RACHEL ROSENTHAL in “UR-BOOR”

at the duMaurier Theatre Centre
Harbourfront, 231 Queen’s Quay West
June 28 – 29, 2000, 8 pm
Tickets $25, to reserve call the Harbourfront box office at (416) 973-4000

TORONTO, Canada … 7a*11d (International Performance Art Festival) in cooperation with FADO are proud to present internationally acclaimed artist Rachel Rosenthal in a new solo performance work, UR-BOOR. This will be Canadian audiences’ only chance to see Ms Rosenthal’s final work. Now 73, and widely recognized as a cultural icon, Ms Rosenthal has announced that she will retire this year.

Ms Rosenthal has been hailed by the Village Voice as ” one of America’s most intelligent, politically committed, and challenging performance artists.” The Los Angeles Times calls her “…a monument and a marvel.” Her illustrious career reads as a who’s who of the 20th Century art world: dancing with Merce Cunningham in the late 1940s, painting and sculpting with Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg in the ’50s, defining experimental theatre in Hollywood in the ’60s with her revolutionary Instant Theatre company, and finally coming into her own in the 1970s as a feminist, environmentalist, animal rights activist and solo performance artist. Her many accolades include Getty, Rockefeller and NEA Fellowships, an OBIE, and an Honorary Doctorate from the Chicago Art Institute.

A consummate writer and riveting performer, Ms Rosenthal’s thoroughly engaging solo works mix autobiography and science in the service of her urgent and compassionate vision of humanity on the brink of self-destruction. UR-BOOR is, in Rosenthal’s words, “…a call to arms, but not to weapons.” This historic event, the crowning achievement of her 25-year performance career, is a personally revealing piece about the effects of selfishness and isolation in 21st Century society. In UR-BOOR, Rosenthal is selected by lottery to integrate and exorcize world boorishness in a world that has reverted to scapegoating. Alone in an orbiting space capsule with a talking computer — an inventive sculptural set created by Canadian artist Guy Laramée — Rosenthal must, through introspection, rid the world of incivility, rudeness and barbarism. In UR-BOOR, the hilarious absurdity of “Lost in Space” meets the prurience of the European Courts and Miss Manners.

Don’t miss this witty, shocking meditation on manners and civility.

The organizers are pleased to acknowledge the support of the Ontario Arts Council, and the City of Toronto through the Toronto Arts Council in helping to make this presentation possible.