MARATINI: A Twelve-Hour Improvisation Marathon October 26, 2007

516 ARTS is pleased to host a twelve-hour improvisation marathon with Ecotone Physical Theatre. The public is invited to view the performance for any amount of time through the front windows of 516 ARTS on Central Avenue in Downtown Albuquerque. (There will be no admittance to the gallery during the performance.) The group will perform continuous improvised materials for twelve hours straight. Ecotone merges dance, music, technology, video and drama into a style of theatre all its own. Noon to Midnight, Friday October 26th.

What is ECOTONE?
eco-tone (Gk: oeco=household + tonos=tension): a transition area between adjacent ecological communities; a borderland; a place of strange encounter.

Ecotone Physical Theatre is an Albuquerque, New Mexico-based performance ensemble that mines the veins of improvisation: sonic, kinesthetic, textual, visual. This diverse ensemble consists of dancers, actors and musicians. Each performance is utterly unique, completely made up on the spot before your eyes, a blend of slapstick dramedy, angular sound and gesture, rife with potential for hap and mishap. Ecotone Physical Theatre makes extensive use of computers and digital technology, random props and costumery, inscrutable ritual, reluctant audience participation and a little backyard voodoo to transmogrify performers, audience and environment to the point where, really, anything can happen.

Ecotone Physical Theatre was formed in the spring of 2006 when Jewell and Company Dance Theatre and the experimental music ensemble Incus joined forces to collaborate on a series of improvisational performances called "Ecotone". The collaboration was so fruitful and well received, they decided to merge, taking the name of the performance as the name of the company. Its members are directors Donna Jewell and Kevin Paul along with Rufus Cohen, Lisa Nevada, Jessica Searer, Mary Margaret Moore, along with costume designer Stacia Smith.

Official Website: http://www.516arts.org/events_pages/maratini_20071026.html