OK Radio (Arts)

Categories

Arts
general

Archives

2013
December
November
October
September
August
July
June
May
April
March
February
January

2012
December
November
October
September
August
July

March 2024
S M T W T F S
     
          1 2
3 4 5 6 7 8 9
10 11 12 13 14 15 16
17 18 19 20 21 22 23
24 25 26 27 28 29 30
31

Syndication

Nature Theater of Oklahoma talks with performance artist/theater maker Daniel Alexander Jones, and also with his alter-ego, the uber-glamorous “soulsonic superstar” - Jomama Jones. A conversation that touches on character, imagination, creativity, realness, possibility, and growth - in all its marvelous and weedy aspects - and the everyday work we do to tend that garden.

Direct download: Daniel_Alexander_Jones_-_OK_Radio_Episode_85.mp3
Category:Arts -- posted at: 4:37pm EDT

Nature Theater of Oklahoma talks with Natalia Koliada of the Belarus Free Theatre about the challenges of making art in a police state where people are regularly kidnapped, killed and tortured. We’ve blabbed a lot in this podcast about the difficulties of making theater even working in the best possible circumstances – so how does this ambitious company company manage to keep itself going in the face of real physical threat and displacement? (The leadership of the company, including Natalia, are currently in London living in exile, while the majority of their actors and collaborators remain in Belarus). How does it work when rehearsals are conducted over skype and performances are streamed live via internet from London for audiences in Belarus? Can we learn anything from their resourcefulness and perseverance? (Yes.)

Direct download: Natalia_Koliada_-_Belarus_Free_Theater_-_OK_Radio_Episode_84.mp3
Category:Arts -- posted at: 1:33pm EDT

Nature Theater of Oklahoma talks again with the venerable comedian, musician, magpie - Reggie Watts.  A conversation about self-image, self-care, imitation and actualization.  How does an artist become an original, and what does that even mean?  How can we build into this idea of “image” the potential and even mandate to change and grow into the future? And how can we safeguard for ourselves the joy we have in making the work?  

Direct download: Reggie_Watts_No._2_-_OK_Radio_Episode_83.mp3
Category:Arts -- posted at: 11:53am EDT

Nature Theater of Oklahoma talks with Joeri Smet, Karolien De Bleser, and Angelo Tijssens of the Ghent-based company, Ontroerend Goed in our first ever podcast recorded in front of a live audience in Vooruit.  Join us as we consider whether or not the audience changes anything about the way we work.  When we work in front of an audience do we always somehow want it to go well?  Would it be better if we in fact created a little less community and a little more unrest? Or should we just shut up already and watch some football? (This podcast was recorded as part of the Possible Futures Festival for Vooruit in Ghent.)

Direct download: OK_Radio_82_-_Ontroerend_Goed.mp3
Category:Arts -- posted at: 8:14am EDT

Nature Theater of Oklahoma talks with writer, professor and researcher in cultural anthropology, Rik Pinxten of the University of Ghent, about such wide-ranging topics as creativity, animals, intuition, art, religion, science, culture, language, mathematics and finally our potential (and Rik feels there is a potential) to still change the world we live in. (This podcast was recorded as part of the Possible Futures Festival for Vooruit in Ghent.)

Direct download: OK_Radio_81_-_Rik_Pinxten.mp3
Category:Arts -- posted at: 12:00pm EDT

Nature Theater of Oklahoma talks with Eva Verity and Hazel Venzon of the Canadian company Mammalian Diving Reflex – all about “art” as a category of human activity. Both of our companies make work which falls under this dubious moniker “art,” but the activity may be in each case very different in scope, location, participants, and intent.  So, what makes “art” – well – “art”? Or is this all-inclusive category even meaningful?  Is it something (much like Pavol’s moustache) that we should at last just stop touching and leave well enough alone? (This podcast was recorded as part of the Possible Futures Festival for Vooruit in Ghent.)

Direct download: OK_Radio__80_-_Mammalian_Diving_Reflex.mp3
Category:Arts -- posted at: 8:13am EDT

Nature Theater of Oklahoma talks with researcher and activist Barbara Van Dyck, who has been in the news recently in Belgium for her activity against a field of experimental genetically modified potatoes. From Barbara we learned a lot in just one short hour about the scientific concerns surrounding genetic modification of agriculture – and also enjoyed some hot discussion with her about art, activism, progress, the future and “the social good”. (This podcast was recorded as part of the Possible Futures Festival for Vooruit in Ghent.)

Direct download: OK_Radio_79_-_Barbara_Van_Dyck.mp3
Category:Arts -- posted at: 7:02am EDT

Nature Theater of Oklahoma talks with Belgian artist Sarah Vanhee about her recent project Lecture for Everyone for which she is invited by various groups to speak (always unannounced) in a location where an audience is already gathered for an entirely different situation or event. What does it mean to come into a public situation as an outsider or stranger? Who is the guest and who is the host in such a performance – in any performance? And just what do we invite when we intervene? (This podcast was recorded as part of the Possible Futures Festival for Vooruit in Ghent.)

Direct download: OK_Radio_77_-_Sarah_Vanhee.mp3
Category:Arts -- posted at: 10:21am EDT

Nature Theater of Oklahoma talks with Barbara Raes, artistic director of Vooruit in Ghent.  Vooruit, originally the festival center of the Ghent labor movement, and a symbol of the socialist movement, is today a busy arts center and hub of cultural innovation.  The name “vooruit” translates in English to “forward, ” but are we capable curators of our own idealism?  Why does today’s passion for radical change always seem to become tomorrow’s collective burnout?  Should we strategize more and hope less? Is there such a thing as sustainable revolution? (This podcast was recorded as part of the Possible Futures Festival for Vooruit in Ghent.)

Direct download: OK_Radio_76_-_Barbara_Raes.mp3
Category:Arts -- posted at: 9:08am EDT

Nature Theater of Oklahoma talks with artists Halory Goerger and Antoine Defoort from the company L’Amicale de Production about finding a productive balance between collaboration and antagonism, both when we make work together as a duo or a team, and also in regard to our relationship with the audience, with whom we also work and work against in various ways.  Are there any rules to live by? Are we fundamentalists? What’s a Bible humper? And more importantly – when are these guys coming to perform in New York? (This podcast was recorded as part of the Possible Futures festival for Vooruit in Ghent.)

Direct download: OK_Radio_75_-_HaloryAntoine_LAmicale.mp3
Category:Arts -- posted at: 8:52am EDT

Nature Theater of Oklahoma talks with playwright Jeffrey M. Jones (aka Jeff Jones) about death, politics and money. A podcast in which we dare to ask the question: who IS the President of the United States?  And what does the answer potentially imply about my mental competence? (Plus – added bonus! – we all imagine a future television series we would make based on life in the New York theater – something along the lines of Dallas, but with far less cash and fewer horses.)

Direct download: OK_Radio_74_Jeff_Jones.mp3
Category:Arts -- posted at: 1:42pm EDT

Nature Theater of Oklahoma talks to Philip Bither, Senior Curator of Performing Arts at Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, about ego, humility, and identity.  Is it an arrogant act to program work (or make work) that you may personally feel is important -- for an audience who may not want that kind of challenge?  What is the grass roots work a good curator has to do to find and foster public interest (as populist as we can make it) in these so-called “difficult” works?

Direct download: OK_Radio_73_Philip_Bither.mp3
Category:Arts -- posted at: 8:07pm EDT

Nature Theater of Oklahoma talks with artist/choreographers Heine Avdal and Yukiko Shinozaki about performances in and out of the theater space.  Yukiko and Heine have made performances in their hotel room, in rented offices, shopping centers; Nature Theater has also worked inside and outside the traditional theater building - but why do we do it?  What uncomfortable questions does off-site work provoke about audience and our interaction and relationship with them?   

Direct download: OK_Radio_72_Adval__Shinozaki.mp3
Category:Arts -- posted at: 8:52pm EDT

Nature Theater of Oklahoma talks with Lebanese visual and performing artist Rabih Mroué - about so many things! - but mainly about difference and similarity, self and community, solo and group, inside and outside, original and imitation.  Though we both make performance and theater, we come from very different backgrounds and environments, and even different working situations.  What are the influences that make us who and what we are and what we make?  And what has been his particular experience growing up and making art in Beirut?

Direct download: OK_Radio_71_Rabih_Mroue.mp3
Category:Arts -- posted at: 12:58pm EDT

Nature Theater of Oklahoma talks with Sean Patten & Bastian Trost of the Berlin-based group Gob Squad about the social relations, work ethics - and just plain ethics - of collective art-making.  How do we negotiate making group work and – quite frankly - DOES the group work?  How do we come together and how do we stay together and most importantly – how do we keep this very economically precarious idea of group work going?

Direct download: OK_Radio_70_Gob_Squad_Sean_Patten_Bastian_Trost.mp3
Category:Arts -- posted at: 9:41pm EDT

Nature Theater of Oklahoma talks with painter, sculptor, performing artist and German enfant terrible Jonathan Meese – all about art and ideology, insider and outsider, and risk and responsibility.  Do artists need to remain playful, irresponsible, provocative – even untrustworthy– to make our best work?  How does one reconcile one's desire to please one's mother with a desire to make art that includes simulating oral sex on an extraterrestrial?  Some time well spent with one of our most inspiring guests ever.

Direct download: OK_Radio_69_Jonathan_Meese.mp3
Category:Arts -- posted at: 3:30pm EDT

Nature Theater of Oklahoma talks today with the extremely inspirational artist – and comedian – and musician – Reggie Watts.  All about stuff and nonsense, conscious and unconscious, perception, and improvisation – not just in performance but as philosophy, as a way of living and being in the world.

Direct download: OK_Radio_68_Reggie_Watts.mp3
Category:Arts -- posted at: 7:46am EDT

Nature Theater of Oklahoma talks with Oskar Eustis, director of The Public Theater in New York City about leadership, ethics, and idealism.  How does Oskar navigate the economic disparity he encounters every day – running an arts institution that has to both market itself to wealthy backers and nurture an often very impoverished community of working artists?  What are the possibilities he sees in the future toward making a better, more sustainable working environment – and ultimately better art – in the American theater?

Direct download: OK_Radio_67_Oskar_Eustis.mp3
Category:Arts -- posted at: 2:01pm EDT

Nature Theater of Oklahoma talks with writer Lucy Alibar (whose film Beasts of the Southern Wild was just nominated for four Academy Awards), about how she straddles the worlds of both stage and film.  Also, how has it been to negotiate that success with its looming opposite: failure?  When you have a big move forward in your artistic career, how do you manage the fear that sometimes follows, and the pressure to make another immediate hit?  (All this and more about story, land, race, history, religion, and the future.)

Direct download: OK_Radio_66_Lucy_Alibar.mp3
Category:Arts -- posted at: 8:30pm EDT

Nature Theater of Oklahoma talks with Lenore Manderson, writer, researcher and medical anthropologist at Monash University in Australia about our mutual fascination with the human body.  Join us as we discuss the body in practice and in performance, as signifier of vulnerability, power, visibility, ability, disability – and difference.

Direct download: OK_Radio_65_Lenore_Manderson.mp3
Category:Arts -- posted at: 10:22pm EDT

Nature Theater of Oklahoma talks with Australian arts advocate, festival director, and world-renowned singer and performance artist Robyn Archer about building a life for herself in the theater – what about the resistance she’s faced along the way?  How do we continually track that resistance and disturbance in our lives and work (and curatorial choices) in order to avoid complacency?

Direct download: OK_Radio_64_Robyn_Archer.mp3
Category:Arts -- posted at: 6:06pm EDT

Nature Theater of Oklahoma talks with Erica Meyer, an Episcopal priest at the Church of the Good Shepherd in New York City about how she came to her calling as a religious leader.  How does she lead a community of people toward wholeness and sanctification?  Where does her belief come from and what does she do with her own doubt and grief?  What does any of this have to do with theater, you might ask?  (Really, go ahead and ask!)

Direct download: OK_Radio_63_Erica_Meyer.mp3
Category:Arts -- posted at: 9:53pm EDT

Nature Theater of Oklahoma talks with artists Christer Lundhal & Martina Seitl about shared practice and crossed disciplines.  How do we open up new possibilities in perception, and create room for ambiguity and playful slippage in roles, in context, and in life.  Do we have to go all the way to the moon – or Mars even – just to get a change in perspective?

Direct download: OK_Radio_62_Lundhal__Seitl.mp3
Category:Arts -- posted at: 3:20pm EDT

Nature Theater of Oklahoma talks with Swedish choreographer and filmmaker Gunilla Heilborn about levels of commitment.  Do we always need to push it 200%?  What about we just try 80% and call it a day?  Join us as we examine our minimalist and maximalist tendencies and trace the influence of these habits and preferences on our work.

Direct download: OK_Radio_61_Gunilla_Heilborn2.mp3
Category:Arts -- posted at: 5:15pm EDT

Nature Theater of Oklahoma talks with Swedish playwright and director Mattias Andersson of Backa Teater in Göteborg about local and global art.  What does it mean to have a theater and to make work in the city where you grew up, to be in dialogue with a city of intimates?  How do we make the personal public – or is it vice versa?

Direct download: OK_Radio_60_Mattias_Andersson.mp3
Category:Arts -- posted at: 5:21pm EDT

Nature Theater of Oklahoma talks with writer, editor, and theater thinker Tom Sellar about surrender and control – physical, mental, and structural.  Join us as we clear the air – talking about artists and critics, and the whole interdependency and strangeness around that relationship.   We rely on critics to write about the work, but what do we care about really?  Do we want intelligent writing or just positive gush?  Do critics appreciate that they are just seeing one performance and it all may be going horribly wrong?  All this and even more thoughts about social practice, multi-media, durational performance, art brut, and political theater. 

Direct download: OK_Radio_59_Tom_Sellar.mp3
Category:Arts -- posted at: 7:42am EDT

Nature Theater of Oklahoma talks with theater-maker Aaron Landsman about our mutual time together growing up in NY theater in the 1990s.  We examine how and why we are still here – still doing this.  Join us as we talk with Aaron, too, about his new work, City Council Meeting, and probe the intersection of faith, life, art and committed “social practice".

Direct download: OK_Radio_58_Aaron_Landsman.mp3
Category:Arts -- posted at: 10:21am EDT

Nature Theater of Oklahoma talks again with New York avant-garde legend Richard Foreman about sardines, and (reluctantly) also about theater.  We discuss his new play, Old-Fashioned Prostitutes, which opens next week at The Public Theater, and also his critically-acclaimed film Once Every Day, which was recently screened at the Berlin Film Festival and at Anthology Film Archives in New York.

Direct download: OK_Radio_57_Richard_Foreman_No_2.mp3
Category:Arts -- posted at: 10:34am EDT

Nature Theater of Oklahoma talks with David Garland, composer and creator of the music program Spinning on Air on WNYC in New York City – about host and guest, yin and yang, creative and receptive, intent and effect.  David also plays two of his own musical compositions, made with some very unconventional instruments, live for us in the closet.

Direct download: OK_Radio_56_David_Garland.mp3
Category:Arts -- posted at: 3:26pm EDT

Nature Theater of Oklahoma looks backward (and forward!) in theater time with curator Mark Russell of Under the Radar Festival in New York City.  Join us as we chat with Mark about his early years in the Austin, TX music scene, his tenure at PS122, the invention of UTR, and hopes and fears about his upcoming move to Lausanne, Switzerland.  Together we talk about drilling down, burning out, and branching out, and still somehow keeping one foot in the city we all love.

Direct download: OK_Radio_55_Mark_Russell.mp3
Category:Arts -- posted at: 9:39am EDT

Nature Theater of Oklahoma talks again with choreographer/dancer/artist Mårten Spångberg about conning, cunning, consciousness, unconsciousness and – hey, by the way, are we just maybe making religious art?  What?  Political art?  What do we stand for?  What is an example of an idea that would be bad enough to scare us?  A conversation that ranges all over the place, even to Swedish motorbikes, chakra breathing, Baader Meinhof, Chinese mafia, ending in love and anger in the year 2013.  Hang in there.

Direct download: OK_Radio_54_Marten_Spangberg.mp3
Category:Arts -- posted at: 1:00pm EDT

Nature Theater of Oklahoma goes off the leash with the devilishly gifted and multi-talented performer/dancer/composer Mike Iveson, Jr.  Join us as we talk about about pride, prejudice and process.  Are we ever ONLY devised, dictatorial, collaborative, impulsive?  Top down authoritative or totally egalitarian?  Should we finally accept that process is a messy thing – resistant to even our best laid plans?  (All this plus much more about insects, sea walnuts, spiritual visitation, psychics, and alien possession.)

Direct download: OK_Radio_53_Mike_Iveson.mp3
Category:Arts -- posted at: 7:45pm EDT

Nature Theater of Oklahoma goes deep with artist Xaviera Simmons, talking about infection, inspiration, difference, and indifference – race and (like - ohmigod!) audience.  What were we thinking?  Is anger, aggression and dissatisfaction a prod to artistic enterprise? or a burden we should leave behind?

Direct download: OK_Radio_52_Xaviera_Simmons.mp3
Category:Arts -- posted at: 3:57pm EDT

Nature Theater of Oklahoma talks to choreographer/dancer/artist Mårten Spångberg.  A far-fetched discourse on corruption, bullshit, undermining, alchemy, pain-in-the-ass, architecture - and so much more!  Including also rodents, moles, foxes, dragons, aliens, monsters and other totem species of the artistic animal underground.

Direct download: OK_Radio_Mrten_Spngberg_2-19-13.mp3
Category:Arts -- posted at: 6:14pm EDT

Nature Theater of Oklahoma talks to NPR correspondent Robert Smith about radio, reporting, and storytelling.  What happens when we put extreme constraints of time on narrative – as in durational theater and art projects (such as Chris Marclay’s The Clock and our current project, Life and Times) – and in public radio which is typically built in short 3-6 minute story segments?  We also examine the ways in which live performance and radio are both shaped (respectively) by the physical presence and absence of their audience.

Direct download: OK_Radio_50_Robert_Smith.mp3
Category:Arts -- posted at: 11:02am EDT

Nature Theater of Oklahoma talks to actor Scott Shepherd of ERS and the Wooster Group about strictures, exposures – and helicopters!  We also ponder the intangible and ineffable in theater and the surprising and inevitable consequences of vitamins, nutrition, and bad shellfish on acting

Direct download: OK_Radio_49_Scott_Shepherd.mp3
Category:Arts -- posted at: 10:02am EDT

Nature Theater of Oklahoma talks to playwright and performer Sibyl Kempson about adjustments we have to make when real life gets more dramatic than theater.  How do we weigh life and death against the old showbiz notion of “the show must go on”?  Also, enjoy as we share a few choice words about ambient theater, New Jersey theater, theater for dogs, cats, cavemen and aliens - among others. (We also try podcasting with our eyes closed to see what we look like inside ourselves.)

Direct download: OK_Radio_Episode_48_Sibyl_Kempson.mp3
Category:Arts -- posted at: 9:29pm EDT

Nature Theater of Oklahoma talks to Adina Tal, director and founder of Nalaga’at Center in Tel Aviv about her work with a diverse company of deaf-blind actors (Muslims, Jews and Samaritans working together) in Israel.  How can you direct someone who can neither see nor hear you - and who can neither see nor hear his audience or his fellow actors on stage?  What kind of deeper questions does this work raise about perception and understanding?

Direct download: OK_Radio_47_Adina_Tal.mp3
Category:Arts -- posted at: 6:27pm EDT

Nature Theater of Oklahoma talks to theatre artist/dream-maker Joris Lacoste about his work with found audio in performance, and the issues it raises about originality, reproduction, truth and faithfulness.  We also talk about his recent work involving hypnosis.

Direct download: OK_Radio_46_Joris_Lacoste.mp3
Category:Arts -- posted at: 5:24pm EDT

Nature Theater of Oklahoma talks to Annemie Vanackere, the new director of the Hebbel am Ufer in Berlin, about the relative merits and certain pitfalls of too much leadership.  Also too much dependency.  How can artists develop and maintain a share of agency in the work, as well as a healthy balance of power in our relationships with grantors, curators, and producers?  

Direct download: OK_Radio_45_Annemie_Vanackere.mp3
Category:Arts -- posted at: 5:18pm EDT

Nature Theater of Oklahoma talks to playwright/director Tina Satter of the New York company Half Straddle about sports, rigor, training, discipline and commitment.  Also up for consideration: should experimental theater be looking more ambitiously at stadiums and mass audience?  Do revolutions really happen in small rooms?

Direct download: OK_Radio_44_Tina_Satter.mp3
Category:Arts -- posted at: 11:54am EDT

Nature Theater of Oklahoma talks to Bruce Gladwin, director of Back to Back Theatre, based in Geelong, Australia, about ability, disability, inability, responsibility – obstacles – and audience.  (And also, while we’re at it – let’s talk about being “special” and the many pitfalls of that label.)

Direct download: OK_Radio_43_Bruce_Gladwin.mp3
Category:Arts -- posted at: 11:11am EDT

Nature Theater of Oklahoma talks to writer, composer and performer Cynthia Hopkins about her trip to the Arctic Circle and what she discovered there – also about meditation, crisis, climate change, the future, the primordial past, artistic genius, ecstatic experience, the unseen world, the divine, prayer – and the cosmos.  And Cynthia sings to us a few songs in the closet, too.  

Direct download: OK_Radio_42_Cynthia_Hopkins.mp3
Category:Arts -- posted at: 2:03pm EDT

Nature Theater of Oklahoma talks to designer, director and performer Jim Findlay about his work both within and without Collapsable Giraffe.  Join us as we delve into the deep love and attachment (and nostalgia) we feel for feral work and feral spaces, William Boroughs, Artaud, Werner Schroeter, centaurs, androids, prehistoric plant life, and the ultimate post-human future of the planet when machines take over!

Direct download: OK_Radio_41_Jim_Findlay.mp3
Category:Arts -- posted at: 2:01pm EDT

Nature Theater of Oklahoma talks with Gavin Quinn, director of Dublin-based Pan Pan Theatre company, about empathy and the physical presence of actors.  When you remove the actor from performance (as they do in All That Fall) -- what possibilities does that lack of an obvious physical and emotional center open up for an audience?  (Plus: we experiment for the first time with podcasting in the dark!)

Direct download: OK_Radio_40_Gavin_Quinn.mp3
Category:Arts -- posted at: 11:04am EDT

Nature Theater of Oklahoma meets with choreographer/dancer/performance artist Miguel Gutierrez , who braves athsma and kittens, to explore with us the nature of stunt, risk, and personal necessity in the work.  Also, honestly – how complicated is our relationship to audience? And to museums, for that matter. (Hello, MoMA!)

Direct download: OK_Radio_39_Miguel_Gutierrez.mp3
Category:Arts -- posted at: 12:28pm EDT

Nature Theater of Oklahoma talks with John Collins, director of Elevator Repair Service in New York, about sleepless nights, Supreme Court oral arguments, gun control, the Newtown school shootings, benevolent dictatorships, emancipation, risk, responsibility, reason, and other things that have absolutely nothing to do with theater… or do they?

Direct download: OK_Radio_38_John_Collins.mp3
Category:Arts -- posted at: 6:29pm EDT

Nature Theater of Oklahoma talks to Gideon Lester, Director of Theater Programs and Professor of Theater at Bard College, also one of the curators of the Crossing the Line Festival in New York, about becoming brave and strategies for inscribing that bravery into our cultural institutions and universities.  How should we train and cultivate a courageous new generation of artistic leaders?  (Or: Where are all our new young failures going to come from – and why do we need them more than ever?)

Direct download: OK_Radio_37_Gideon_Lester.mp3
Category:Arts -- posted at: 12:47pm EDT

Nature Theater of Oklahoma talks to actor/director Paul Lazar of Big Dance Theater about navigating a tremendously diverse body of work. Paul has worked in everything from the Wooster Group’s Brace Up to Hollywood gangster flics, from Korean monster movies to modern dance (he’s currently working with Mikhail Baryshnikov on a new piece). And he now hosts his own radio show “Talk to Paulie” on BBOX Radio in New York – a show on which we are, also, simultaneously HIS guests. (A radio show within a radio show!)

Direct download: OK_Radio_36_Paul_Lazar.mp3
Category:Arts -- posted at: 4:08pm EDT

Nature Theater of Oklahoma talks to Eric Dyer of the Brooklyn-based performance group Radiohole about play and playfulness, artist and ensemble.  How far out, to the extreme edge of failure, are we willing to push ourselves and our work in order to try and stay “wild”?  Does our willingness to embrace failure and be more courageous hinge in part on our ability to trick ourselves into crafting a more playful relationship to the audience, curators, and funders that we hope will eventually embrace that work?

Direct download: OK_Radio_35_Eric_Dyer.mp3
Category:Arts -- posted at: 9:37am EDT

Nature Theater of Oklahoma talks again with their very first OK Radio guest, playwright/director Young Jean Lee, about American celebrity culture, our capacities for violence and repression – plus lots of dancing our way around Kant’s Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals. (And added bonus feature: Young Jean explains the workings of the economic “Pareto” principle and how to beneficially apply it to your personal life!)

Direct download: OK_Radio_34_Young_Jean_Lee_No._2.mp3
Category:Arts -- posted at: 11:19am EDT

Nature Theater of Oklahoma talks to Tony-nominated actor and Hollywood regular David Harbour about the challenges and benefits of working in the world of commercial entertainment.  Is there a Berlin-style wall that divides Broadway from the experimental theater? And, if so, can we, as another famous actor, Ronald Regan, once commanded: “tear down that wall”? (Plus special guest appearance by actress Ari Graynor!)

Direct download: OK_Radio_33_David_Harbour.mp3
Category:Arts -- posted at: 6:24pm EDT

Nature Theater of Oklahoma talks to Bessie Award-winning choreographer, playwright, instigator – and new parent, Karinne Keithley Syers, about crossing disciplines, changing names, and genuinely embracing experiment as a part of living and making work.

Direct download: OK_Radio_32_Karinne_Keithley_Syers.mp3
Category:Arts -- posted at: 11:23am EDT

Nature Theater of Oklahoma talks to Vallejo Gantner, artistic director of PS122 and curator of the COIL Festival in New York City about the obvious drawbacks and also surprising benefits and pleasures of working in the performing arts in America.  (Plus even more exciting conversation about sharks, snakes, spiders, dingos and native marsupials of the Australian outback!)

Direct download: OK_Radio_31_Vallejo_Gantner.mp3
Category:Arts -- posted at: 6:01pm EDT

Nature Theater of Oklahoma talks to Caden Manson, director of Big Art Group about watching and reading – the work, the audience, and (maybe) even American football.  Plus additional deep reflections on time, progress and The Future.

Direct download: OK_Radio_30_Caden_Manson.mp3
Category:Arts -- posted at: 5:15pm EDT

Nature Theater of Oklahoma talks to performer Kate Valk, one of the founding members of the Wooster Group, about her sustained commitment to the company and her evolution and transformation as an artist within it.

Direct download: OK_Radio_29_Kate_Valk.mp3
Category:Arts -- posted at: 2:52pm EDT

Nature Theater of Oklahoma talks to American director and writer Anne Bogart, about change, control and community.

Direct download: OK_Radio_28_Anne_Bogart.mp3
Category:Arts -- posted at: 11:55am EDT

Nikolaus Müller-Schöll - OK Radio Episode 27

Nature Theater of Oklahoma talks with Nikolaus Müller-Schöll, author, professor, and theater scientist at Goethe-Universität in Frankfurt about the role of discourse and critical thinking and theory in the performing arts.  What is the role of the artist in this discourse?  Can we offer any insight into our work?  And, conversely, do those who write about theater (even 18th century theater) also need to sit in the audience or be engaged somehow in current practice?

Direct download: OK_Radio_27_Nikolaus_Mller-Schll.mp3
Category:Arts -- posted at: 6:33pm EDT

Nature Theater of Oklahoma continues their talk with William Forsythe, this time delving more deeply into the improbable intersections of radio and dance, and the even more bizarre correlations between directing, choreography and plumbing.

Direct download: OK_Radio_26_William_Forsythe_Pt.2.mp3
Category:Arts -- posted at: 5:05pm EDT

Nature Theater of Oklahoma talks to American choreographer and world-famous Frankfurt-er, William Forsythe, about diet and exercise – both physical and mental. (We enjoyed this conversation so much that we took a coffee break and came back for more. Be sure to join us next time for Pt. 2!)

Direct download: OK_Radio_25_William_Forsythe_Pt.1.mp3
Category:Arts -- posted at: 3:26pm EDT

Martine Dennewald - OK Radio Episode 24

Nature Theater of Oklahoma talks to Martine Dennewald, former curator of the Salzburg Festival’s Young Directors Project, now programmer and interim co-Artistic Director of the Künstlerhaus Mousonturm in Frankfurt, about navigating the different contexts and constituencies in which art is presented and represented.  We also try to talk about the work of our mutual friend, Niels Ewerbeck (Director of Mousonturm), who tragically died just a few weeks ago.

Direct download: OK_Radio_24_Martine_Dennewald.mp3
Category:Arts -- posted at: 4:45am EDT

Nature Theater of Oklahoma talks to performance and video artists Mette van der Sijs and Liesbeth Gritter (who together make up the Dutch company Kassys) about unbalancing acts and comfort zones.  What does Kassys hope to learn by taking a one year sabbatical from theater where they make no work, but instead develop new and different talents, such as farming olives in Portugal (Liesbeth) and undertaking in Holland (Mette)?

Direct download: OK_Radio_23_Kassys.mp3
Category:Arts -- posted at: 8:20am EDT

Nature Theater of Oklahoma talks to internationally respected choreographer, dancer and theater-maker Faustin Linyekula, from the Democratic Republic of Congo, about local and global, national and international.  When we travel, how much of our local context and content do we inadvertently carry along with us?  Can we ever really check all our baggage at the airport?

Direct download: OK_Radio_22_Faustin_Linyekula.mp3
Category:Arts -- posted at: 6:41pm EDT

Nature Theater of Oklahoma talks to French choreographer and conceptual artist Jérôme Bel about virtuosity, disability, pleasure, and permission.  

Direct download: OK_Radio_21_Jerome_Bel.mp3
Category:Arts -- posted at: 6:48am EDT

Nature Theater of Oklahoma talks to New York avant-garde writer and director Richard Foreman about film, television, theater, radio and – above all – resistance. 

Direct download: OK_Radio_20_Richard_Foreman.mp3
Category:Arts -- posted at: 5:57pm EDT

Nature Theater of Oklahoma talks to French director/playwright Pascal Rambert (also artistic director of Théâtre de Gennevilliers in Paris) about the aversion most theater people have to talk after a show.  Why are we so averse to the social situation we have created with our performances?  Do we cheat ourselves of an actual exchange of ideas?  Or does the society we live in today so completely surround us with commentary (facebook, twitter, et. al.) that we retreat instinctually in search of the increasingly rare space for contemplation? 

Direct download: OK_Radio_19_Pascal_Rambert.mp3
Category:Arts -- posted at: 6:09pm EDT

Nature Theater of Oklahoma talks to artist/director Michael Laub about his ongoing work on the Portrait Series, a project which has taken him from the Vienna Burgtheater to Istanbul, and most recently landed him in Cambodia.  We discuss the intersections of performance and person – exhibitionism and narcissism, vulnerability and testimony.  What are the motivations of “real” people (and even actors) to take the stage?

Direct download: OK_Radio_18_Michael_Laub.mp3
Category:Arts -- posted at: 5:39pm EDT

Nature Theater of Oklahoma talks to performing arts curator Matthieu Goeury from Vooruit (Ghent) about hugging, participation, social practice, and idealism.  Once you identify idealism as an artistic and humanitarian goal, how do you feed it – in the face of failure, inertia, real financial limtiation, etc.?  We talk in particular about the current centennial re-imagining of the art center Vooruit, which was created 100 years ago by the Socialist party, and was devoted to the betterment and education of workers and their families.  What kind of possible future do we imagine for this space today, and can we reconnect in any way with the original ambition and idealism of its mission?

Direct download: OK_Radio_17_Matthieu_Goeury.mp3
Category:Arts -- posted at: 2:09pm EDT

Nature Theater of Oklahoma talks to American dancer/choreographer Eleanor Bauer about dance, theater, tanztheater, performance art, Broadway show and all the many contexts and categories in between - up to and including her recent nomination for a Bessie award in the complicated and controversial category of “Outstanding Production of a work not technically considered dance but happening in and influencing dance in New York” 

Direct download: OK_Radio_16_Eleanor_Bauer.mp3
Category:Arts -- posted at: 11:28am EDT

Nature Theater of Oklahoma talks to actor Frank Vercruyssen, member of the Belgian performance group STAN, about actors, directors, and groups working (collaboratively or not) in the theater.  Who originates?  Who is in charge?  And how is the work that’s made the result of the personal attributes (and defects) of the people who make it?

Direct download: OK_Radio_15_Frank_Vercruyssen.mp3
Category:Arts -- posted at: 12:03pm EDT

Marleen Scholten - OK Radio Episode 14

Nature Theater of Oklahoma talks to actress Marleen Scholten, a member of the Dutch performance group Wunderbaum, about character, story, transformation, and play.  We also discuss the recent cuts in arts funding in The Netherlands, and come up with a few modest American proposals to help raise some extra cash.

Direct download: OK_Radio_14_Marleen_Scholten.mp3
Category:Arts -- posted at: 4:32am EDT

Nature Theater of Oklahoma talks to internationally respected artist/choreographer Meg Stuart about improvisation, inspiration, structure, abstraction and strategies for working.  If we were to go off in the woods on a vision quest somewhere and learn something from each other – what would that look like?  (And when will we find the time to do it?)

Direct download: OK_Radio_13_Meg_Stewart.mp3
Category:Arts -- posted at: 4:55am EDT

Nature Theater of Oklahoma talks to Serbian actress Masha Dakic about acting, isolation, irrelevance, and audiences – both local and global. As an actor, can you make work that has an immediacy and relevance that can compete with the immediacy of real circumstances people struggle with in their daily lives at this moment?  And what does Meryl Streep have to do with it?

Direct download: OK_Radio_12_Masha_Dakic.mp3
Category:Arts -- posted at: 6:43pm EDT

Nature Theater of Oklahoma talks to Anja Suša, co-curator (with founder Jovan Ćirilov) of the BITEF Festival in Belgrade, about striking a balance in the ever-changing social, political and cultural environment of southeastern Europe.  What strategies has she employed as a curator to keep this historically forward and avant-garde festival going inside a country where the reigning minister of culture Bratislav Petković, recently announced that “art has to be patriotic” and that Serbia must “insist on the traditional values of our nation”?

Direct download: OK_Radio_11_Anja_Susa.mp3
Category:Arts -- posted at: 7:44am EDT

Nature Theater of Oklahoma talks to world-renowned Italian (and American! – from Kansas!) theater artist Romeo Castellucci about religion, moral imperative, spectatorship, time, and play.  A show in which we dare to ask the question “Romeo Castellucci, if you got fired from theater, what would you do with your life?”

Direct download: OK_Radio_10_Romeo_Castellucci.mp3
Category:Arts -- posted at: 6:32am EDT

Nature Theater of Oklahoma talks to composer and director Heiner Goebbels, currently curator of the music and arts festival Ruhrtriennale, about their mutual interest in recorded audio -- plus extreme experimental art strategies such as being lazy, watching bad television, and leaving the room in order to stay as open as possible to unexpected chance opportunities.

Direct download: OK_Radio_09_Heiner_Goebbels.mp3
Category:Arts -- posted at: 7:57pm EDT

In their first OK Radio podcast after Pavol’s sudden hospitalization in Hamburg, Nature Theater of Oklahoma talks to director and curator Matthias von Hartz, (outgoing director of the Internationale Sommerfestival Kampnagel in Hamburg, and new director of Foreign Affairs Festival in Berlin) about strategies for how to keep going and keep working in the wake of personal crisis.  Can and should we create a space in our life for something other than our work to take precedence? 

Direct download: OK_Radio_08_Matthias_von_Hartz.mp3
Category:Arts -- posted at: 5:03pm EDT

Nature Theater of Oklahoma talks to artist/performer/entertainer? and fellow American abroad, Davis Freeman, director of Random Scream, about his life and work in Brussels, Belgium.  How did he get there and why does he stay?  And what impact has his relocation to Europe had on his artistic practice?  (Among other things…)

Direct download: OK_Radio_Davis_Freeman_8-19-12.mp3
Category:Arts -- posted at: 10:50am EDT

Nature Theater of Oklahoma talks to Florian Malzacher, dramaturg, former critic, and current curator of Steirischer Herbst Festival in Graz, Austria about his interest in art and political practice, particularly in the context of recent demonstrations and reactions to social crisis of artists in New York, Egypt, Tunisia, Japan, and Moscow. (Also other diverse topics such as: what constitutes an engaged artistic and curatorial practice?  How do we reconcile the material and immaterial –the ephemeral and non-commercial aspect of performance with the money it costs to produce it?  What is the impact of global audience and travel on the work?, etc. etc...)

 

Direct download: OK_Radio_Florian_Malzacher_8-19-12.mp3
Category:Arts -- posted at: 9:17am EDT

Nature Theater of Oklahoma talks to world-renowned choreographer Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker about dance, language, thought, intuition, irresponsible ambition, and living life with the possibility of losing everything (with also some side discussions about whole grains and mayonnaise…)

Direct download: OK_Radio_Anne_Teresa_deKeersmaeker_8-18-12.mp3
Category:Arts -- posted at: 4:21pm EDT

Nature Theater of Oklahoma talks to actor Jim Fletcher (of New York City Players, ERS. and the Wooster Group) about mistaken identities, the great North Dakota oil rush, the magic of Northern Michigan, making hay, “junk” DNA, and how honest hard work makes the American actor.  

Direct download: OK_Radio_Jim_Fletcher_8-12-12.mp3
Category:Arts -- posted at: 12:59pm EDT

Tony Torn - OK Radio Episode 03

Nature Theater of Oklahoma talks to actor Tony Torn about his work with some of the world’s all-time great theater artists (both Reza Abdoh and Richard Foreman) - plus thoughts on company, family, future, and the possibility of living a life with “no egrets”.

Direct download: OK_Radio_-_Tony_Torn_-_8-5-12.mp3
Category:Arts -- posted at: 11:00am EDT

Nature Theater of Oklahoma talks to director Annie Dorsen about social anxiety, self-consciousness, relevance, audience, growth, participation, revolution, Occupy Wall Street, and the global perils of Facebook.

 

Direct download: OK_Radio_02_Annie_Dorsen.mp3
Category:Arts -- posted at: 6:39pm EDT

Nature Theater of Oklahoma talks to writer/director Young Jean Lee about longevity, mortality, ambition, endurance, and resilience.

Direct download: OKRadio01.mp3
Category:Arts -- posted at: 4:01pm EDT

1