Anthony Dean, Co-Artistic Director of the Festival, said “We aim to produce a vibrant arts festival that forms a unified whole rather than simply being a collection of individual works. We are pleased that we have been able to select a number of works in each category that not only cross discipline boundaries but actively challenge them”.

Anthony Dean and Co-Artistic Director, Paula Crabtree, have highlighted a selected project from Germany, The Virgin Suicides, a dance theatre piece by Ruth Schultz and of_pixels, a visual arts project from Austria by Richard Schwarz.

The Virgin Suicides explores ideas from the novel by Jeffrey Eugenides through the interleaving of acting and dance by an interdisciplinary performance ensemble.

“We were struck by the intelligence and powerful simplicity of the application of stage techniques to fully realise an ambitious performance which sensitively illuminates the relationship between individuals and society”, said Anthony Dean.

of_pixels examines our understanding of time in an interactive setting. The author seeks to put time into a frame. The viewer is captured on the webcam and the screens slowly project their partially pixellated image onto the screen.

“We particularly admired the way in which the piece seeks to comment on our relationship with time and speed, linked to questions surrounding the nature of a digital image”, said Paula Crabtree.

The NEU/NOW LIVE Festival 2011 will take place from the 17th to the 20th of November in Tallinn, Estonia in the frame of European Capital of Culture 2011. The online festival, which showcases an even wider selection of works, will be launched at the beginning of October on the website www.neunow.com.

The NEU/NOW Festival was open to graduating art students and recent graduates of Higher Arts Institutions and Universities which are members of ELIA (European League of Institutes of the Arts), ELIA associate members and non-European members of Elia. ELIA is an independent membership organization, founded in 1990, which represents approximately 350 institutions across 45 countries.

Photos of the projects: ftp://4085047b:PRMeedia1@la02.neti.ee/NeuNow/GA