Ventriloquism: Just for You Project
We are drawn to the magical possibility of ventriloquism, to that instant when an inanimate piece of wood and cloth opens its eyes and speaks. It both appeals to us and horrifies us; if that collection of wood and cloth can speak, what about the rest of the infinite number of objects that surround us? When will they, too, stir from their slumber? If the boundary between the living and the dead is fluid, what other “truths” are not set in stone? Can I move to a new city and start a new life? Lift my feet from the ground and ascend to the heavens? Disappear? Staged as a performance for an audience of one, Ventriloquism explores this magical space between fact and fiction, dream and reality.
Just for You
Just for You is a series of productions staged for one audience member at a time. These performances break down the barrier separating the spectator from the spectacle and immerse the audience in the immediacy of the sensory encounter. The audience does not just “see theatre.” They “experience” it. Riverbed has staged its Just for You performances/installations at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum, National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, The Place Tainan, Eslite Gallery, Tainan Arts Festival, and the BoK Festival.
Riverbed Theatre
Riverbed Theatre was founded in 1998 in Taipei, Taiwan. The company’s image-based, total theatre productions blur the boundaries between visual and performing arts. Critics have praised the organic, sculptural quality of Riverbed’s “subconscious” theatre, likening the performance to the best works of Samuel Beckett and David Lynch. Riverbed has participated in festivals and events including: Avignon Off Theatre Festival (Avignon), Imaginale Figurentheater Festival (Mannheim, Stuttgart), Taiwan International Festival of Arts (Taipei), International Theatre Festival (Taipei), Wei Wu Ying Arts Festival (Kaohsiung), Taipei Arts Festival (Taipei), Tainan Arts Festival (Tainan), and On Site Artfest (Taipei).
Director/ Craig Quintero, Andrew Kaufman
Producer/ Su-ling Yeh
Lighting Design/ Jui-hsuan Tseng
Associate Producer/ Zin Yang, Chia-lin Liu
Performers/ Li-mei Chung, Helena Gruensteidl, Charlotte Richardson-Deppe, Sooji Son, Molly Stone, Judith Tong, I-chia Wang, Niya Weedon, Ella Williams
Craig Quintero
As the Artistic Director of the Taipei-based Riverbed Theatre Company, Craig Quintero has written and directed over forty original image-based performances, including productions at Taiwan’s National Experimental Theatre (Taipei), Theatre Mouffetard (Paris), Alte Teuerwache (Mannheim), Fritz (Stuttgart), Theatre Le Funambule (Avignon), Theatre de la Condition des Soies (Avignon), the Esplanade Studio Theatre (Singapore), Telus Theatre (Vancouver), Tiny Alice (Tokyo), KAVC (Kobe), and Robert Wilson’s Watermill Center (New York). He is also a sculptor and installation artist whose work has been shown at the Asian Biennial, Venice Biennale, Kobe Biennale, Taipei Biennale, Taipei Fine Arts Museum, and the Shanghai Museum of Contemporary Art. During the 2015-16 academic year, Craig was a Senior Fulbright Scholar to Taiwan and a Mellon Foundation Academic Enterprise Leave Fellow. He received his Ph.D. in Performance Studies from Northwestern University and is currently the Chair and an Associate Professor in the Department of Theatre and Dance at Grinnell College.
Andrew Kaufman
Andrew Kaufman received his Master of Fine Arts degree in 2002 from the University of South Florida in a studio art program that emphasized the coupling of concept and form. Kaufman considers himself a convergent artist, letting idea dictate medium, which has led to a multiplicity of mediums that include video, sound, sculpture, painting and digital print. He has exhibited widely in the United States, most recently at the Bemis Center in Omaha, NE, as well as the Centre Gallery in Tampa, FL, and has been included in the periodical New American Painting, 2012 Midwest edition.