Rabih Mroué - 2010 Spalding Gray Award Winner - Acceptance Speech

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• published: 22 Mar 2010
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Rabih Mroué, 2010 Spalding Gray Award Winner, sends his thoughts and thanks via a video acceptance speech. March 22, 2010 Its official: Rabih Mroué is the recipient of the 2010 Spalding Gray Award (SGA) marking the first time that a non-U.S. artist/company has received the award and catalyzing Mr. Mroués long-awaited U.S. debut. Rabih Mroué (b. 1967) lives and works in Beirut. He is an actor, director, playwright, visual artist, and a contributing editor for The Drama Review (TDR); he is also a co-founder and a board member of the Beirut Art Center (BAC), Beirut. His complex and diverse practice, spanning different disciplines and formats in between theatre, performance, and visual arts, has established Mr. Mroué as a key figure in a new generation of artistic voices in Lebanon and across the Middle East. The Spalding Gray Award is a special commission in Spaldings honor that supports gifted writer/performers who fully realize both aspects of his legacy, who are fearless innovators of theatrical form. The SGA is supported by Kathleen Russo, his widow, Performance Space 122 in New York, the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, The Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh and as of this year, Seattle's On The Boards - broadening the tour that comes with the award. As a recipient of the SGA, Mr. Mroué receives a full production in the upcoming seasons at the consortiums participating partners as well as a stipend for its creation. More about Rabih Mroué: Employing both fiction and in-depth analysis as tools for engaging with his immediate reality, Mr. Mroué explores the responsibilities of the artist in communicating with an audience in given political and cultural contexts. His works deal with issues that have been swept under the rug in the current political climate of Lebanon, connected to the enduring marks left by the Lebanese Civil War as well as more recent political events. More about the SGA presenting organizations: Performance Space 122 is one of New York's ultimate destinations for cutting-edge theatre, dance, music, live art and cross-media. Founded in 1979, Performance Space 122 is dedicated to supporting and presenting artists whose work challenges the traditional boundaries of dance, theatre, music, and performance. Committed to exploring innovative form as well as material, PS122 is steadfast in its search for pioneering artists from a diversity of cultures and points of view. Gray long considered PS122 a creative home-base, where he developed and created Morning, Noon and Night, Gray on Gray and Interviewing the Audience and where he was working on Life Interrupted at the time of his death. www.ps122.org The Walker Art Center (Minneapolis, Minnesota) is an internationally recognized multidisciplinary contemporary arts institution focused on the visual, performing and media arts of our time. The Walker's Performing Arts Program regularly commissions and presents a wide range of new performance work (as well as dance and new music) and presented the work of Spalding Gray through much of his career. www.walkerart.org The Andy Warhol Museum (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) is more than a museum; The Warhol is a vital forum in which diverse audiences of artists, scholars and the general public are galvanized through creative interaction with the art and life of Andy Warhol, The Andy Warhol Museum is ever-changing and constantly re-defining itself in relation to contemporary life, using its unique collections and dynamic, interactive programming as tools. www.warhol.org\\\\\ On the Boards (OtB) is a non-profit contemporary performing arts organization located in the lower Queen Anne neighborhood of Seattle, WA. Founded by artists in 1978, our mission is to introduce Northwest audiences to international innovators in contemporary dance, theater and music while developing and presenting new work by promising performing artists in the region. www.ontheboards.org The previous recipients (and corresponding productions) are Heather Woodbury in 2006 (Tale of 2Cities), and The National Theater of the United States of America in 2007 (CHAUTAUQUA!), and Radiohole in 20009 (Whatever, Heaven Allows).