UTOPIAN HOTLINE

A telephone hotline, a vinyl record, a performance. Utopian Hotline creates a moment of community. Gathered under soft light, on a pink carpet, around a communal table, audiences re-imagine our shared future.

Together, we will acknowledge coming into community as a radical action.

Is anyone out there? Is anyone listening? Are we alone? In 1977, NASA launched the twin Voyager spacecrafts to try and answer these questions. Aboard both is an artifact intended to communicate who and what we are: The Golden Record. After traveling over 13 billion miles, this proverbial message in a bottle is the farthest human-made object from earth. If we were to send another message into the distant future, what message would we send?

To answer this, Theater Mitu created a public telephone hotline prompting people to leave messages to the future. These voicemails make up the source material for a vinyl record and a live performance created in partnership with SETI Institute, Arizona State University’s Interplanetary Initiative, and Brooklyn Independent Middle School.

As we travel through these unprecedented times, Utopian Hotline creates a moment of community. Audience members will gather, not in the darkness of a traditional theater, but under soft light, on a pink carpet, around a communal table, to re-imagine our shared future. Together, we will acknowledge coming into community as a radical action. An action that has consistently shaped this planet’s future. An action that reaffirms that someone is listening, that we are, in fact, not alone.

Created by Theater Mitu, the piece premiered at MITU580 in September 2021.

Creative Team

Conceived and Developed By, Theater Mitu

Directed By, Ruben Polendo

Developed at, Mitu580

In partnership with, SETI Institute Arizona State University’s Interplanetary Initiative Brooklyn Independent Middle School

Created by, Kayla Asbell, Denis Butkus, Cinthia Chen, Alex Hawthorn, Scott Jumawan-Spahr, MichaelLittig, Dima Mikhayel Matta, Justin Nestor, Rubén Polendo, Monica Sanborn, Corey Sullivan,Isabella Uzcátegui, Ada Westfall

Ruben Polendo

Rubén Polendo is the founding artistic director of the permanent group of collaborators, Theater Mitu! He and his company work towards expanding the definition of theater through rigorous experimentation with its form. Polendo and his company research and investigate global performance as a source for their training, work, and methodologies. This is all driven by what he calls, “Whole Theater,” a theatrical experience that is rigorously visual, aural, emotional, intellectual and spiritual all in the same moment. His practice investigates trans-global performance; interdisciplinary collaborative models; the performativity of non-violence; the geopolitics of objects; contemporary mythology; artist training and education; investigations of the ritual and the sacred. In addition to his scholarly work, Polendo produces theatrical productions that bring these ideas to life. He has directed, curated and/or written a great many of Theater Mitu’s work, which has premiered in theaters Internationally and in the United States. Internationally, these include: The Cairo Opera House (Cairo, Egypt), Teatro DUOC (Santiago, Chile), Od Nowa (Torun, Poland), Mansion (Beirut, Lebanon), Centro Cultural Paso Del Norte (Mexico), Black Box (Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia), Visthar (Bangalore, India), Patravadi Arts Center (Bangkok, Thailand), Manarat al Saadiyat (UAE) and The NYUAD Arts Center (UAE). In the United States, these include: Mass MoCA (North Adams, MA), Contemporary Arts Center (New Orleans, LA), Los Angeles Theater Center (Los Angeles, CA), Ignite Arts/CaraMia (Dallas, TX), and Z Space (San Francisco, CA). Additionally in the United States, Polendo’s work as been seen at Baruch Performing Arts Center, New York Theater Workshop, CSV, The Public, INTAR, Blue Light, Lincoln Center, A.C.T., McCarter, The Perseverance, NAATCO, Mark Taper, Alliance, ETC and South Coast Rep. His Awards and recognitions include the prestigious MAP Fund Grant, the CEC Arts Link Grant, Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, NY Cultural Development Fund, National Endowment for the Arts, NEFA’s National Theater Project award, the Rolex Protégé Arts Initiative, Company Residencies at NYUAD Arts Center and at New York Theater Workshop, New York State council for the Arts Grant, The Rosenberg Foundation Grant, Alpert Award, Greenwald Foundation Grant and The Mental Insight Foundation Grant, The Watermill Center Resident Artist, and a Sundance Theater Lab resident artist. Polendo has an MFA in directing from the UCLA School of Theater, an M.A. in non-Western theater from Lancaster University in the U.K., and a B.S. in Biochemistry from Trinity University in Texas. Currently he is Chair of Undergraduate Drama at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. Based in New York City, he continues to create, develop and present work in the US and Internationally.

Theater Mitu

THEATER MITU builds bridges across ideas, cultures, and communities. Using art-making as a mode of research and inquiry, Theater Mitu shares knowledge, sparks dialogue, and strengthens community through cultivating radical ways of reimagining our world. Theater Mitu embodies this by way of our productions; trans-global research initiatives; artist support opportunities; and education programs galvanizing the next generation of artists.

Theater Mitu values artistic rigor, disciplined exploration, and the continuous exchange of knowledge. We are committed to creating and maintaining a space that embraces the whole person as a vibrant and unique range of embodied experiences, histories, and imaginations. Theater Mitu asserts that identity is not negation but aggregation. We hold these intersectionalities as essential to the vibrancy and growth of our community.

Justin Nestor

Justin Nestor (Co-Artistic Director of Theater Mitu) is an artist, creative technologist, and maker whose work is driven by a profound curiosity around perception and cognitive dissonance. Creating across video, sculpture, sound, performance, and interactive electronics he builds time-based installation and performance work in pursuit of unravelling the intricacies of how we perceive the world around us and grapple with conflicting ideas. He is the co-artistic director of Mitu, a company of artists committed to innovation and expanding the definition of theater through methodical experimentation with its form. With Mitu, he established the company’s multi-use art space MITU580, a 2,400 square foot warehouse space where interdisciplinary arts practice is interrogated, incubated, and produced. During his 17 years working with Mitu he has performed, toured artworks, researched, and taught throughout the United States, South America, Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and North Africa. He currently resides in Brooklyn, NY.