I-MIGRANT IN NEW YORK
A personal quasi-theatrical biography with images
Lecture performance
Wendsday, June 10, 2009, 19.00 hours
Saviana was a college student in 1989 when she participated in the Romanian "revolution" and the so-called "end of communism". Now, after almost 20 years she witnesses the so-called "end of capitalism" in New York. This autobiographical performative lecture explores her immigrant experience in New York through the lens of a personal dichotomy East-West and a permanent negotiation between the old and new set of values.
After 1989, Saviana worked as a journalist in the new free Romanian press for a decade. A week before 9/11 she arrived in New York, with a Fulbright fellowship to get an MA in Performance Studies at NYU. She also got an MFA in Dramatic Writing from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts and she teaches in the Drama Department. Her plays have had many productions in NYC and internationally. Most recently her play "Aliens with extraordinary skills" (the title hints to her O1 visa...) opened to rave reviews off-Broadway at Women's Project.
One of the main issues to be discussed in this lecture is what role does the flag perform in creating and maintaining identity. Another important question for Saviana is: did she do the right thing by leaving her home country Romania? Is she now inhabiting a new land called INBETWEEN? "Moving" into the English language was the right move? And what's right after all when a (r)evolution can change preconceived definitions of "right" and "wrong"?
---PAVILION UNICREDIT center for contemporary art & culture
Sos. Nicolae Titulescu 1 (Piata Victoriei)
Bucharest 011131 Romania
T: + 4 031 103 4131
E: pavilion@pavilionmagazine.org
---PAVILION UNICREDIT is a center for contemporary art & culture, a work-in-progress independent space, a space for the production and research in the fields of audiovisual, discursive and performative. It is a space of the critical thinking, and it promotes an artistic perspective implying the social and political involvement of the art and of the cultural institutions.
---PAVILION, BUCHAREST BIENNALE and PAVILION UNICREDIT are projects devised and founded by Razvan Ion and Eugen Radescu
Supported by: Pilsner Urquell
Strategic partner: UniCredit Tiriac Bank
Media partners: Radio Romania Cultural, 22, Alternativ.ro, Feeder.ro, 24Fun
Production partner: UpDate Advertising
Printing partner: Herris Print
Audio-visual partner: Sony
Collaborating partner: Center for Visual Introspection
