FORUM ON TRANSLATION

Friday, 14 April 2017 - 8:30pm—10:00pm

Arts Bank, 601 S. Broad Street, Philadelphia
Second show, Saturday, 12:00 – 1:30 pm

Excerpts from A Period of Animate Existence

Troy Herion

Artist-in-Residence, Penn Program in Environmental Humanities, 2016–17

Mimi Lien

Associate Artist, Pig Iron Theatre; Artist-in-Residence, Penn Program in Environmental Humanities, 2016–17

Dan Rothenberg

Co-Artistic Director, Pig Iron Theatre; Artist-in-Residence, Penn Program in the Environmental Humanities, 2016–17

A Period of Animate Existence is a new work of symphonic theater created by the OBIE Award-winning Pig Iron Theatre Company. Children, elders, and machines contemplate the future in a time of dire predictions and rapid technological change. This music-theater work about life cycles and planetary cycles features a chamber orchestra, two generations of choirs, and a halal cart. Composer Troy Herion, designer Mimi Lien, and director Dan Rothenberg are artists-in-residence at the Penn Program in Environmental Humanities for 2016-2017. A Period of Animate Existence grows from their explorations of new language for the Anthropocene and experiments in choral singing.

As part of PPEH's Ecotopian Toolkit conference, Pig Iron presents two free showings (4/14 and 4/15) of excerpts from Movements 2, 3, and 4 of A Period of Animate Existence. A Period of Animate Existence will premiere at the Annenberg Center in September at the 2017 FringeArts Festival.