BAM presents the world premiere of dance-chamber opera Hagoromo—a bold experiment in hybrid form featuring world- renowned talents Wendy Whelan, Jock Soto, and International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), produced by American Opera Projects—Nov 3*—8

*Additional show added; please note new opening date Tues, Nov 3 at 7:30pm

Bloomberg Philanthropies is the Season Sponsor

Hagoromo International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) Brooklyn Youth Chorus Music by Nathan Davis Libretto by Brendan Pelsue Choreography by David Neumann Puppetry by Chris M. Green Conducted by Nicholas DeMaison Conceived and directed by David Michalek

Presented in association with American Opera Projects

Set design by Sara Brown Lighting design by Clifton Taylor Costumes by Dries Van Noten Sound Design by Jody Elff Dramaturgy by Norman Frisch

BAM Harvey Theater (651 Fulton St.) Nov 3, 5—7 at 7:30pm, Nov 8 at 3pm Tickets start at $25

Brooklyn, NY/Sep 28, 2015—A world premiere work, Hagoromo reunites former NYCB principal dancers Wendy Whelan and Jock Soto in a multidisciplinary work of dance- chamber opera inspired by one of the masterpieces of Japanese Noh drama and featuring contralto Katalin Károlyi and tenor Peter Tantsits, the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), and Brooklyn Youth Chorus. The ancient tale of Hagoromo involves a desolate island and the fateful encounter between a poor fisherman and a fallen angel A thoroughly contemporary vision conceived and directed by David Michalek and produced by AOP, this retelling is a bold experiment in hybrid forms harnessing extraordinary talent across an array of artistic and creative mediums: a chamber opera commissioned by ICE and AOP, omposed by Nathan Davis with a libretto by Brendan Pelsue, choreography by David Neumann, puppetry by Chris M. Green, dramaturgy by Norman Frisch, and costumes created by the celebrated Belgian designer Dries Van Noten.

The International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), described by The New York Times as “one of the most accomplished and adventurous groups in new music,” is dedicated to reshaping the way music is created and experienced. With a modular makeup of 35 leading instrumentalists, performing in forces ranging from solos to large ensembles, ICE functions as performer, presenter, and educator, advancing the music of our time by developing

innovative new works and new strategies for audience engagement. ICE redefines concert music as it brings together new work and new listeners in the 21st century.

Now in its 24th season, the Grammy Award-winning Brooklyn Youth Chorus, under the direction of Founder & Artistic Director Dianne Berkun-Menaker, is a collective of young singers and vocal ensembles re-envisioning choral music performance through their distinctive sound, artistic innovation, and collaboration with classical and contemporary artists. With a versatile range and unique repertoire Brooklyn Youth Chorus combines intensive vocal training and music study with exceptional performances. The Chorus has been touted by The New York Times as a “consistently bold organization” that regularly commissions and presents new music in genre-defying forms. Composers commissioned to date include Nico Muhly, David Lang, Bryce Dessner, Missy Mazzoli, Paul Moravec, Julia Wolfe, Aleksandra Vrebalov, Shara Worden, John King, Colin Stetson, and others. Our diverse student body of over 500 young people, ages seven to 20, represents nearly 200 schools citywide. Classes take place at our Cobble Hill headquarters and neighborhood locations in Bedford-Stuyvesant and Red Hook, Brooklyn.

Nathan Davis "writes music that deals deftly and poetically with timbre and sonority" (The New York Times). Lincoln Center inaugurated the TullyScope Festival with the premiere of Davis' landmark work Bells and presented other premieres at the Mostly Mozart Festival. Commissioned by the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), Calder Quartet, Yarn/Wire, La Jolla Symphony Chorus, Steven Schick, Donaueschinger Musiktage, and the Ojai Festival (with sound sculptor Trimpin), Davis’ music has been performed widely both nationally and internationally. With Phyllis Chen he scored Sylvia Milo's acclaimed monodrama The Other Mozart. Recordings of his music include The Bright and Hollow Sky, one of Time Out NY's top five classical albums of 2011. (nathandavis.com)

Brendan Pelsue is a playwright, librettist, and translator currently pursuing an MFA in playwriting from the Yale School of Drama, where past projects include Parking Lot, Riverbank: a Noh Play for Northerly Americans, and a translation/adaptation of Molière’s Dom Juan. A Huntington Playwriting Fellowship finalist and one of Cutting Ball Theater’s “Risky Playwrights,” his work has been produced or developed by groups including the Actors Theatre of Louisville, Corkscrew Theater Company, the Telephonic Literary Union, Tiny Dynamite, and the Bay Area Playwrights Festival.

As artistic director of Advanced Beginner Group, David Neumann’s work has been widely presented throughout New York, at venues including PS 122, Central Park Summer Stage, Celebrate Brooklyn!, Symphony Space, The Whitney at Altria, The Kitchen, Abrons Arts Center, and New York Live Arts. David Neumann and Advanced Beginner Group have received four Bessie Awards; Neumann has been awarded a 2011 Foundation for Contemporary Arts Award for Dance, a 2013 New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship in Choreography, and a 2014 MacDowell Fellowship. Recent projects include directing Geoff Sobelle's The Object Lesson (2014 Next Wave Festival) at BAM and choreographing Soho Rep’s Obie Award- winning production of An Octoroon.

Chris M. Green is a Brooklyn-based designer, performer, composer, and director. His theatrical, sound, and installation works have been presented in venues including Lincoln Center, New York City Center, National Geographic Museum, La Jolla Playhouse, St. Anne’s Warehouse, Goethe Institute (Delhi), Philadelphia Museum of Art, and Teatro del Lago (Chile), among others. His Brooklyn-based design studio Chris Green Kinetics has received awards from the American Association of Museums, Themed Entertainment Association, and AIA. Recent honors include Creative Capital Award (2009), MacDowell Fellowship (2012), and LMCC Process Space residency (2013). Currently, Green is developing his new play American Weather through the HERE Resident Artist and Dream Music Programs with support from the Jim Henson Foundation. Along with wife Erin K. Orr, Green teaches an intensive performance workshop, “The Language of Things,” both nationally and internationally

David Michalek’s work ranges from photography, video/sound and light installations, live performance, and site-specific works of public art, and has been widely presented nationally and

P internationally in venues including the Brooklyn Museum, the Louvre, and the Edinburgh Festival. Notable projects include 14 Stations, a work that grew out of Michalek’s work with 22 men and women transitioning out of homelessness, and Slow Dancing—a free outdoor, multi-channel video installation of hyper-slow-motion video portraits of dancers commissioned by Lincoln Center Festival and projected nightly on the facade of the New York State Theater which went on to tour worldwide. Commissioned in 2005 to create a ciné-roman for Peter Sellars’ Kafka Fragments—a staged setting of composer Gyorgy Kurtag's searing work for soprano and violin—Michalek, then artist-in-residence at The Bridge, Inc., a day home for people living with mental illness, drew on his activities and interactions with patients to create a compelling film of still images. More recently, Michalek directed and lit two solo flute performances for Claire Chase at The Kitchen and was commissioned by Carnegie Hall and the LA Music Center to create a work of video to be shown throughout a performance of six Bach solo violin works by Gil Shaham. He is a visiting faculty member at Yale Divinity School, where he lectures on religion and the arts.

Founded in 1988, American Opera Projects is at the forefront of the contemporary opera movement, commissioning, developing, presenting, and producing opera and music theater projects, collaborating with young, rising, and established artists, and engaging audiences in unique and transformative theatrical experiences. AOP has produced over 30 world premieres, including Kaminsky/Reed/Campbell's As One (BAM, 2014), Nkeiru Okoye's Harriet Tubman: When I Crossed That Line to Freedom (Irondale Center, 2014), and Lera Auerbach's The Blind (co- production with Lincoln Center Festival, 2013). Other notable premieres include Kimper/Persons' Patience & Sarah (1998), Weisman/Rabinowitz's Darkling (2006), Lee Hoiby's This is the Rill Speaking (2008), and Phil Kline's Out Cold/Zippo Songs (2012 Next Wave Festival). AOP- developed operas that premiered with co-producers include Stefan Weisman's The Scarlet Ibis at PROTOTYPE Festival (2015), Gregory Spears' Paul's Case at Urban Arias (2013) and PROTOTYPE Festival and Pittsburgh Opera (2014), Jack Perla's Love/Hate at ODC Theater with San Francisco Opera (2012), Stephen Schwartz's Séance on a Wet Afternoon at New York City Opera (2011), Tarik O'Regan's Heart of Darkness at London's Royal Opera House (2011) and Opera Parallèle (2015). AOP’s core program comprises Composers & the Voice, First Chance, I Hear America Singing, and AOP Helping Hands. (aopopera.org)

Wendy Whelan, dubbed “America’s greatest contemporary ballerina” by The New York Times, joined the corps de ballet in 1986 and was promoted to principal dancer in 1991. She has performed a wide spectrum of the Balanchine repertory and worked closely with on many of his ballets. She has originated featured roles in ballets by , William Forsythe, Alexei Ratmansky, Wayne McGregor, Jorma Elo, Shen Wei, Jerome Robbins, and . In 2007, Whelan was nominated for an Olivier Award and a Critics Circle Award for her performances with Morphoses/The Wheeldon Company. She received the 2007 Dance magazine award, and in 2009 was given a Doctorate of Arts, honoris causa, from Bellarmine University. In 2011, she was honored with both the Jerome Robbins Award and a Bessie Award for her Sustained Achievement in Performance. In 2013, she premiered her first original production Restless Creature at the Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival. Whelan was recently appointed an artistic associate at New York's City Center. She resides in New York City with her husband, artist David Michalek.

Jock Soto was acclaimed during his 24-year career at New York City Ballet for the incomparable skill and artistry of his partnering technique and for his versatility as a performer in both classic and contemporary neoclassical ballets. After training at the School of American Ballet, he joined NYCB in 1981 and was named a principal dancer in 1985. His extensive repertoire included leading parts in numerous works by and Jerome Robbins, as well as roles created for him in new ballets by , Christopher Wheeldon, and other notable choreographers. He was memorably paired with Wendy Whelan in a number of ballets at NYCB, including Wheeldon’s , Liturgy, and After the Rain. Soto is currently a faculty member at the School of American Ballet, the official academy of New York City Ballet. His life is the subject of the award- winning documentary Water Flowing Together (2008) and the memoir Every Step You Take (HarperCollins 2011).

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For press information contact Adriana Leshko at [email protected] or 718.724.8021

Credits Bloomberg Philanthropies is the Season Sponsor.

Leadership support for dance at BAM provided by Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and The Harkness Foundation for Dance. Major support for dance at BAM provided by The SHS Foundation.

Programming in the BAM Harvey Theater is endowed by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation.

BAM 2015 Next Wave Festival supporters: brigitte nyc; Frances Bermanzohn & Alan Roseman; Booth Ferris Foundation; William I. Campbell & Christine Wächter-Campbell; Charina Endowment Fund; Jeanne Donovan Fisher; Judith R. & Alan H. Fishman; The Francena T. Harrison Foundation Trust; Stephanie & Timothy Ingrassia; Suzie & Bruce Kovner; Diane & Adam E. Max; McKinsey & Company, Inc.; Barbara & Richard Moore; Donald R. Mullen Jr.; The SHS Foundation; The Shubert Foundation, Inc.; David & Jane Walentas; The Winston Foundation, Inc.

Delta is the Official Airline of BAM. Pepsi is the official beverage of BAM. Santander is the BAM Marquee sponsor. Yamaha is the official piano for BAM. New York Marriott at the Brooklyn Bridge is the official hotel for BAM.

Your tax dollars make BAM programs possible through funding from the City of New York Department of Cultural Affairs and the New York State Council on the Arts. The BAM facilities are owned by the City of New York and benefit from public funds provided through the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs with support from Mayor Bill de Blasio; Cultural Affairs Commissioner Tom Finkelpearl; the New York City Council including Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito, Finance Committee Chair Julissa Ferreras, Cultural Affairs Committee Chair Jimmy Van Bramer, the Brooklyn Delegation of the Council, and Council Member Laurie Cumbo; and Brooklyn Borough President Eric L. Adams. BAM would like to thank the Brooklyn Delegations of the New York State Assembly, Joseph R. Lentol, Delegation Leader; and New York Senate, Senator Velmanette Montgomery, Delegation Leader.

General Information BAM Howard Gilman Opera House, BAM Rose Cinemas, and BAMcafé are located in the Peter Jay Sharp building at 30 Lafayette Avenue (between St Felix Street and Ashland Place) in the Fort Greene neighborhood of Brooklyn. BAM Harvey Theater is located two blocks from the main building at 651 Fulton Street (between Ashland and Rockwell Places). Both locations house Greenlight Bookstore at BAM kiosks. BAM Fisher, located at 321 Ashland Place, is the newest addition to the BAM campus and houses the Judith and Alan Fishman Space and Rita K. Hillman Studio. BAM Rose Cinemas is Brooklyn’s only movie house dedicated to first-run independent and foreign film and repertory programming. BAMcafé, operated by Great Performances, offers a dinner menu prior to BAM Howard Gilman Opera House evening performances. BAMcafé also features an eclectic mix of live music for BAMcafé Live on Friday and Saturday nights with a bar menu available starting at 6pm.

Subway: 2, 3, 4, 5, Q, B to Atlantic Avenue – Barclays Center (2, 3, 4, 5 to Nevins St for Harvey Theater) D, N, R to Pacific Street; G to Fulton Street; C to Lafayette Avenue Train: Long Island Railroad to Atlantic Terminal – Barclays Center Bus: B25, B26, B41, B45, B52, B63, B67 all stop within three blocks of BAM Car: Commercial parking lots are located adjacent to BAM

For ticket information, call BAM Ticket Services at 718.636.4100, or visit BAM.org.

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