PROTOTYPE, CULTUREMART, et al. Fatured in HERE's 20th Season

HERE proudly announces its 20th Anniversary Season, spanning September 2012 through June 2013, featuring three world premieres from Resident Artists in the HERE Artist Residency Program (HARP); two co-productions delivering hybrid performing arts premieres; the launch of PROTOTYPE: Opera/Theatre Now, an annual festival; and HERE's yearly CULTUREMART festival which gives audiences a first look at new work from HERE Resident Artists. Works include groundbreaking multidisciplinary productions from HARP Artists, representing the culmination of commissions and developmental residencies of up to three years, as well as presentations by visiting artists, curated by HERE, as part of HERE's various programs including the Dream Music Puppetry Program and much more.

In honor of its 20th Anniversary Season, HERE is pleased to launch a new ticket pricing initiative aimed at keeping performances accessible to all. HERE will sell up to 75% of each HERE production or visiting artist presentation at a 50% discount. Tickets will be available in advance for $10, and for $20 (regular price) on the day of show. Advance tickets may be purchased at www.here.org or 212.352.3101. HERE is located at 145 Sixth Avenue, one block below Spring Street. For more, visit www.here.org.

HERE 2012-2013 Season line-up follows, along with biographies of lead artists for HARP productions.

Strange Tales of Liaozhai (September 6 – 22, 2012)
Hanne Tierney
Visual art, abstract puppetry and theater meet as two stories intertwine through landscapes of moving imagery, fabric and mechanical systems. The two stories, one a love story and the other a tale of magic pigeons, are taken from the famous Tales of Liaozhai, a collection of supernatural Chinese tales compiled in the 18th century by the scholar Pu Songling. The stories unfold through the movement of images that are manipulated in real time, incorporating moving panels and expressive silks brought to life by lanterns and bamboo poles. Strange Tales of Liaozhai is created and performed by master puppeteer Hanne Tierney, in collaboration with composer/musician Jane Wang and projection artist Hannah Wasileski. A HERE Dream Music Puppetry Program and Five Myles production.

How To Break (October 18 – November 4, 2012)
by Aaron Jafferis and the Mixing Texts Collective
In association with the Hip-Hop Theater Festival, HERE produces the world premiere of How to Break, a collaboration from breaking pioneers Kwikstep and Rokafella, beatboxers Adam Matta and Yako 440, playwright Aaron Jafferis, and director Christopher Edwards. Recipient of the 2012 Thomas Barbour Playwright's Award, How to Break is the story of two hospitalized teenagers – a b-boy with sickle cell and a b-girl with leukemia – breaking through their diagnoses in search of a gut understanding of what it means to be "ill." A HERE and Hip-Hop Theater Festival production in association with Collective Consciousness Theater.

PROTOTYPE: Opera/Theatre/Now (January 9 – 19, 2013)
Inaugural festival
Beth Morrison Projects and HERE present PROTOTYPE: Opera/Theatre/Now, an annual festival of visionary opera-theater and music-theater works by pioneering artists from New York and around the world. A new body of work is on the brink of exploding out of New York and onto the national scene, as a rising generation of composers and collaborators focus on the creation of chamber-sized opera-theater works in new and unique ways. PROTOTYPE is at the forefront of the movement, showcasing these works for new audiences and presenters alike. Productions to be announced.

CULTUREMART (January 28 – February 10, 2013)
Annual Resident Artist Festival
Live arts. Up close. CULTUREMART is the annual festival of hybrid works in progress by HERE's Resident Artists. Process becomes the focus, as projects spanning dance and technology, opera for young people, visual art installation, puppetry and object theater, and works representing everything in-between are shown at various stages of development on their way to full production.

A Marriage: 1 (Suburbia) (April 23 – May 4, 2013)
Jake Margolin & Nick Vaughan
Betty Crocker, Ward Cleaver, soccer-dad minivans, finger sandwiches (no crust), NPR tote bags . . . and then there's the spray paint…A Marriage: 1 (Suburbia) is a suburban idyllic, a double self-portrait of husbands Jake Margolin and Nick Vaughan, comprised of video, sculpture, drawings and performances that will take over the entire HERE space – theaters, hallways, dressing rooms, bathrooms – all working together to appropriate the heritage of a once purely heterosexual set of aspirations. A HERE Resident Artist Production.

City Council Meeting (May 6 – 24, 2013)
Aaron Landsman, Mallory Catlett, Jim Findlay
City Council Meeting is a participatory performance that will be performed offsite and around the Boroughs of New York. Written by playwright Aaron Landsman, using actual texts from many city council meetings attended around the country, City Council Meeting gives the audience a choice: be a Commissioner, Participant, Respondent, or Bystander, aimed at letting viewers speak a mile in someone else's words while provoking empathy and reframing local politics through the lens of art. In 2012-2013, the show will be presented in New York, Houston, Tempe and San Francisco, where it will be created fresh, with local artists, activists, government officials and other citizens. City Council Meeting is a collaboration with director Mallory Catlett and designer Jim Findlay. A HERE Resident Artist Production.

You Are Dead. You Are Here. (June 5 – 29, 2013)
Christine Evans, Joseph Megel, Jared Mezzocchi
Staged in a bare room with five translucent screens, You Are Dead. You Are Here. centers on Michael, a young American veteran being treated for P.T.S.D. using Virtual Iraq, a software program utilized in rehabilitation therapy. As she listens to his experiences, Michael's therapist programs scenarios on her computer, plunging Michael back into his visually projected memories, drawing him back to a fateful encounter with a teenage girl, Zaynab, who blogs from Fallujah's warzone. This multimedia theater work is inspired by the convergence of video game environments, virtual technologies and military research. A HERE Resident Artist Production.