An Important Message from Ellen About Bullying

Please after watching this share it with other.

Thank you,

- Tutto Theatre Company

Eleven! B. Iden Payne Award NOMINATIONS...

Eleven! B. Iden Payne Award NOMINATIONS for Tutto Theatre Company's joint production with The VORTEX of Murder Ballad, Murder Mystery by Elizabeth Doss directed by Dustin Wills last fall. Congratulations to everyone who collaborated with Tutto on this brilliant project, see you at the awards!

http://www.bidenpayneawards.com/2010/09/2009-2010-nominations/

Austinist.com Really Gets I Witness...

Review: I Witness at The Blue Theatre [Dance]

I Witness
Thursdays - Saturdays, 20 August - 4 September 2010
Blue Theatre (916 Springdale Ave)
8 pm, $15
[info] | [tickets]

When one thinks of meditation, often the image that comes to mind is someone sitting in the lotus position with their eyes closed. However, meditation can take many forms. In some Eastern traditions movement can be a form of meditation. Tutto Theatre Company's new dance and spoken word show, I Witness is, in many ways, a meditation on the concepts of awareness, reality and dreams. However, it isn't simply to be watched. The show engages the audience directly, and brings them into a collective meditation on truly being awake and aware.

While many shows have a chatty atmosphere when the audience is being seated or waiting for the performance to begin, this show is different. Instead, there's a tone of reverence in the theater. The performers are on stage, sitting, lying, still. Then they move, seeming to improvise a brief glimpse of a dance, before again remaining still. They make eye contact with the audience, who is unusually quiet. There's a sense that although the performance has not begun, it is already starting.

I Witness

This serious tone of reflection and ambivalence continues throughout the entire show. The show itself mimics a dream. One of the performers is lying on stage, as if sleeping, at the very top, and at the end we see him again in this position. Hazy images are projected onto the wall, which has a crumpled fabric spread across it. It is as if one could almost make out the images, but not quite, much like remembering a dream. I Witness is a mix of dance and spoken word. Some of the spoken word is original material while other parts you might recognize if you're familiar with Hindu texts or quantum physics. It's divided into 10 parts, 10 original dances choreographed by Amanda Oakley, Shawn Nasralla, and Jennifer Micallef.

The texts and the dances present a call to pause and be mindful of deeper currents, of the connection of all things, of the presence of a deeper reality. There are direct references to quantum theory, pointing out that the observer cannot be taken out of our understanding of the universe. In the beautiful movements there are at times a sense of struggle. A struggle to remain aware, to remain connected. A struggle against loneliness, against the biological and cultural imperatives that make us into walking automatons, robots or puppets. The show seems to be saying that though we are individuals, we are not individuals living in isolation. We are part of a greater system, and that system is part of us. There is a unity at work in the world. The audience is part of the experience. Without the audience, the show does not exist. Without a witness, an event does not take place. Thus the audience is called to reflect upon the meaning of the dances, called to be aware, throughout the show, but is also a part of this meaning and awareness. The show sets out on an ambitious journey by dealing with concepts such as the subconscious, the nature of reality and resistance to the machinations of modern life. While it doesn't give any sort of solid resolution to these questions, it instead asks one to struggle, to strive, to pay attention--to be aware. That is itself, in many ways, a comfort.

In a world where so many people seek quick and easy answers to complex questions, it is nice to see a performance directly access the mystery and paradox present in our lives and accept it on its own terms.

By Patrick Knisely 

Austin 360's take on "I Witness"...

August 30, 2010

REVIEW: 'I WITNESS'

Postmodern is one of those lovely ambiguous labels that tends to get bandied about by critics and academics when we don’t exactly know what to say. It often seems to mean whatever it’s speaker wants it to mean. So in this instance, I’ll be sure to clarify.

“I Witness,” Tutto Theater Company’s current production, running now through Sept. 4 at the Blue Theater, is definitely postmodern. What makes it postmodern? The intentional juxtaposition of “high” and “low” culture, and a disorienting use of fragments, pastiche, montage — to me, these are fundamental aspects of postmodern art. While a collage sort of performance can make it difficult to focus on any given thing, it also allows you options about where to look or listen, which can be nice.

Billed as “an evening of dance (and spoken-word) with choreography by Amanda Oakley, Shawn Nasralla, and Jennifer Micallef,” the show is neither a play, nor a poetry reading, nor a dance recital… it’s all three — sort of.

It’s a play only in the sense that there does seem to be some sort of narrative through line that deals with love, identity and physics. There are performers who speak lines to an audience. And it happens in a theater.

The lines are a mish-mash of poetry, literary excerpts, quotations and explanations of physics by Albert Einstein and Niels Bohr, verging dangerously on the edge of pretentious. These “spoken-words” can be difficult to follow despite the actors efforts. Lizzi Biggers infuses her lines with captivating ardor, but Alex Cogburn would have done well to find some emotions to put behind his.

The dancing is certainly not traditional though classical elements appear, and it occasionally reminded me more of pilates than of pirouettes — which actually made it much more enjoyable than that might sound. Seeing legs in the air and not on the ground was disorienting in a delightful way and at times produced a whimsical sort of beauty that can be lacking in more stoic forms of dancing.

The play of shadows orchestrated by Natalie George’s breathtaking light design is worth the trip in itself, but the talented array of dancers really make the magic happen. Unlike a traditional chorus line, each woman stands out with her own shape, size, and costume.

You may have to pick a favorite to focus on with so much happening at once, but it’s not like that’s a new dilemma for anyone living in the age of the world wide web.

8 p.m. Thursday - Saturday. $15 (Thursdays pay-what-you-can).www.tuttotheatre.org

Cate Blouke is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.

"I Witness" in the Daily Texan

Show focuses on self-awareness

By Sarah Pressley, Daily Texan Staff
Published: Friday, August 27, 2010

Erika Rich | Daily Texan Staff

From left to right, dance choreographers Amanda Oakley, Shawn Nasralla and Jennifer Micallef perform as part of the Tutto Theatre Company production called “I Witness.”

Sometimes we take charge of our lives and sometimes we only watch them go by.

“I Witness,” a new dance production by Tutto Theatre Company, explores the contradictions between being a participant in your life and only being a witness to it.

“‘I Witness’ is about being and seeing and being seen and a person’s journey through the world and the perspective they choose to take at any moment in life,” said Jennifer Micallef, one of the show’s choreographers.

The three choreographers who worked on the contemporary dance production, which incorporates spoken word, received inspiration from different periods in their lives, when they felt themselves witnessing rather than living.

“I felt like at some points I was either witnessing myself and not actually taking action on [my life], or being witnessed by someone else,” said Amanda Oakley, one of the show’s choreographers and a UT graduate. “I felt that certain aspects of my life at that point [when the production was created], I wasn’t taking control or I was avoiding seeing what was going on and kind of witnessing myself, rather than being myself.”

Throughout their creative process, the dancers and actors involved were able to interpret the concepts and put their own personal meanings into the show as well.

“I was going through a grieving process, having just lost a family member that I was really close with,” said dancer Randi Turkin. “So for me, the concept of witnessing lied very close to my heart because I watched this person pass away.”

Actress Lizzie Biggers, who speaks throughout the show, also made a personal connection with the production. She said the creative process within the show helped her learn to stay present in her own reality.

“The last year of my life, I’ve been a very inactive participant,” Biggers said. “‘I Witness,’ to me is really about living in the moment and being yourself in that moment.”

The dancers and actors involved in the show said they didn’t find it hard to portray such emotional concepts on stage.

“You kind of have to wear your heart on your sleeve,” Oakley said. “For a lot of artists, it’s their release.”

For Biggers, it goes past a release and becomes something more that she can’t help but display.

“I think part of being an artist is being able to access that part of yourself at all times,” Biggers said. “It’s our responsibility.”

Micallef said many college students could benefit from the message of the show since they are already in a time of life exploration.

“It’s relatable particularly to college students because we deal with some pedestrian issues and some existential issues and some universal things,” Micallef said. “There is a world that leaves with you when you leave the show.”

For tickets and more information visit www.TuttoTheatre.org.