WHERE AND WHEN:
April 16 to May 2, 2010
La MaMa E.T.C. (First Floor Theater), 74A East Fourth Street
(Presented by La MaMa E.T.C. and Yara Arts Group)
Thur-Sat at 8:00; Sun at 2:30.
$18; Box Office (212) 475-7710; www.lamama.org
Runs one hour. Critics are invited on or after APRIL 17.

NEW YORK, February 24 -- Yara Arts Group will summon ancient epics and rituals from traditional weddings in Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan for "Scythian Stones," a new, experimental World Music-Theatre piece with choreography, which will be presented by La MaMa from April 16 to May 2. The piece features the famed Ukrainian singer Nina Matvyienko and musicians from Kyrgyzstan. Virlana Tkacz directs.

Yara Arts Group has made multiple trips to both Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan to create interdisciplinary dramatic pieces based on regional epics. This piece will be developed in Kiev from March 5 to 27, after which the company will return to NYC and rehearse here with Yara Artists.

"Scythian Stones" constructs parallel journeys for two young women from village and nomadic traditional life into the city. Their separate journeys become epic descents into the Great Below --the modern global desert where songs, skills and languages disappear leaving behind only mute markers like the Scythian Stones found today throughout the grasslands of Ukraine and Central Asia. The production, created by Virlana Tkacz with Ukrainian and Kyrgyz artists and Yara Arts Group, will feature traditional music, modern design and movement. It will be performed in a combination of Kyrgyz and English but will be completely accessible to American audiences.

"Scythian Stones" uses traditional wedding songs from Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan. It borrows the structure of an ancient Sumerian epic about the Descent of Inanna (perhaps the oldest piece of literature on earth, dating from 2000 BC, about a goddess who goes to the great below.) Director Virlana Tkacz sys, "Epic stories are male stories about growing up, not this one. We wanted to do an epic story about a woman." The piece imagines an alternative ending to this story which links the past into the future, in which poetry would carry the familial into the cosmos

It is Yara's first production to combine artists from Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan. The piece will feature singers Nina Matvyienko (who has been regarded as the "Voice of Ukraine" since the sixties and appeared in Yara's "Waterfall/Reflections" in 2006), her daughter, Tanya Matvyienko, Kenzhegul Satybaldieva (who played the title role in Yara's "Janyl" in 2007) and Ainura Kachkynbek kyzy (the last name is not capitalized, it means "daugher of" in Kyrgyz). Music will include Nurbek Serkebaev (from Kyrgyzstan) performing on ancient instruments including the kyl-kiyak (a small, bowed, unfretted fiddle with two strings and a plaintive tone), chopo cho'or (a pottery ocarina), temir o komuz (a metal jaw's harp) and jygach ooz komuz (a wooden jaw's harp with one string, unique to Kyrgyz music, that sounds like throat singing). The piece's choreographer, Katj Kolcio (originally from Kyrgyzstan, now a professor of dance at Wesleyan), worked with Yara Arts Group previously on its production of "Howling."

Traditional weddings in both Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan are highly ritualized dramatic events that often involve an entire community for a week. Every step is accompanied by numerous songs sung by young women on both the groom and bride’s side, as well as the older the women of the community. This theatrical production will draw on the dramatic elements of this ritual as a rite of passage that prepares the young woman, as well as the extended families on both sides, to accept her move from one community into a new one. The structure of the event reminiscent of the journeys the young men undertake in epics. At first the young person must lose their old identity to acquire a new one. The bride’s youthful clothes, hair and body ornamentation are taken away one by one to be replaced by a new ones that at first reflect her limnal status. Then she is dressed in a third set that signals her new role and status. Each step is accompanied by special songs. The parting scene with her mother and childhood home are the dramatic and vocal highlights of the ritual.

Tkacz reflects, "We are using all this material to talk about disappearance of traditional culture, skills and languages today. The point is to create a future for traditional art forms. To be living, they have to be transformed. Tradition is not a set thing, it's constantly evolving. Are they able to evolve, or are they prevented? We don't take a stand, but we can think about them. How do you engage people today and create a link to the future?" All of her theatrical creations to-date have contained ancient art forms, but none of them have addressed this question so directly.

New York-based Yara artists will include Susan Hyon and Daniel Darrow. The Kyrgyz cast includes Kenzhegul Satybaldieva (who created the title role in Yara Arts Group's "Janyl" at La MaMa in 2007) and five artists from Kyrgyzstan: Umarbek Kadyrov, Ainura Kachkynbek kyzy, Azamat Serkebaev, Eldiiar Dzharashev, and Nurlan Erzhanov.

Director Virlana Tkacz heads the Yara Arts Group and has created ninteen original theater pieces with the company, all of which had their American premieres at La MaMa. Reviewing "Circle" (2000), a collaboration with theater artists of the Buryat National Theater (near lake Baikal), The Village Voice (Eva Yaa Asantewaa) called the production "a stunningly beautiful work (that) rushes at your senses, makes your heart pound, and shakes your feelings loose." Reviewing Tkacz's production of "The Warrior's Sister" (2004), based on a Siberian epic, Laura Shea wrote in American Theatre Web, "Multilingual, though easily accessible to English-speaking audiences, the performance reminds us of what theater should be and rarely is--the opportunity to step to a world that is virtually unknown to us." In 2007, when Tkacz created “Er Toshtuk” with Kyrgyz artists Backstage wrote: “The epic is full of humor and terrific physicality… the performance ought to be a requirement for every actor in New York, particularly those interested in physical work.”

Founded in 1990, Yara Arts Group, a resident company of La MaMa, creates original pieces that explore timely issues rooted in the East through the diverse cultural perspectives of the group's members. Yara artists bring together poetry, song, historical materials and scientific texts, primarily from the East, to form what one critic described as "extended meditation on an idea." The company has created ten pieces based on materials from Ukraine and Eastern Europe, including: "A Light from the East,” "Blind Sight," "Yara's Forest Song," "Swan" and "Waterfall/Reflections." The last of these was developed with folk singer Nina Matvienko. The New York Times (D.J.R. Bruckner) called it "a theatrical enchantment given cohesion by choreographed movement and by music on a prodigal scale." Yara has also created six theater pieces with Buryat artists from Siberia, three with artists from Kyrgyzstan and two based on Japanese material.

Yara plans to schedule concerts for the traditional musicians appearing in "Scythian Stones." There will also be a photo exhibit "Er Toshtuk as Kyrgyz Epic Theatre: Photographs by Margaret Morton." For times and locations of these events, please check www.brama.com/yara.

Yara Arts Group celebrated its 20th anniversary January 22 to 24, 2010 at Ukrainian Institute of America in NYC. Virlana Tkacz was awarded the Order of Princess Olha from the government of Ukraine as recognition for her contributions to Ukrainian culture worldwide.

"Scythian Stones" was made possible in part by the Self-Reliance Federal Credit Union, Nordlys Foundaiton, public funds from the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv, New York City Department of Culture, the New York State Council on the Arts and the numerous friends of Yara Arts Group, a resident company of La MaMa Experimental Theatre in New York.

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Critics are invited on or after April 17.