2010 is already proving to be an intriguing and exciting year, from the beautiful exhibition Face to Face in Poole, Dorset with the award winning documentary  Still Life Moving on 23 Feb at the Lighthouse, to the new opera commission, Naciketa, with music by Nigel Osborne and the libretto by Ariel Dorfman and our affiliated partners Opera North and Hebrides Ensemble.  Our work continues in Bosnia and Herzegovina with Musicians without Borders BiH and their extraordinary projects in Srebrenica with the support of the British Council through their Creative Collaborations Partnerships and the Network Social Fund.  Differences in Demolition, the beautiful opera inspired by Sevdah, the music of Bosnia, is being hosted by the OSCE in concert at the Hofberg Palace in Vienna in December.  In Dorset we are exploring a new project dealing with local food and the land through the creative arts and performance called LUNCH.

We will be adding more images to the site shortly, more information and links to several documentaries which are being made around the work in Bosnia including A Gift of Culture.  This is a beautiful film shot at the Foundation for Land and Peace near Sarajevo at the Summer Music Camp run by Nigel Osborne and his students from the Music in the Community Course at The University of Edinburgh.

There are many people we would like to thank for their support, but most of all the artists and company members who have contributed so much to the survival and artistic development of the company over the years.  Next year is our 20 years as an opera/music theatre company and we are planning to celebrate this with the first performance of the new opera Naciketa.

We are a company that works on a project by project basis.  We mostly work on a laptop and mobile phone.  If you need information the best way to make an initial contact is by email.

You will find more information about all these projects on this web site.

Tina Ellen Lee

Artistic Director

February 1, 2010 – World-acclaimed Chilean-American author, human rights activist and distinguished professor of Literature and Latin-American Studies, Ariel Dorfman, will present the Eighth Nelson Mandela Annual Lecture at Johannesburg’s Linder Auditorium on July 31, 2010.

Dorfman served as the cultural advisor to Salvador Allende, Chile’s president from 1970 to 1973. The democratically elected Allende died during the 1973 coup, staged by Augusto Pinochet. This coup also resulted in the death and disappearance of thousands of Chileans and forced Dorfman into exile.

The author of many novels, plays, poems, essays and films will speak on the theme “Memory and Justice” at the 2010 Annual Lecture.

“We are thrilled to have a speaker of the stature of Ariel Dorfman,” says Achmat Dangor, Chief Executive of the Nelson Mandela Foundation. “His life and work speaks to what we at the Nelson Mandela Foundation are doing through our Centre of Memory and Dialogue.”

Previous Nelson Mandela Annual Lecture speakers are: Nobel Peace Laureates Professor Muhammad Yunus, Professor Wangari Maathai, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Kofi Anan, former presidents Bill Clinton and Thabo Mbeki, and President Ellen Johnson-Sirlea.

Ariel Dorfman is writing the libretto for Opera Circus’ new commission Naciketa, with music by Nigel Osborne.