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Robert Wilson/Watermill Center
The American theater director, designer, and actor Robert Wilson is
establishing an international center for the arts and humanities on
Long Island. The Aventis Foundation has participated in the project
since 1999 and is the largest sponsor. In the heart of the Hamptons,
the well-known yet secluded refuge on Long Island, a former industrial
building is being transformed into a center for the performing and
fine arts. Young actors, directors, choreographers, designers, and
artists from around the world come to work together at the center,
which includes workrooms, performance halls, a gallery, a library,
and conference and guest rooms. The Watermill Center has been largely completed
by the end of 2007.
At the same time, theater piece by Robert Wilson originally commissioned by the
Aventis Foundation to reflect life in the 21st century is taking shape. For several days in
the summer of 2002 a workshop was held at Watermill based on the concepts from the
previous year and Flaubert’s "La Tentation de Saint Antoine". Robert
Wilson has commissioned Bernice Johnson Reagon to write the lyrics and compose the music of the of the.
Reagon is a Distinguished Professor of History at American University and Curator Emeritus
at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History. Bernice Reagon works as an author, musician, and
composer and is the artistic director for the Afro-American a cappella ensemble
"Sweet Honey in the Rock," which she founded in 1973. Her music, compositions, and
books dealing with the Afro-American tradition, the gospel tradition, and the freedom
movement have won numerous awards.
The blues opera, composed by Reagon and directed by Wilson, openend
on June 20, 2003 at the Ruhr Triennale directed by Gérard Mortier. Subsequently, the
tour production travelled to various cities in Europe and the US. In
October, 2004 the xxx opened with great success at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York City.
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