audiences the opportunity to feel that they are part of something new and fresh.

HERE's core program is the HERE Artist Residency Program (HARP), through which HERE commissions and develops new hybrid works over a 1-3 year period. As part of the HERE community of artists and audiences, Resident Artists show works-in-progress, develop workshop productions and mount full-scale productions. Through HARP, HERE grows innovative artistic work and offers artists, while offering artists resources and education in areas such as marketing, budgeting, grantwriting and touring. Each season, HERE produces 4 to 6 Resident Artist productions as mainstage works. Epona's Labyrinth was developed through HARP.

Epona's Labyrinth was supported in part by The MAP Fund, The Japan Foundation, and The Watermill Center.