22 November, 19.00 a special screening of the Near Gone play will be organised at the Chamber stage of the Young Theatre. The performance is supported by the British Council in Ukraine and will be held as part of the 4th Les Kurbas Festival of Young Directors.
Near Gone is an incredibly honest story proving that even in the most difficult times there is a place for hope. Poignant confession of life performed by the British actors Katherina Radeva and Alister Lownie transforms the sense of what it is to be a mother, a father or a child.
The playis co-commissioned by a Colchester Arts Centre and supported by Arts Council England and The Point, Eastleigh. Dramaturgy and additional direction was made by the famous choreographer Charlotte Vincent, a founder of Vincent Dance Theatre.
Delivered in English and Bulgarian, with fantastic gypsy-inspired music, this performance fills an empty space with two performers and 400 fresh flowers.
Near Gone has won the inaugural Pulse Fringe Suitcase Prize on 31st May 2013 and a Total Theatre Award for Innovation, Experimentation and Playing with Form at Edinburgh Festival Fringe in August 2014. In summer 2015 Ukrainian delegation including Iryna Chuzhynova (theatre critic, co-founder of NGO “Theatre Platform”), Victoria Shvydko (co-founder and a head of Drama.UA), Tamara Trunova (director) and Anton Ovchinnikov (Zelyonka-Fest director) visited Edinburgh Festival Fringe and the Edinburgh Showcase – biennale of the theatrical and dance projects of the British Council – and chose Near Gone to be shown in Ukraine.
You can buy tickets here.
To learn more about the trip of Ukrainian theatre community to the Edinburgh – visit Festival of Young Director’s Educational programme on 23 November at 13.00. Venue: Golden Gates Theatre (7a, Shovkovychna St.). Prior to their “What is the Fringe” presentation there will be a chance to talk to the Near Gone actors Katherina Radeva and Alister Lownie. The meeting will take place at 11.00.
Notes to editors:
Two Destination Language – created in the summer of 2011 by Katherina Radeva and Alister Lownie, the company combines contemporary theatre and performance practices, traversing art and theatre. Their projects vary from theatre pieces and works for one audience member at a time to site-specific experiences and installations with a very strong participatory or interactive element to all of their work.
Apart from the Near Gone performance the company has produced an staged BurningBlack (2010), FallenFruit- nowhere, nowgone (2011), AJourneyofaHome (2011), WLTM (2012), hosted a contemporary dance festival FLINT (2012 – 2013), Storyville installation (2013) as well as DustyFeet (2014) and Manpower (2015) exhibitions.
British Council’s Theatre Programme 2015 – centres on the development of Ukrainian theatre and its emergent professional community. The programme consists of three multistage competitions, each of which will allow Ukrainian directors, curators, and theatre arts teams to work with their British counterparts on the creation of a series of British-Ukrainian co-productions. The tasks our “theatrical team” will undertake are three: to open the traditional Ukrainian stage to progressive, contemporary British drama; to revisit three "unknown" (in Ukraine) Shakespearean plays, joining in the global commemoration of the 400th anniversary of the Bard’s death; and to spend three weeks immersed in theatre as observers and critics of the everyday at the world's largest theatrical testing grounds - the Edinburgh Fringe.