The Builder's Association Returns to BAM with 'Continuous City'

Following the popular and critical success of Alladeen (2003 Next Wave Festival) and Super Vision (2005 Next Wave Festival), Obie award-winning, New York-based The Builders Association returns to BAM with the New York premiere of Continuous City. Poignant and thought-provoking, this multimedia theater work investigates how networking technology both encourages and hinders human interaction and relationships. Utilizing The Builders’ signature cinematic stagecraft, the production tells the story of a traveling father and his nine-year-old daughter at home, who are tethered and transformed by speed, hypermodernity, and failing cell phones.

BAM will present five performances of Continuous City at the BAM Harvey Theater (651 Fulton Street) on November 18—22 at 7:30pm. Tickets, priced at $20, 30, 45, and 55, may be purchased by calling BAM Ticket Services at 718.636.4100 or online at BAM.org.

About Continuous City

Continuous City moves through a vast cityscape made up of fragments from many different locales—some real, some virtual, some distant, and some drawn from the very city in which each performance is staged. In addition to video shot on location in Shanghai, Tijuana, Toronto, Las Vegas, and Los Angeles, the work includes site-specific filming unique to each performance venue simultaneously creating a local and global presentation. The project also includes a participatory website (www.continuouscity.org) which invites the user to literally join the production. As the data grows with every performance, each location morphs into the next as they become one continuous city.

The story of Continuous City follows a lonely traveling businessman (Harry Sinclair) who begins to craft imaginative stories and games for his daughter (eleven-year-old Olivia Timothee) whom he misses terribly. The businessman reports to an internet mogul (Rizwan Mirza) who exploits the developing world in between online dating and transcontinental video chats, while the daughter is cared for by a nanny (Moe Angelos of The Five Lesbian Brothers) who blogs humorous personal stories from her daily life. Soon the stress of the businessman’s work and travels begin to overwhelm him. His professional reports and bedtime stories begin to merge and overlap. When he suddenly disappears, the other characters begin to search the continuous city and their fragmented lives weave together in a new, technology-enhanced way.

Conceived by Marianne Weems, James Gibbs, and Harry Sinclair, Continuous City was written by Sinclair and directed by Weems. The work includes video design by Peter Flaherty; set design by Tony award-winner Stewart Laing, James Gibbs, and Neal Wilkinson; and dramaturgy by Gibbs. It will also feature The Builders Association’s long-time members Dan Dobson (original music and sound design) and 2008 MacArthur “genius” award winner Jennifer Tipton (lighting design).

Continuous City premiered at the Krannert Center in Illinois in September and then tours to the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis and the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco prior to the BAM engagement. Performances follow in upstate New York, Ohio, North Carolina, Toronto, Barcelona, and Belgium and include a two-week engagement at the La Jolla Playhouse in California.

About The Builders Association

Founded in 1994 and directed by Marianne Weems, The Builders Association is a New York-based performance and media company that creates original productions based on stories drawn from contemporary life. The company uses the richness of new and old tools to extend the boundaries of theater. Based on innovative collaborations, The Builders' productions blend stage performance, text, video, sound, and architecture to tell stories about human experience in the 21st century. The Builders Association's Obie award-winning shows have toured to major venues around the world.

The Builders have collaborated on ten large-scale theater projects: Master Builder (1994); The White Album (1995); Imperial Motel (Faust) (1996); Jump Cut (Faust) (1997); Jet Lag (1998), created with Diller + Scofidio; Xtravaganza (2000); Alladeen (2003), created with motiroti; Avanti (2003); Super Vision (2005), created with dbox; and Continuous City (2008). The Builders Association is currently one of the most active internationally-touring experimental theater companies in America.

Artistic Director Marianne Weems has directed all of The Builders Association’s productions since the company’s formation. She currently serves on the boards of Art Matters, APAP, and Yaddo. In the past, she has worked with David Byrne, Jan Cohen-Cruz, Disney Imagineering, Susan Sontag, The Wooster Group, and many others. She was recently appointed to head Graduate Directing in the Department of Drama at Carnegie Mellon University. She is the co-author of Art Matters: How The Culture Wars Changed America (NYU Press 2000).

Credits
BAM 2008 Next Wave Festival is sponsored by Altria Group. Leadership support for the Next Wave Festival is provided by The Ford Foundation.

Leadership support for BAM Theater is provided by The Shubert Foundation, Inc. and The SHS Foundation.  Support for Continuous City is provided by The Toby Fund.

BAM thanks its many donors and sponsors, including:  The Peter Jay Sharp Foundation; New York City Council; Estate of Richard B. Fisher; The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation; The Starr Foundation; Robert Sterling Clark Foundation; The Shubert Foundation, Inc.; Carnegie Corporation of New York; Time Warner Inc.; The Howard Gilman Foundation; The Skirball Foundation; The SHS Foundation; The Harkness Foundation for Dance; New York State Assembly Brooklyn Delegation; Friends of BAM and BAM Cinema Club.  Sovereign Bank is the BAM Marquee sponsor. Yamaha is the official piano for BAM. R/GA is the BAM.org sponsor. New York Marriott at the Brooklyn Bridge is the official hotel for BAM.

Produced by Claire Hallereau with The Builders Association.

Lead co-producer: Krannert Center for the Performing Arts, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Co-producers: Carolina Performing Arts; Luminato Festival; Department of Theater, Dance and Performance Studies and Arts Research Center at the University of California, Berkeley.

Co-commissioners: BAM for the 2008 Next Wave Festival; Walker Art Center; Wexner Center for the Arts; Yerba Buena Center for the Arts.

General Information
BAM Howard Gilman Opera House, BAM Rose Cinemas, BAMcafé, and Brownstone Books at BAM are located in the Peter Jay Sharp building at 30 Lafayette Avenue (between St Felix Street and Ashland Place) in the Fort Greene neighborhood of Brooklyn. BAM Harvey Theater is located two blocks from the main building at 651 Fulton Street (between Ashland and Rockwell Places). BAM Rose Cinemas is Brooklyn’s only movie house dedicated to first-run independent and foreign film and repertory programming. BAMcafé, operated by Great Performances, is open for dining prior to Howard Gilman Opera House performances. BAMcafé also features an eclectic mix of spoken word and live music for BAMcafé Live on Friday and Saturday nights with a special BAMcafé Live menu available starting at 8pm.

For ticket and BAMbus information, call BAM Ticket Services at 718.636.4100, or visit BAM.org.