Athens, Ga. – The University of
Georgia department of theatre and film studies will present artist Randall
Packer and tenor Charles Lane in a screening and panel discussion of Packer’s
new multimedia theatre work, Religion of
the Lie (Orf’s Baptism), produced in collaboration with UGA students
working in Gospel Pilgrim Cemetery, an African-American historic site in
Athens.
The screening and panel are scheduled
for Wednesday, Nov. 1, at 8 p.m. in room 53 of the Fine Arts Building at the
corner of Lumpkin and Baldwin streets. The event is open to the public with an
optional donation to the Gospel Pilgrim Cemetery Restoration Fund. The panel will include UGA theatre professors
David Saltz and Freda Giles and members of the East Athens community.
Religion of the Lie (Orf’s Baptism) is the latest installment of Packer’s epic multimedia
work-in-progress, A Season in Hell, a
commentary on the path of the United States in the post-9/11 era produced under
the auspices of the U.S. Department of Art and Technology. According to Packer,
“the current work confronts deteriorating conditions resulting from some
fundamentalist forms of religious ideology.”
Packer explains that the character
Orf, who like the mythological Orpheus transgresses boundaries between the
living and the dead, is an aesthetic being traveling from the “Other World” to
visit Gospel Pilgrim Cemetery to speak with the dead.
Three UGA theatre students will portray the souls that Orf
summons in the cemetery. “The souls represent positive, courageous examples of
deep religious faith and spirituality in the face of unspeakable injustice,”
explained Saltz, department head of theatre and film studies.
A team of undergraduate and graduate students also is
working closely with Packer and Lane to help write the script and to design
costumes, scenic elements, audio, lighting, video and computer animation. The
students are enrolled in a theatre and film studies course titled “Producing
the New Script,” taught by Saltz. “This is a great opportunity for our students
to work with internationally recognized artists on a unique multidisciplinary
project,” Saltz said.
The Gospel Pilgrim Cemetery was founded in 1882. It was
abandoned in the 1960s, with no organization claiming ownership or taking
responsibility for its upkeep. In recent years, the East Athens Development
Corporation has spearheaded an effort to restore the cemetery. Michelle Dodson, an MFA student in dramatic
media who serves as the multimedia project coordinator, points out that “many
of the people buried in Gospel Pilgrim Cemetery lived under slavery. What I
find most moving about this project is the way it recognizes these
long-neglected souls and gives them voice.”
The production of Religion
of the Lie (Orf’s Baptism) is presented in conjunction with America on the Brink, an exhibition at
ATHICA: Athens Institute for Contemporary Art, running through Nov. 5, which
features installations by Packer and the U.S. Department of Art and Technology.
Packer is internationally
recognized as a pioneering artist, composer, educator and scholar in the field
of multimedia. His work has been exhibited at museums and galleries throughout
the world including Europe, Asia and North America. He is assistant professor
of multimedia at American University in Washington,
D.C. His book with accompanying
Web site, Multimedia: From Wagner to
Virtual Reality (W.W. Norton 2001 / www.artmuseum.net),
have been adopted internationally as one of the leading educational texts in
the field. He is concerned with the aesthetic, philosophical and socio-cultural
impact of new media in an increasingly technological society.
Lane is a native of Los Angeles. He has spent his career
traveling across the boundaries of opera, concert music, cabaret performance
and experimental music. He has worked with world-renowned artists, performers,
directors and conductors, including performance artist Guillermo Gomez Peña,
choreographer Donald Byrd, directors Robert Benedetti and Beatrice Manley,
tenor Placido Domingo, and conductors Pierre Boulez, Essa Pekka Solomon, and
Simon Rattle. He has performed concert works written for him with leading
contemporary music ensembles, including the New Music Ensemble, California EAR
Unit and the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players. He is a member of the Los
Angeles Opera, Los Angeles Philharmonic and Los Angeles Master Chorale,
performing in numerous productions with leading conductors and directors,
including Richard Wagner’s Lohengrin,
directed by Maximillian Schell; John Adam’s El
Niño, directed by Peter Sellars; and Wagner’s Parsifal, directed by Robert Wilson and conducted by Kent Negano.
For more information
about the U.S. Department of Art and Technology, visit www.usdat.us. For more information about
University Theatre or UGA’s department of theatre and film studies, visit www.drama.uga.edu.
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