INDO-AMERICAN ARTS COUNCIL INC.

presents

BETROTHED

Written and Directed by Rachel Dickstein. Based on Jhumpa Lahiri’s "The Treatment of Bibi Haldar", Anton Chekhov’s "Betrothed", and S. Ansky’s "The Dybbuk". Original score composed by Vijay Iyer

  
MAY 15 AT 8 PM
Ohio Theatre, 66 Wooster Street (between Spring and Broome), NYC
Post-performance discussion with Vijay Iyer, Rachel Dickstein, the cast and invited designers.

Tickets: $15 www.smarttix.com OR 212 868 4444 (CODE: IAAC)

ABOUT THE PRODUCTION :

BETROTHED is a dance-infused, visually rich adaptation of three stories exploring the dreams, expectations and losses surrounding women’s relationship to marriage and independence. BETROTHED dramatizes a women’s search for identity through Eastern and Western ritual.

Using short fiction from Western, South Asian and South East Asian cultures (by Jhumpa Lahiri, nton Chekhov and one other) this new work explores how women from different backgrounds and eras forge their own coming of age by reinventing the rites of passage their communities embrace. Using the choreography and theatricality of wedding ceremonies, BETROTHED examines how ritual and human desire intersect, overlap and, at times, contradict one another. The stories selected track how women’s dreams of success are both empowered and challenged by cultural practices and ccepted norms. Each of the uniquely drawn heroines from these stories forges her own path in relation to cultural traditions, offering contemporary audiences a complex prism through which to examine our own culture’s treatment of women and the roles they serve in society and ceremony. BETROTHED juxtaposes and blends Asian and Western theatrical forms, offering our audience complex stories
told in uniquely expanded theatrical languages.

Ripe Time’s Artistic Director, Rachel Dickstein has adapted, directed and choreographed the production. Other collaborators include Vijay Iyer (composer, pianist), who has composed original music for the production. Lahiri and Iyer, each in their own media, have found unique ways of bridging South Asian culture with American culture - Lahiri through the contemporariness of her incisive story-telling, Iyer through his complex amalgamation of American jazz and African forms with South Asian polyrhythms. In tandem with Rachel’s investigations into the range of culturally based movement vocabularies, this collaboration of artists is rich with potential for experimentation with hybrid heatrical forms.
   
About the Indo-American Arts Council:
  
The Indo-American Arts Council (IAAC) is a 501© 3 not-for-profit arts organization passionately dedicated to promoting, showcasing and building an awareness of Indian artists in the performing, visual, literary, folk and fusion arts. For information: IAAC, 146West 29th Street, Suite 7R3, NYC 10001. . Email: . Web: