Slava Theater of Stockholm, Sweden, will present a concert/lecture/demonstration at Swarthmore College on Friday, Feb. 3, at 8 p.m. in the Frear Ensemble Theatre, Lang Performing Arts Center. The performance is free and open to the public.

Slava Theater's performance will consist of musical excerpts from its repertoire demonstrating the company's signature vocal technique, which draws from theatrical and folk music traditions, particularly those of Poland and the Ukraine. The company's theatrical work draws from the earlier work of Antonin Artaud of France and Jerzy Grotowski and the Gardzienince Theatre Association of Poland.

In the company's own words, "Slava is seeking the type of art that in total seriousness encompasses the wild and the poetic, the grim and the tender. An art that carefully analyses this power and which sets it free on the stage of life and while avoiding neither the body's heat nor the calling voices of pain. The normal peaceful agreement between artist and public must be removed using the means of shock. An attack, of all the senses, by all of the senses, is needed to reveal the inner life of the art of the theatre in its true context."

This will be the company's first visit to North America after years of touring in Europe and Asia. Slava Theater comes to Swarthmore as part of a residency organized by Philadelphia's Pig Iron Theatre Company and is sponsored by the Swarthmore College Departments of Theater and Music and Dance and the William J. Cooper Foundation.

Swarthmore College is a liberal arts institution near Philadelphia.