CPR Performance Archive

GIVING VOICE - CONCERT / WORK PRESENTATION BY THEATRE ZAR (POLAND) [March 2008]
THEATRE OUT OF THE SPIRIT OF MUSIC

FRIDAY 28 MARCH, 7.00 PM

In the years 1999 – 2002 the members of the company Teatr Zar made four major expeditions to the Caucasus (Georgia, Armenia). The fruit of these journeys were practical contacts with people and groups working with traditional music. Throughout journeys, the most important experience was stay in Svaneti, in the Higher Caucasus, where the group met a tradition of polyphonic songs whose origins date back to the beginning of our era. The most important feature characterizing Svan music is choral singing. All traditional songs (with the exception of lullabies and certain lamentations and mourning/funeral songs) are realized in a complex three-part harmony. Out of these expeditions grew the company’s first performance work, The Gospels of Childhood, and this concert/ work demonstration by Zar will include extracts from Gospels and focus on the actors’ use of singing energy as a powerful source.

‘Theatre Zar’s riveting "Gospels of Childhood”… sacred, million-miles-away, beauteous and bleak … the consonances, full of open fifths, are gorgeous…… Theatre Zar haunts, and I'd add hours, maybe days to that 54 minutes.'
Los Angeles Times

Tickets: £5 (£4 conc)

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