Continuous City
Part of the 2008 Next Wave Festival
Nov 18—22 at 7:30pm
The Builders Association
Directed by Marianne Weems
"...dazzling and unsettling...a provocative exploration of technology as a global force for connection and disconnection." —The San Francisco Chronicle
From fables of a contemporary Aladdin in India's call centers (Alladeen, 2003 Next Wave Festival) to tales of identity theft and discovery (Super Vision, 2005 Next Wave Festival), Obie Award-winning theater company The Builders Association and director Marianne Weems reveal our modern selves grappling with the new millennium.
The group's latest work, Continuous City, explores our accelerated relationships in a sprawling multimedia world as a businessman traverses the globe while relaying fantastical stories to his daughter back home; a savvy internet mogul pursues transnational business; and a nanny blogs humorous stories about the people and places within her universe. Framed with The Builders' trademark cinematic stagecraft, these characters move their networked selves around the world and in and out of one another's lives to form a dizzying series of vignettes across real and virtual cities to ask: where are we now?
BAM Harvey Theater
Running time: 80min, no intermission
Tickets: $20, 30, 45, 55
Conceived by Marianne Weems, James Gibbs, Harry Sinclair
Written by Harry Sinclair
Lighting design by Jennifer Tipton
Video design by Peter Flaherty
Sound design and original music composition by Dan Dobson
Set design by Stewart Laing
Dramaturgy by James Gibbs
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.
Continuous City Reviewed in TheaterMania
"Internet resources like MySpace, Facebook, and MyFamily.com have contributed to both an increase in communication amongst friends and family, as well as the breakdown of person-to-person human contact. This dichotomy is intriguingly explored in The Builders Association's fascinating new show...." More
Continuous City in Time Out New York
Builders Association wizard Marianne Weems knows the medium is the message. More
Continuous City in American Theatre Magazine
The Builders Association signals through the flames with messages for a hyper-mediated world. More
Interview with Cast Member Moe Angelos
Moe Angelos unplugged on Continuous City. More
The San Francisco Chronicle Review of Continuous City
"The high-tech proficiency of director Marianne Weems and her Builders Association is dazzling and unsettling in Continuous City." More
Continuous City on NPR's All Things Considered
"In a Continuous City, a meditation on connection." More
Continuous City on Minnesota Public Radio
"The Builders Association creates a Continuous City." More
The Builders Association Site
The web home of the ambitious theater company. More
Marianne Weems Interview
The director discusses the relationship between technology and transnational experience. And stealing cable. More
Article from the San Francisco Gate
On transforming Facebook into a laboratory for high-tech theater. More
Article from The New York Times
A look at Weems' Super Vision (BAM 2005 Next Wave Festival), a high-tech fable about the erosion of privacy in the digital world. More
The New York Times Review of Alladeen
Outsourced Indian labor and call centers were the focus of this "80-minute aural-visual feast" from Marianne Weems. More
Article on Globalization
Scholarly takes on the implications for an interconnected world. More