Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company & SITI Company: a Rite
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Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company & SITI Company: A Rite Fri, Mar 6 FEATURING & Sat, Mar 7 Akiko Aizawa*, Will Bond*, Antonio Brown, Rena Butler, Cain Coleman, Jr., Leon Ingulsrud*, Talli Royce Hall Jackson, Shayla-Vie Jenkins, Ellen Lauren*, I-Ling Liu, Erick Montes Chavero, Jennifer Nugent, Joseph Poulson, Jenna Riegel and Stephen Duff Webber* 8pm RUNNING TIME: A Rite (2013) Approximately 65 minutes; Anne Bogart Artistic Director No intermission SITI Company SCA TERRACE SERIES Bill T. Jones Artistic Director PRE-SHOW EVENT: Bill T. Jones/ Arnie Zane Dance Company Intersections: A night of interdisciplinary Dance Janet Wong Associate Artistic Director choreographed and Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company performed by PhD Dance Conceived, directed and choreographed by Anne Bogart, Bill T. Jones and Janet Wong in collaboration majors Barry Brannum, with the performers Bernard Brown, and Fangfei Miao. Robert Wierzel** Lighting design 7 pm Royce Terrace James Schuette** Costume design PRODUCTION STAFF POST-SHOW EVENT: Kyle Maude Director of Producing and Touring Q&A with the performers Joseph Futral Production Manager Friday March 6 on the Royce Stacey Boggs** Lighting Supervisor stage. Meet and greet in Sam Crawford Associate Sound Designer West Lobby follows. Carley Manion Stage Manager, Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company Sunneva Stapleton* Stage Manager, SITI Company CAP UCLA SPONSOR: Hannah Emerson Company Manager Suported in part by the Doris Nikhil Mehta Assistant Director Duke Charitable Foundation Endowment Fund. Anne Bogart and Bill T. Jones are members of SDC, the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers, an independent national labor union. MEDIA SPONSOR: * Denotes member of Actors Equity Association, the union of professional actors and stage managers in the United States. ** Members of the United Scenic Artists Union (USA) Text excerpts from: Brian Greene, Werner Herzog, Jonah Lehrer, Severine Neff, and testimonies from WWI veterans, plus In Spring by Shuntaro Tanikawa (courtesy of The Japan Writers’ Association) and Gisela Cardenas’ English translation of Antigona by Jose Watanabe. The role of musicologist is based upon interviews with Professor Severine Neff, of the University of North Carolina. Excerpts from the following recordings of The Rite of Spring are heard in A Rite: Kirov Orchestra, 2001; Los Angeles Philharmonic, MESSAGE FROM THE CENTER: 2006; San Francisco Symphony, 1999; KBP by Daniel Bernard Roumain and Sam Crawford, 2013; and Darryl Brenzel and What is this feeling? Mobtown Modern Big Band, 2012 and Birdsongs of the Mesozoic. More than 100 years ago as Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring hit (Excerpts from) The Rite of Spring, as performed by Birdsongs of the Paris stage in a powerful explosion of never-before heard the Mesozoic, produced by Richard W. Harte, originally released on sounds and movement audiences found themselves asking this Magnetic Flip (Ace of Hearts AHS 10018), re-released on Dawn of question. The Rite of Spring was provoking, it caused riots, the Cycads (Cuneiform Records Rune 274/275)” it instigated critique and dialogue, and while the movement vocabulary of Vaslav Nijinsky and avant-garde compositional Vocal score for The Augurs composed by Timothy Hambourger. approach of Stravinsky confronted audiences at the time, the Vocal score for Spring Rounds composed by Yayoi Ikawa. music is largely considered to be one of the most important works of the 20th century. English translation of In Spring by Shuntaro Tanikawa In honor of this iconic work at its 2013 centennial, two vital What is this feeling? American artists and their companies dove headfirst into the This invisible flow of energy feelings instigated by The Rite of Spring over the course of its That comes up from the earth, into the soles of my feet revolutionary start and evolutionary influence. Coming through my stomach, to my chest, then up into my throat Welling up inside me, making me want to shout out loud SITI Company, as led by Anne Bogart, and Bill T. Jones/ What is this feeling? Arnie Zane Dance Company, are both known and revered Buds bursting out from the tips of tree branches, poking at my heart for their sense of curiosity, for their collaborative spirit It is delight, but also grief and commitment to cultural exchange. Working on A Rite It is agitation, and yet tranquility provided a chance for two unique and likeminded artistic It is longing, with hidden anger communities to work together and explore the potential of Held in check by the dam in my heart one another in service of artists who came before and cracked But the whirlpools, held back, grow fierce open profound new possibilities in the confluence of music, Trying to flood over theater and dance. What is this feeling? I want to dip my hand into the sky’s blue And explore they did, for more than a year, with Jones All the people I’ve never met - constantly advocating for the performers and creators to I want to meet them, I want to talk to them embrace the visceral sensation of the source work, to “get the I wish tomorrow and the day after tomorrow would come all at once music into our bones,” while Bogart was driven by the cerebral, I feel so impatient theoretical and historical and sociological ramifications of I want to walk beyond the horizon The Rite of Spring. And yet, I want to stay right here on this patch of grass, motionless I want to call out to someone in a loud voice What you are about to experience tonight is a remarkable feat And yet, I want to be alone in silence in the art of performance. This weekend’s two performances What is this feeling? are among the final times these two extraordinary companies will share the stage together, sharing with us the profound A Rite was commissioned by Carolina Performing Arts at The results of the rites they collectively brought to life in service of University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. art, of sensation, of inspiration, of converging themes, ideas and creative modalities. Additional commissioning support provided by: The Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College. We are proud to honor that collaboration here on this stage and in your company. The creation of new work by the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company is made possible by the Company’s Partners in Creation: Ellen Poss, Jane Bovingdon Semel & Terry Semel; Anne Delaney; Stephen & Ruth Hendel; Eleanor Friedman; and Zoe Eskin. A Rite was funded in part by the National Endowment for the Arts. With Special Thanks to: Yayoi Ikawa, Timothy Hambourger, Severine Neff and Daniel Bernard Roumain. ABOUT THE ARTISTS DIRECTORS’ NOTES BILL T. JONES/ARNIE ZANE DANCE COMPANY Over the past 32 years the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance A Rite is the resulting expression of the alchemy of two Company has shaped the evolution of contemporary dance through communities, of two companies – a dance company and the creation and performance of over 140 works. Founded as a a theater company – encountering the legacy of Igor multicultural dance company in 1982, the company was born of an Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring one hundred years after its birth. 11-year artistic collaboration between Bill T. Jones and Arnie Zane. The reverberations felt in the work’s vast wake are woven Today, the company is recognized as one of the most innovative through world wars, the formation and disintegration of and powerful forces in the modern dance world. The company has nations, the birth of global culture and scientific changes performed its ever-enlarging repertoire worldwide in over 200 cities that did nothing less than alter the way we live now. How in 30 countries on every major continent. In 2011, the Bill T. Jones/ do we begin to grapple with the significance of Rite of Arnie Zane Dance Company merged with Dance Theater Workshop Spring’s very existence? How do we create a rite for our to form New York Live Arts, of which Bill T. Jones is the Artistic modern world, informed by the legacy of the original but Director. containing the complexities and paradoxes of our own times? Everything that you will see and that you will experience The repertory of the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company is onstage tonight contains the original score in its bones. widely varied in its subject matter, visual imagery and stylistic But we are also dealing with the fragility of memory, the approach to movement, voice and stagecraft and includes musically- legacy of the work’s existence and humanity’s never-ending driven works as well as works using a variety of texts. Some of its curiosity about the nature of the universe. most celebrated creations are evening length works including Last Supper at Uncle Tom’s Cabin/The Promised Land (1990, Next – Anne Bogart Wave Festival at the Brooklyn Academy of Music); Still/Here (1994, Biennale de la Danse in Lyon, France); We Set Out Early… Visibility As our creative team struggled to “get our arms” around Was Poor (1996, Hancher Auditorium, Iowa City, IA); You Walk? this project, a never-ending challenge was whose Rite (2000, European Capital of Culture 2000,Bolgna, Italy); Blind Date of Spring were we considering? Was it Nijinky’s epic (2006, Peak Performances at Montclair State University); Chapel/ making movement choices at the service of Stravinsky’s/ Chapter (2006, Harlem Stage Gatehouse); Fondly Do We Hope… Nicholas Roerich’s libretto/synopsis situated in the Fervently Do We Pray (2009, Ravinia Festival, Highland Park, IL); archaism of Russia’s pagan past complete with “primitive” Another Evening: Venice/Arsenale (2010, La Biennale di Venezia, movements and a sacrificial virgin? Or was it to be Venice, Italy); Story/Time (2012, Peak Performances); and A Rite Stravinsky’s modernist re-write of the rules of composition (2013, Carolina Performing Arts at the University of North Carolina- and orchestration? Though the apparition of what was Chapel Hill).