Multiverso #2 is a theatre event created by and for this time, inviting the audience into a Zoom room to watch and interact with the live performers. Eight immigrant and refugee artists from disparate geographic locations, with no single shared language, find a way to blend their stories, visual art, and music into a hybrid live event that reflects common struggles, common journeys, and a desire to make art in a new life. Led by Mind the fact, Station Athens Group, Polyplanity Productions in Greece, and The Trojan Women Project of La MaMa in New York City, Multiverso uses technology to bring together in one cyber space a group of individuals who might never have the opportunity to stand face to face.

Multiverso #1 was first presented on December 20, 2020 as part of the Mind the fact Festival in Athens, Greece. Now in its second incarnation, Multiverso #2 expands the stories of these artists, and invites the audience to meet them, share unique interpretations of the immigrant experience and engage in an interactive exchange with them.

The company for this presentation, which has been meeting together on Zoom since September 2020, includes Afghani, Bangladeshi, and Pakistani artists now living in Athens, Greece; Venezuelan and Chilean artists relocated in Italy; and asylum seekers waiting at the Tijuana border for passage to new lives in the United States.

This event is presented as a part of Re-Fest, CultureHub's annual festival that brings artists, activists, and technologists together to explore our role in re-shaping the future.

Friday, June 11
2pm ET / 11am PT
Free / Donate

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Actors:
Chalil Ali Zada - Afghanistan/Greece Hossein Amiri - Afghanistan/Greece
Giovanny Escalona - Venezuela/Italy
Alan Jorquera - Chile/Italy
Aidim Joymal - Bangladesh/Greece
Ramzan Mohammad - Pakistan/Greece
Winston MG - Venezuela/Tijuana
Bel Atis Pitir Seye - Haiti/Tijuana

Sara Galassini and Onni Johnson - Directors, The Trojan Women Project
Yolanda Markopoulou - Director, Station Athens Group
Erato Tzavara - Video Art
Adam Parker, Tijuana Consultant
Rosie Hin - Photography:

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The Mind the fact cultural initiative was created in 2016 by Yolanda Markopoulou and Ioanna Valsamidou. It is a hybrid model of artistic production that aspires to look to the Other, highlighting true stories that happen in our communities, in our cities, on our planet. Encouraging the collaboration of art professionals with non-professionals, mind the fact sheds light on important issues that remain in obscurity. The real-life protagonists and their stories are presented to the public and claim their own space through artistic creation. Through works which address diversity, pluralism, and multiculturalism, the participants of mind the fact suggest if not a different, at least a more honest worldview. www.mindthefact.gr

The Station Athens Group was created through a 10-year art workshop by AMAKA and SYNERGY-O. It all started when a group of refugees from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh were invited to play theatre and experience art as another way to integrate into their new reality. The performances of the group include: Station Athens (2011), We Are at Home (2011), I_LEFT (2014), We Are the Persians! (work in progress 2013, Athens Festival 2015, Pitch New Works ISPA 2016), Espoo City Theatre, Finland, Mind the fact festival 2017), Inter-Mediates (Athens Bienalle 2016) and the site- specific updated version of I_LEFT (2018), conceived especially for the old refugee settlement of the city of Eleusis for the European Cultural Capital 2023, all directed by Yolanda Markopoulou. Station Athens group has been showcased as a prime example of performing arts projects by and for refugees and immigrants, in the publication Creation and Displacement- Developing New Narratives Around Migration of IETM (International Network of Performing Arts) and several other publications and university essays. www.mindthefact.gr/en/project/station-athens-2/

The Trojan Women Project, a program of La MaMa ETC in New York, has sent artists from the Great Jones Rep to communities worldwide to work with actors, musicians and designers in re-creating the music and staging of LaMaMa's groundbreaking production of The Trojan Women, directed by Andrei Serban, composed by Elizabeth Swados, and produced by Ellen Stewart in 1974. In December 2019, The Trojan Women Project Festival brought together artists from Kosovo, Cambodia, Guatemala, and New York for ten days of shared events and performances, including a newly staged version of The Trojan Women at La MaMa. Now The Trojan Women Project has begun a new chapter…in light of the world pandemic, the Project has begun online workshops and presentations in collaboration with new groups of international artists.

Produced by Polyplanity Productions / www.polyplanity.com

Multiverso #2 is held with the financial support and under the auspices of the Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports.