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Fantasia

FANTASIA
Premiered Old Queen's Theatre, October 2005
Performed for Platform Arts Festival, August 2006

Production Credits

Picture
"The whole concept just left me cold"
Alan Scott, The Press

A band of turbaned horsemen in flying robes charges across a desert plain as a challenge to the spectators. This is Fantasia. Not the Disney musical, but an Arab performance of equestrian feats. This is also Free Theatre's latest production, an environmental, multi-media performance that confronts spectators with Western fantasies of Arabia: an Oriental bazaar, horses in the desert, whirling dervishes, a harem, belly-dancers, and caves with hidden treasures.

Fantasia takes inspiration from tales of the Arabian Nights, Ali Baba and Aladdin, from Mozart's opera The Abduction from the Seraglio, and from films like The Sheik, Thief of Baghdad, Lawrence of Arabia, The Sheltering Sky and The English Patient. Arabian fantasies have taken on new virulence in our minds through recent political events. When we think of caves where an evil captain lurks to send out his minions to harm us, we may think of Ali Baba as well as Osama bin Laden, and the image of veiled women in harems subjected to the power of the sheik evokes similar mixtures of fear and fascination.

Conceived in early 2005, Fantasia has evolved through several phases. The project began with a series of workshops in which the actors took each other through exercises, improvisations and experiences that played out and played upon their fantasies of Arabia. From these sessions there emerged physical representations such as the horse herd and travelling pilgrimage of the desert and the belly dance of the harem. Falkenberg has woven these ideas together to create a series of vivid environments that the audience move in and around.

The new version of Fantasia will be performed as part of the inaugural University of Canterbury College of Arts Festival. Currently, the director, actors and designer are reconfiguring the toy theatres: a series of miniature and transportable 'stages' upon which stories of the Orient are sold and Arabian 'heroes', old and new, have their stories told (Ali Baba, Aladdin, Osama Bin Laden, Saddam Hussein). These theatrical stories are being considered in dialogue with film images to create a contemporary Arabian Nights Entertainment that explores the fantasies and nightmares that have occupied our collective subconscious since the crusades.

Directed by Peter Falkenberg and designed by Richard Till, a revised version of the performance that ran at the end of last year is planned for August 2006 in Old Queen's Theatre. If you would like to know more about Fantasia, Free Theatre or Te Puna Toi, please see Emma or George in the Te Puna Toi Office.

Picture

Reviews

Bazaar fails to fire
Alan Scott, The Press
Picture
Picture
  • HOME
  • ABOUT
    • A brief history...
    • Jarry, Ubu, Pataphysics and Free Theatres
    • Manifestos and Writings
    • Who We Are
    • Shirley Horrocks documentary
    • Training and Devising
    • Home, Space and Design
    • Praise and Awards
  • Te Puna Toi
    • Past Te Puna Toi Projects
    • Artists in Residence
  • UPCOMING
    • Woyzeck
  • EDUCATION
    • Kidsfest and Holiday Programmes
    • Schools Workshops
    • Adult workshops
  • ARCHIVE
    • Productions 1979 - present >
      • The Tempest
      • The Axe
      • Endgame
      • Digitising Performance
      • Erewhon: Over the Range
      • A Summer Night's Dream
      • How Dare You
      • A Winter's Tale
      • Ubu Nights >
        • Past Ubu Nights >
          • Ma Ubu Night
          • Ubu Through the Looking Glass
          • Ubu in Wonderland Ubu Night
          • Frankenstein Ubu Night
          • Casablanca Ubu Night
          • Faust Ubu Night
          • Not Hamlet Ubu Night
          • Punk Ubu Night
          • The Art of the Deal Ubu Night
          • Crossroads Ubu Night
          • Ubu Shows Us the Way to Brecht's Whiskey Bar
          • The Devil and the Blues Ubu Night
          • Bowie Ubu Night
          • Warhol Ubu Night
          • Berlin Kabarette
          • Beat Ubu Night
          • Twin Peaks Ubu Night
          • David Lynch Ubu Night
          • Kafka Ubu Night
          • Tango Ubu Night
          • Ubu Ubu Night
          • Lovecraft Ubu Night
      • Ars Acustica
      • Alice
      • The Black Rider
      • Frankenstein
      • The Mauricio Kagel Project
      • Te Puna Toi 2015: Footprints/Tapuwae
      • Kafka's Amerika
      • The Soldier's Tale
      • Canterbury Tales
      • I Sing the Body Electric
      • Hereafter
      • Passion, Pulse and Power
      • The Earthquake in Chile
      • Doctor Faustus
      • The Marvellous Corricks >
        • Corricks - Credits
      • Distraction Camp
      • Remake
      • Ella and Susn
      • Free Theatre - 25 years and counting...
      • Faust Chroma
      • Enigma Emmy Goering/Nico Sphinx of Ice
      • Faust Feast
      • Diana Down Under
      • Philoctetes >
        • Production Credits - Piloctetes
      • Fantasia
      • Christmas Shopping
      • Grimm's Sleeping Beauty
      • Achternbusch in the Antipodes
      • Caucasian Chalk Circle
      • Samson Airline
      • Kabarett Kabul
      • Footprints/Tapuwae
      • Last Days of Mankind
      • Medea
      • Bakkhai / Diotek
      • Krapp's Last Tape
      • Murderer Hope of Women / The Philosopher's Stone
      • Comrade Savage
      • Love on a Bicycle
      • Resolution Island
      • Songs for the Judges
      • Crusoe
      • Oedipus Rex/Oedipus at Colonus
      • States of Shock
      • Empire Builders
      • Yes
      • Power
      • Robinson Crusoe: Or I THat Was Born To Be My Own Destroyer
      • Newsbites
      • Dumped in Space
      • MedeaMaterial
      • Salome
      • Electra
      • Sphinx and Strawmen
      • The Girl Who Sings Waterfalls
      • Hamletmachine
      • Oresteia
      • A Respectable Wedding
      • Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant
      • Double Act and Postponeless
      • Cloudkiwiland
      • Preversions
      • G.O.P. Helpomatic
      • The Mortal Pleasure of Wander Lust
      • Red Cross & Takeaway
      • Lulu Earth Spirit
      • The Meeting
      • Action / Tongues
      • Cowboy Mouth
      • The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny
      • A Letter from L
      • Dinosaurs and All the Rubbish / The Hunting of the Snark
      • The Ride Across Lake Constance
      • Electra
      • In Three Minds
      • The Rapist Over Suzannah
      • 1984: The Future Is Now
      • Leonce and Lena
      • Kabernette
      • The Joffongract
      • My Foot, My Tutor
      • King Lear
      • King Ubu
      • Jazz Cellar Dada / Heavy Metal Cabaret
      • Kabarett
      • Black Cat Cabaret
      • The Gas Heart/Ox on the Roof/The Mirror Wardrobe One Fine Evening
      • Round Dance
      • Woyzeck
      • Make-up Ground down / Texts for Decomposition
      • Court Case: Arts Centre vs Free Theatre
    • Image Gallery 1979 - present
    • TV3 Clips
    • Selected Reviews
  • SUPPORT
  • BLOG