Maps For a War Tourist Sister Sylvester

About This Show

Maps For A War Tourist is a call to slow down and regroup. A meditation on how to tell stories, especially true ones, or contemporary ones; and an attempt to learn from the slow, stubborn tenacity of the tortoise. Sister Sylvester chose a difficult story to tell, maybe an impossible one, but they didn’t realize it until it was too late. It’s the story of an ideology that travels from the lower east side to the mountains of Iraq; a story that is political, but has also become personal; a story that is of an individual, but also of the complex geopolitics concerning USA and Turkey; a story whose context changes on an almost daily basis. Trying to navigate narrative, politics and emotion in the storm that is the world right now, they turned to the calmest, oldest, most unshakable creature they could think of – the tortoise.

Stripping away Sister Sylvester‘s trademark chaos, the show is conceived and directed by Kathryn Hamilton, and co-created by the ensemble of performers, which includes Cyrus Moshrefi, Kelsea Martin, Jeremy Toussaint-Baptiste, Ms. Hamilton; a pair of tortoises named Squat and Creon; and dramaturg Jeremy M. Barker.

About the Artist

Sister Sylvester is a New York and Istanbul based theatre company that uses documentary techniques and original research to explore untold stories using forms specific to live performance.  Formed in 2008, they have created work in both site-specific venues like Kenny Scharf’s Cosmic Cavern, a disused convent and a karaoke bar, as well as in theaters such as Abrons Arts Center, Dixon Place and The Public. Their work uses research into real stories, often on the fringe of pivotal historical events, to try and see those moments from a new angle and to understand our own time in a new way. Embracing dissonance and difficulty, the company invites disruption into both their process and their performance.

Sister Sylvester is the name of a ghost who haunted the company’s first home/studio/performance venue and it became the company name for its gender-bending, feminist and spectral associations.

Maps for a War Tourist was supported by a Watershed Laboratory residency at Mount Tremper Arts.

Fridays and Saturdays, June 2, 3, 9, 10, 16, 17 at 7:30pm

General Admission

$20 in advance

$23 at the door

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Credits

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