Basetrack, Featuring Interviews With War Veterans, to Make New York Premiere
Basetrack, created by Edward Bilous with En Garde Arts, will make its New York premiere with six performances from November 11-15 in the 2014 BAM Next Wave Festival.
Adapted by Jason Grote in collaboration with Seth Bockley and Anne Hamburger, Basetrack brings stories of veterans returning home from Afghanistan to the stage. In 2010, while embedded with Marines in southern Afghanistan, a group of photojournalists took pictures and videos with their iPhones and launched One-Eight Basetrack, a Web project connecting servicemen in the field with their families back home.
With direction by Seth Bockley, a cast of actors will delve into the experiences of these Marines and their families in a piece built from verbatim interviews conducted by the artistic team with veterans and their families. The performance will be accompanied by images and sound, including a dynamic, electro-acoustic score composed by Edward Bilous, Michelle DiBucci, and Greg Kalember and performed by a four-piece onstage band.
Basetrack is produced with major funding from the Met Life Foundation. The six New York performances are part of an extensive national tour aiming to bring together veteran and civilian audiences. The piece will also contribute to the community engagement initiative, MHA-NYC's Stories We Carry (SWC), offering structured conversations between veterans and civilians about the impact of war, led by Stories We Carry Project Director Scott Thompson.
The creative team for Basetrack includes Caleb Wertenbaker (set design), Paul Hudson (lighting design), Claudia Brown (costume design), William David Fastenow (performance technology design), and Balazs Gardi (photography). Casting for the BAM performances will be announced shortly.
