Letters of Friendship

Video Works

In the beginning of the 70’s there was a program in Soviet schools called “Letters of Friendship”. The idea was to promote friendship and peace between children from socialist countries. School teachers would spread addresses in the class and encourage children to write letters to unknown pen pals. The letters were written in language classes as part of the foreign language studies.Amanda Piña and Andrey Andrianov created this documentary piece based on the letters of such an exchange kept by a Chilean child called Juan Ramos, who had a correspondence with a Russian boy called Ivan Kamarov in the early 70’s. From 1970 to 1973 Chile was a socialist country. When the letters where written Juan and Ivan where 11 and 12 years old.

“The letters deliver a child like glance to a world in times of strong political dialectics. The piece shows how propaganda infiltrates children’s minds producing surreal fantasies and how sometimes naivety happens to be more lucid than reason.”
A.Piña

Letters of friendship is a documentary performance created by Andrei andrianov and Amanda Piña in the context of “Music here, Music there” EU funded project on exchange between Russian and Austrian based artist and brut Wien

The Radio Piece “Letters of Friendship” commissioned for Kunstradio by Elisabeth Zimmermann, was created by Amanda Piña and Martin Leitner in november 2011

Credits

CONCEPT + CHOREOGRAPHY + ARTISTIC DIRECTION: Amanda Piña
DIRECTION + AUDIOVISUAL CONCEPT: Daniel Zimmermann
PERFORMANCE + CHOREOGRAPHY: Linda Samaraweerová, Amanda Piña
COSTUME + STAGE DESIGN: Lise Lendais
MUSIC: Christian Müller
SONG: Daniel Zimmermann – For as long as I lived
LIGHT: Victor Duran
DRAMATURGICAL ADVICE: Angela Vadori
CHOREOGRAPHIC ASSISTANT: Paula Chaves
STAGE MECHANISM: Victor Duran, Christoph Freidhöfer
SOUND SUPPORT: Gustavo Petek
RESEARCH TEAM: Angela Vadori, Amanda Piña, Marie-Christine Baratta
PROJECT MANAGEMENT: Sarah Blumenfeld
EDITING + MANAGEMENT CONSULTING: Marie-Christine Baratta
PRODUCTION: nadaproductions.at
COPRODUCTION: EN-KNAP productions – Ljubljana, STUK Leuven, Tanzquartier Wien
COOPERATION: Hellerau – Europäisches Zentrum der Künste, and nadaLokal Wien, Österreichisches Kulturforum Mexiko
SUPPORT: Kulturabteilung der Stadt Wien (MA7), Bundeskanzleramt Kunst und Kultur
The Forest of Mirrors is a production by nadaproductions, co-produced by EN-KNAP Productions, Ljubljana, and Tanzquartier Wien in cooperation with Hellerau – European Centre for the Arts, STUK Leuven and nadaLokal Wien, and is supported by the Culture Department of the City of Vienna. The project Endangered Human Movements Vol. 3 is also realized in cooperation with deSingel, Antwerp, and Impulstanz – Vienna International Dance Festival.
THANKS TO: Rosa Marie Castro Valle und Gustavo Torres (Mexikanische Botschaft in Wien), Gabrielle Cram, Georg Grünberg, Eleno Guzman (Centro de Producción de Danza Contemporánea CEPRODAC), Jack Hauser, Wolf Lamsa, Carmen Mehnert, Johannes Neurath (Museo Nacional de Antropología – Inah), Cuauhtémoc Nájera (Coordination Nacional de Danza de Mexiko), Yasamin Nikseresht, Alma Quintana, Suehay Romo und Oleg Soulimenko