CONVERSION / AFTER AFGHANISTAN
at Vassar College
In September 2016, artists of the costa compagnie will be on campus for three weeks, engaging with Vassar students as performers and contributors, in order to premiere CONVERSION / AFTER AFGHANISTAN on October 1 at the Frances Daly Fergusson Theater.
The goal of to this collaborative work of dancers, text performers, and scholarly and organizational contributors, as well as members of the Posse Veterans is to create a unique artistic exploration of the connections between individuals at Vassar (and the United States), Germany and Afghanistan.
For our exploratory visit, we are on campus and willing to meet and exchange thoughts until February 23, 1pm.
To get involved in the project or get more information, please fill in the form below.
CONVERSION / AFTER AFGHANISTAN
About the show
„Everyday we leave the house, we are aware that we may die.“
In December 2014, the NATO-led ISAF mission in Afghanistan ended after thirteen years. Shortly before, members of the costa compagnie traveled to the Hindu Kush, to speak to the people on site about this development. They collected conversations, sounds and images and asked the Afghan civilian population, as well as German and American soldiers about their views and feelings about the war and the exit of ISAF. In Kabul and Mazar-e-Sharif; in apartments, offices, rose gardens, and on ISAF-bases costa compagnie’s members learned about the irrepressible will of the Afghan people to reconstruct their country. They heard about security concerns and arbitrary abuse of power, freedom struggles and persisting chaos, as well as the Taliban.
The scholarly collected materials now constitute the artistic foundation for the dance-performance CONVERSION_2. Contemporary dance, essayistic and documentary text, tableau-like video and an all-embracing sound-composition merge into an extraordinary, atmospheric form of presentation, while pursuing questions such as:
How did the ISAF-mission affect the situation in Afghanistan? What traces does the international military presence leave behind in Afghanistan, and within the individuals involved in that mission? Finally, how can we grasp global reality in all its complexity through an interdisciplinary artistic and scholarly exploration such as CONVERSION_2?
“The Costa Compagnie does not try to explain the world to the audience. Instead they effectively and powerfully document through artistic means the kaleidoscope of an heterogeneous Afghan present on the way to an uncertain future. A remarkable achievement. “
Mannheimer Morgen 05.11.2015
Further Links
CONVERSION / AFTER AFGHANISTAN
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