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About Icarus Publishing Enterprise
Considering that 50% of all books in translation worldwide are from English while only 6% are translated into English, Odin Teatret (Denmark), The Grotowski Institute (Poland), and Theatre Arts Researching the Foundations (Malta) have created Icarus Publishing Enterprise whose purpose is to present English translations of texts by artists and scholars about the practice and vision of theatre as a laboratory.
Icarus was the name of a schooner that in 1697 sailed from Civitavecchia with a cargo destined for a Venetian merchant residing in the international trading port of Smyrna. Its mythological name was intended, paradoxically, as a bringer of good luck to ward off shipwrecks. In its hold, the small vessel also carried a luxurious curtain never used before, a few painted scenes, and a number of scripts and musical scores from a theatre erected in Rome by Queen Cristina of Sweden and torn down on the order of Pope Clement X.
Similarly to that schooner, Icarus Publishing Enterprise wants to ferry into international waters the writings of theatre artists and scholars who, despite their value, risk a limited circulation because of the language in which they were written.
We know from experience that theatre studies is effective only if it succeeds in piercing the wrappings of academic common places and inspires those wishing to make theatre. In addition to providing knowledge about the past, the books that Icarus Publishing Enterprise will translate and publish, contain the hidden seeds of future occurrences. Many think that the theatre has no future. This may be so. But one thing is certain: in the future there will surely be something that we are unable to imagine now, but that will be called theatre.
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An agreement has been reached between Icarus Publishing Enterprise and the publishing houses ARTEZBLAI in Bilbao (Spain) (artez@artezblai.com) and É REALIZAÇOIS (edsonfilho@erealizacoes.com.br) in São Paulo (Brazil) which, from 2011, will publish all Icarus books in Spanish and Portuguese. Further information can be obtained directly from Artezblai and É Realizações.
Odin Teatret, Denmark
The Grotowski Institute, Poland
Theatre Arts Researching the Foundations, Malta
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