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Provocative Premieres: Pittsburgh International Festival of Firsts set to make the city its stage

Check your art baggage at the door, erase all set notions and prepare to open your mind, eyes, ears, and heart to the pioneering work of cutting-edge artists and contemporary performance companies from all corners of the globe.

A city-wide, 16-day performing and visual arts festival featuring eight exclusive U.S. premieres, the The Pittsburgh International Festival of Firsts (PIFOF) boasts intimate experiences for audiences a host of traditional and non-conventional venues located throughout Downtown's Cultural District and the city.

Follow British performance artist Peter Reder—best known for recreating histories of iconic buildings for audience "tour groups" in Edinburgh, Moscow, and Bucharest—to venture below stairs and behind doors at the Carnegie Museums of Art and Natural History. Be one of only 53 people to experience Barcelona-based Teatro de los Sentidos’ "poetics of the senses,” creatively staged at the Ellis School Amory, and don’t miss an electrifying performance by New York's alto sax player and jazz composer Rudresh Mahanthappa  at the New Hazlett Theater.

An updated Romeo and Juliet more your cup of tea? Then you won’t want to miss Ballet Maribor’s new twist on the age-old star-crossed tale, set to a stark sound track by acclaimed alternative act Radiohead, which is sure to make waves at Downtown’s Byham Theater. At the Strip District's industrial Pipe Building, identical twin art stars Doug and Mike Starn debut Gravity of Light, which features a homemade 13-foot, blindingly bright carbon arc lamp, and a series of installations.

At the New Hazlett Theater, ambitious and off-kilter Dutch company Kassy combines film, live performance, interior monologue, and onstage dialogue in Liga, a show-within-a-show tale that explores the art of pretending, the grip of the media and the universal need to please. In The Department, Norwegian dance-theatre company Jo Strømgren Kompani conjures a top-secret governmental office, where agents peer through peepholes, doors are sealed off and cryptic orders arrive from other dimensions.

The king of Pop Art meets veterans of pop music in 13 Most Beautiful...Songs for Andy Warhol's Screen Tests, the festival's closing show at the Byham Theater. Created by Dean Warehm, legendary frontman of the highly influential indie bands Galaxie 500 and Luna, along with Britta Phillips, the work features new compositions created for the equally influential short films Warhol shot between 1964 and 1966 at his underground NYC art mecca, The Factory.  Filmed with a stationary 16mm Bolex camera on silent, black and white, 100-foot rolls of film, the timeless body of work features provocative 4-minute, slow-motion portraits.

Don’t miss PIFOF’s Oct. 25 closing party at 10 p.m. at Clear Story Studios on the South Side. To purchase tickets and view a full schedule of PIFOF performances and post-show Q&A talks, go here.

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