Kickstarter

August 17 - 21 ~ Edinburgh Fringe Festival at Venue 150 ~ At the invitation of Jodi Kaplan's Booking Dance Festival, Labyrinth Dance Theater will feature three works from the repertory: MILORD, Not Even If I Try and NOOR.

August 25 ~ Rudolf Steiner Theatre in London ~ At the invitation of Shrabani Basu, author of Spy Princess: The Life of Noor Inayat Khan, Felicia Norton will perform the title role in NOOR, a 35-minute dance/theater solo created in collaboration with Artistic Director Sasha Spielvogel.

MILORD’s lyrics were written in 1959 by Georges Moustaki, the music by Marguerite Monnot and made famous by Edith Piaf. With darker underpinnings than first meet the eye and ear, the song is about the inequities of class structure as a “girl of the port” sees a wealthy man jilted by his beautiful girlfriend. She comforts him and for a brief moment imagines she has a chance at another kind of life, but realizes she is nothing more than a "shadow of the street - Un ombre de la rue”.

Dancer: Kathryn Mowat Murphy; Chanteuse/Accordionist: Marni Rice;
Pianist: Mimi Stern-Wolfe.

Not Even If I Try, with words and music by Kevin Oldham (1960 – 1993), is  heartbreaking as an older man remembers his young lover who died of AIDS twenty year earlier. The two long to touch, and almost do, but cannot, as the lover is only an apparition and has moved on to the next plane of existence leaving the other one behind, yearning for the past.

Dancer: Aviad Herman; Heldentenor: Gilles Denizot; Pianist: Mimi Stern-Wolfe.

Review for the December 1st World AIDS day concert at St. Mark's Church, NYC. http://qonstage.com/QOnStage_articles/2010worldAids-gelbert/art_tpl_w-554.html

MILORD and Not Even If I Try were created in collaboration with the performers at the invitation of Mimi Stern-Wolfe as part of Mimi's East Village Concert Series at St. Mark's, NYC.

NOOR is the amazing true story of Noor-un-nisa Inayat Khan (1914 – 1944) a gentle Sufi pacifist, poet and musician, who became a spy for the allies during WWII. Noor was the first woman wireless operator covertly dropped into Nazi-occupied France and eventually one of the last communication links between Paris and London. Her code name was Madeleine and although the Nazis had a full description of her she managed to evade them in Paris throughout the summer of 1943 until she was betrayed, and taken prisoner at 84 Avenue Foch, Gestapo Headquarters in Paris. Though Noor was held in the harshest of conditions, she never betrayed anyone or gave away any secret information. She was ultimately shot at Dachau in 1944; the last word she uttered was "Liberte". Noor was posthumously awarded the Croix de Guerre and the George Cross, France and England's highest honors for acts of bravery. Her beauty was such that when her captors learned of her death, they wept.

British Parliament recently voted official approval for a bronze statue of Noor to be erected in Gordon Square near the house where she lived after her family escaped the Nazi invasion of Paris in 1940. It is the first of its kind to honor an Asian woman in Britain.

Felicia Norton as NOOR; choreography by Felicia Norton and Sasha Spielvogel; music by David Majzlin; written and directed by Sasha Spielvogel.

As part of an Educational Outreach connected with the Festival, Sasha and Felicia will engage audiences in discussion regarding Noor Inayat Khan’s sacrifice to save innocent victims from Nazi persecution. Noor did not have to become a spy due to her religious pacifist background; rather, she chose to do so, believing it was the right thing to do. We will talk about the process of creating NOOR and share a 12- minute DVD commentary with historic photographs of Noor's family, her history, and her recruitment into Britain's SOE (Special Operations Executive). 

Our company takes you on a journey through a Labyrinth, into the unknown, to confront our demons so that we may emerge toward a place of clarity about the human condition. The dances have passion, real emotion and humor: class with an edge.

The cost for us to present these pieces in Edinburgh and London are in excess of $18,000.00. This includes performers' fees, rehearsal space, airfare, housing and documentation of the trip. Footage from the trip and sections of this kickstarter video will be part of a documentary by Harlem Pictures, directed by Eve Cuyen about Sasha's work as a dancer and choreographer and the dance scene that was part her life in New York since 1975.

All proceeds will go directly to cover the costs of presenting at these two venues.

We need at least $6,000.00 to Kickstart this project all the way across the Pond to Europe. Help us reach our goal and please spread the word!

Anything you feel you are able to contribute to this project, would be greatly and lovingly appreciated.

Labyrinth is a 501(c)(3), a not-for-profit company. All donations are fully tax deductible as allowed by law.