"The Passion Project" by Reid Farrington

Read from: http://broadwayworld.com/viewcolumn.cfm?colid=31262

The Passion Project is a vibrant archival film experiment spun from the reels of the last great silent film, Carl Th. Dreyer's 1928 immortal masterpiece, "The Passion of Joan of Arc." Exploring the intersection of live performance, film, and installation, The Passion Project includes every frame of Dreyer's film - his outtakes and the reels that were eerily lost to fire - and explodes the film into three dimensions, placing the audience inside the action and surrounding them with the relentless rhythm of 30mm projections. The Passion Project features a mesmerizing and meticulous performance by Shelley Kay, who bears an uncanny resemblance to the Melle. Falconetti, the actress in the film.

Directed by Reid Farrington and performed by Shelley Kay, production includes costumes by Sara Jeanne Asselin, set by Janet D. Clancy and dramaturgy/technical assistance by Stephen O'Connell and Austin Guest. The piece had its initial workshop production at the PS/K2 Festival, last November in Copenhagen, Denmark and continued workshop showings at the 3LD Art and Technology Center in June and July.

For the past seven years Reid Farrington has been a technical artist and collaborator with the Wooster Group. He has designed video and created hardware and software systems for the playback of video and sound for To You the Birdie!, Brace Up!, Poor Theater, House/Lights, WHO'S YOUR DADA, and Hamlet. He has toured productions to Moscow, Paris, Berlin, Istanbul, Amsterdam, Melbourne, Brussels, and Athens. He has edited has authored interactive DVDs of The Wooster Group's performances, Brace Up! and House/Lights. In addition to being a video artist, he is a director, set, light, and costume designer for various theater and dance companies in NYC.

For more information, visit http://www.reidfarrington.com.

Watch video extract from Wooster Group's "Hamlet" and "The Passion Project"