Oakland, CA, April 30, 2010 – Kitka Women’s Vocal Ensemble concludes its 2009-2010 season with the world premiere of Singing Through Darkness, a new international vocal-theater work created in collaboration with Ukrainian composer/music director Mariana Sadovska and German stage director Andre Erlen. Singing Through Darkness contemplates the dynamic, shifting relationships that link history, memory, and the creative imagination, and the role of music in sustaining the human spirit through times of conflict.

Four performances of Singing Through Darkness will be given June 24-27: Thursday through Saturday, June 24-26 at 8 pm, and Sunday, June 27 at 4 pm at North Oakland’s intimate and acoustically striking new performance space, Satya Yuga, located at 954 60th Street, 3 blocks East of San Pablo Ave. In addition to the performances, Kitka and Mariana Sadovska will present two vocal-theater workshops Sundays, June 6 and 13, 2-5 p.m. at a venue to be announced. For information, contact Kitka at 510-444-0323 or visit www.kitka.org.

Singing Through Darkness is a powerful sonic collage of personal histories distilled in folk songs about war from Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, and beyond. These songs provide a mirror through which today’s global challenges can be reflected upon. Sadovska and Erlen say, “Throughout time and across national boundaries, the intense experiences associated with times of conflict have produced a remarkable body of songs, and the war-themed folksongs of this region have a particularly powerful psychological impact.”

Kitka has earned international recognition for its unique sound—a sound that explores a vast palette of ancient, yet contemporary-sounding, vocal effects evoking a striking range of subtle to extreme inner states, instincts, and emotions. Singing Through Darkness builds upon the success of Kitka, Sadovska, and Erlen’s most recent collaboration The Rusalka Cycle: Songs Between The Worlds, a work which has been presented to capacity audiences at international theater festivals in the USA, Poland, Germany, and Ukraine since its acclaimed 2005 Oakland premiere.

Presented as a staged song cycle utilizing the far reaches of vocal expression, Singing Through Darkness weaves together songs and stories in praise of homelands and heroes, historical ballads, songs of conscription, imprisonment, occupation, forced immigration and loss, with songs of resistance, veiled political satire, faith, survival and liberation. Songs will be sung both in traditional forms as well as in original multi-layered settings created by composer Mariana Sadovska in collaboration with Kitka’s singers. While much of the performance will give voice to stories from specific times, places and perspectives, it will also embody the collaborators’ subjective backward gaze as an international group of women living in a globalized 21st century, where once-rigid notions of place, national/ethnic identity and “otherness” are quickly dissolving.

About the Artists

Mariana Sadovska has worked all her life in both music and theater. Born in 1972 in the city of Lviv in Western Ukraine, she was trained from an early age as a classical pianist at Lviv’s Ludkewytch National Music School. In her late teens, she joined Lviv’s Les Kurbas Theater, one of Ukraine’s leading theater companies, known for its intensively physical performance style coupled with rich vocal work. With the Gardzienice Centre for Theater Practices in Poland, Sadovska traveled as an actor and music director throughout Eastern and Western Europe as well as to Brazil, Egypt, Japan, and the United States, appearing in the company’s productions of The Life of Protopope Awwakum, Carmina Burana and most recently Metamorfozy, which she co-created with composer Maciej Rychly using relics of ancient Greek music. In 1998, for her role in Metamorfozy she won the “Best Actress Award” given by the Polish Theater Union. As the musical director of the Gardzienice Theater, Ms. Sadovska has conducted numerous workshops at colleges, universities and arts centers around the world, including one with the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford, UK. Since 1999, Sadovska has appeared as a collaborating artist in three Yara Arts Group festivals at La Mama Experimental Theater in New York, and has twice served as an artist-in-residence at Toni Morrison’s Artists Atelier at Princeton University. In 2005, Sadovska and Afghani-American director and filmmaker Lars Jan were sponsored by the US Embassy, Goethe Institute and the Aga Khan Trust for Culture to lead workshops and present performances at Kabul University and the Kabul National Theatre, and conducted ethnographic expeditions in remote villages in Northern Afghanistan.

Andre Erlen is a graduate of Kunstakademie Düsseldorf. From 1991-2001 he was a member of Actors' Studio Pulheim. Since 1999 he has worked with the director J. Wilske on the projects Why do you shop? And You – The City by F. Tempelton. Since 2002 he has performed the solo work Scenario for a non-existing, but possible instrumental actor by B. Schaeffer in many countries including Russia, Ukraine, Switzerland, Israel and the USA. He also directs the international production of Shaeffer’s Quartet for 4 actors. Andre is the founder of Futur3 Theaterkombinat Köln, which realizes projects in public spaces and introduces writers, musicians and improvisation into the process of creating a performance. He has collaborated with the Berlin puppetry player Evelyn Arndt on a show with embryo puppets and directed a piece based on the psychiatry texts of Daniel Paul Schreber at the Forum Freies Theater Düsseldorf and Sophiensaele, Berlin. He has also directed parts of erotic zones by theater-51grad.com in Cologne, and created citybeats vol. II. In 2009 he served as co-director of Kitka's internationally acclaimed vocal-theater work The Rusalka Cycle: Songs Between the Worlds which was presented the Grotowski Institute and the Centre for Performance Research at the International Giving Voice Festival in Wroclaw, Poland and the Mohyla Theatre Academy in Kiev, Ukraine. Erlen also produces theater events, workshops and festivals that emphasize international collaboration at Cologne’s Artheater and is the co-director of the international theater and dance festival Globalize: Cologne.

About Kitka

Kitka, meaning “bouquet” in Bulgarian and Macedonian, began in 1979 as a grassroots group of singers from diverse ethnic and musical backgrounds who shared a passion for the stunning dissonances, asymmetric rhythms, intricate ornamentation, lush harmonies, and resonant strength of Eastern European women’s vocal traditions. Since its informal beginnings, the group has evolved into a professional touring ensemble that has earned international recognition for its artistry, versatility, and fresh approach to folk music. Through a busy itinerary of live and broadcast performances, recordings, educational programs, master artist residencies, commissioning programs, and adventuresome collaborations, Kitka has exposed millions to the haunting beauty of their unique body of repertoire. Kitka has released nine recordings on their own Diaphonica record label, most recently Cradle Songs, a disc hailed by the Los Angeles Times as one of the “ten most memorable internationally flavored albums of 2009”.

In recent years the Kitka has ventured into collaborations with many composers, choreographers, filmmakers and theater directors who have created works that employ Kitka’s unique sound and compelling stage presence. Launched in 2000, Kitka’s New Folksongs Commissioning Project engages the most exciting voices in new music to write original works for the ensemble. Premieres to date include works by Pauline Oliveros, David Lang, Chen Yi, Daniel Hoffman, Roy Whelden, Linda Tillery, Marcel Khalife, Mariana Sadovska, Linda Tillery, Michael Alpert, Rumen Sali Shopov and Dan Cantrell. Kitka’s most recent co-commissioned work, The Origin, by Grammy-winning composer Richard Einhorn, is an evening-length multi-media oratorio scored for Kitka, symphony orchestra, chorus, and soloists with original film by Bill Morrison. Marking the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin’s birth and the 150th anniversary of the publication of The Origin of Species, Kitka’s recording of highlights from The Origin was released on iTunes in December 2009 on the Galapagos label.

The vocalists of Kitka are Caitlin Tabancay Austin, Leslie Bonnett, Briget Boyle, Shira Cion, Janet Kutulas, and Elizabeth Setzer.

Tickets and Information
Tickets for Singing Through Darkness are priced $25 advance/$28 door (general), $22 advance/$25 door (seniors, students, groups of 10 or more)
Reservations: http://www.brownpapertickets.com
24/7 Ticket Hotline: 1-800-838-3006.
More information: http://www.kitka.org
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Calendar Editor Please List:
Kitka Women's Vocal Ensemble
World Premiere: Singing Through Darkness
A New International Vocal-Theater Project Co-Created with Composer/Music Director Mariana Sadovska and Stage Director Andre Erlen

WHEN: Thursday, June 24, 8 PM; Friday, June 25, 8 PM; Saturday, June 26, 8 PM; Sunday, June 27, 4 PM
WHERE: Satya Yuga, 954 60th St. (3 blocks East of San Pablo), Oakland, CA 94608
TICKETS: $25 advance/$28 door (general), $22 advance/$25 door (seniors, students, groups of 10 or more) http://www.brownpapertickets.com 24/7 Ticket Hotline: 1-800-838-3006. More information: http://www.kitka.org

Singing Through Darkness is supported, in part, by grants from The National Endowment for the Arts, The City of Oakland Cultural Funding Program, The Clorox Community Foundation, Creative Capital’s Multi-Arts Production Fund, The Wallace Alexander Gerbode Foundation, and the Zellerbach Family Foundation.
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