The Middle Eastern premiere of ‘A Thousand Ways’, by New York based theater artists 600 HIGHWAYMEN, explores the meaning of making new connections over distance with an imaginative performance experience
Abu Dhabi, UAE – October 4 2020: As part of The Arts Center at NYU Abu Dhabi’s (NYUAD) innovative sixth season, 600 Highwaymen is set to present a captivating poetic performance for the first time in the Middle East.
A Thousand Ways is a three-part theater experience that transports audiences from isolation to assembly. Designed around physical distancing guidelines, the first installment, which opens on Wednesday October 7, is a one-on-one telephone call, where the audience encounters a stranger through moments of guided interactions which unfold into an unexpected imaginative journey.
Co-commissioned by The Arts Center at NYUAD, Stanford Live at Stanford University, and Festival Theaterformen, A Thousand Ways asks many questions of its audience, most fundamentally: at a time of physical distancing, how can we make new human connections?
A Thousand Ways: Part 1, will take place over telephone with time slots available from 3:30pm to 9:30pm (GMT+4) and will run from October 7 until October 18. While the piece is designed as a trilogy, audience members can attend any part as a stand-alone performance.
The award-winning 600 Highwaymen specialize in performances that turn audiences’ attention on one another, playing at the intersection of theater, dance, contemporary performance and civic encounter. Their live art illuminates the inherent poignancy of people coming together, using inventive approaches to engage audiences.
Executive Artistic Director of The Arts Center at NYUAD Bill Bragin commented: “600 Highwaymen create evocative work in which the audience is the focus, with a particular interest in questions about what makes a community, and how can the theatrical experience be choreographed so that the audience co-creates the piece with the makers. I was deeply moved by their piece The Fever, which The Arts Center presented in 2017. When I found out that they were creating a new piece to explore the particular moment of isolation many people are in now, and the journey towards reconnection, I knew that we needed to invest in the project as a commissioner to help support them bringing this work to the world. There’s a level of risk you take as a presenter in presenting brand new work, and in these times of reinvention, 600 Highwaymen were the perfect artists to explore the new possibilities created without a physical theater.”
600 Highwaymen has received the esteemed Off-Broadway Obie Award and Switzerland’s ZKB Patronize Prize, and were nominees for Austria’s Nestroy Prize, the prestigious Alpert Award and NYC’s Bessie Award.
To complement the show, 600 Highwaymen will host two Off The Stage events, which are free to the public. ‘Creators Workshop With 600 Highwaymen’ will be on Friday October 9 at 6:30pm (GMT+4), followed by ‘Arts Chat: How to Sustain A Successful Theater Company’ on Monday, October 12 at 6:30pm (GMT+4).
Audiences can also look forward to experiencing the remaining two parts in the series, which will be presented by The Arts Center at NYUAD at a future time when in person one-on-one and group performances are appropriate.
To book tickets and for more information on A Thousand Ways: Part 1, please visit The Arts Center at NYUAD’s website.
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