New York City To Host Celebration Of Communism’s Demise

New York city is to host a five-month festival of theatre, film, music and dance from seven Central and Eastern European countries celebrating the part played by the arts in the demise of Communist dictatorship.

According to nycgo.com, the engine behind the performances is the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. The festival is to feature more than 20 performances all over the city. Silive.com reports the festival will open Friday with a six-band showcase, ”Rebel Waltz: Underground Music From Behind the Iron Curtain." Original bands like Dezerter from Poland, Kontroll Csoport from Hungary and Timpuri Noi from Romania helped stoke the rebellions that freed their countries, the website said. Musicians, composers, writers and other artists played a key role in the underground movement leading to the overthrow of the Communist regimes in the region. The Czech playwright, Vaclav Havel, who later became the president of a free Czechoslovakia, was typical, and figures like Bronisław Geremek, a Polish medieval scholar were as involved in the revolutions as students or workers. The website lists “Dancing With The Berlin Wall” among the highlights. The choreographer, Nejla Yatkin, is a Berlin native with Turkish roots to whom the Berlin Wall was not a symbol, but a daily reality, Silive said. Other productions include ”The Velvet Oratorio” by the Untitled Theater Company and, among others, ”Storm Cloud Warnings: Resistance and Reflection in Polish Cinema, 1977-1989."