Mandorla Awakening: Emerging Engages the Public with the Artists in Worlds Intimate Settings and Provides a Closer Look at the Creative Process
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Theater Dance Music at the Edlis Neeson Theater Winter/Spring Manual Cinema Ragamala Dance + Mementos Mori Rudresh Mahanthappa Jan 15–18, 2015 Song of the Jasmine Apr 10–12, 2015 Stan’s Cafe The Cardinals International Contemporary Ensem- Jan 22–24, 2015 ble (ICE): Anna Thorvaldsdottir In the Light of Air Sònia Sánchez Apr 25, 2015 Le Ça (The Id) Feb 13–15, 2015 Creative Music Summit: Nicole Mitchell Mariano Pensotti May 2, 2015 Cineastas (Filmmakers) Renée Baker Feb 26–Mar 1, 2015 May 3, 2015 Joffrey Academy of Dance Third Coast Percussion with Winning Works: Choreographers Glenn Kotche of Color Wild Sound Mar 7–8, 2015 May 21–22, 2015 The Seldoms Power Goes Mar 20–29, 2015 Creative Music Creative Music Summit Summit Nicole Mitchell: Renée Baker: Mandorla Sunyata: Awakening: Towards Emerging Worlds Absolute May 2, 2015 Emptiness (world premiere) May 3, 2015 (world premiere) Nicole Mitchell, Photo: Brad Walseth Renée Baker, Photo: Michael S. Baker Nicole Mitchell: Original music Nicole Mitchell: Mandorla Renée Baker: Original music Vocals: Dee Alexander, Running time is ninety minutes. Awakening: Emerging Worlds is Taalib-din Ziyad, Saalik Ulysses Jenkins: Video and a commission of the Museum of Chicago Modern Orchestra Ziyad, Ann E. Ward, Rae Renée Baker: Sunyata: Towards lighting Contemporary Art Chicago. Project Myra Hilliard, Yoseph Henry, Absolute Emptiness is a Renée C. Baker, Music Director Dwayne Lee commission of the Museum of Black Earth Ensemble The MCA presentation is in Contemporary Art Chicago. Nicole M. Mitchell, conjunction with the fiftieth Violin: Terrance Gray, Todd The Bridge—a transatlantic Music Director anniversary celebrations Matthews, Phyllis Sanders, network for creative music The MCA presentation is in of the Association for the Renaudo Christiansen- Trumpet, flugelhorn: Jean-Luc conjunction with the fiftieth Nicole M. Mitchell, flute and Advancement of Creative Robinson Cappozzo anniversary celebration of the electronics Musicians (AACM), and Viola: Kevin Lin, Robert Fisher Woodwinds: Douglas R. Ewart Association for the Advance- Kojiro Umezaki, shakuhachi contributes to the legacy and Cello: William Porter, Double bass: Joëlle Léandre, ment of Creative Musicians and electronics continuing bold and exciting Ruth Archer Bernard Santacruz (AACM), and in tribute to Tomeka Reid, cello and banjo directions that the AACM has Bass: Karl EH Seigfried creative musicians and compos- Renée Baker, violin charted for decades. Clarinet: Louis Gdalman The Pritzker College Prep ers everywhere. Tatsu Aoki, bass, shamisen Flute: Greg Blackburn, Concert Choir, directed by and taiko Elizabeth Diaz, Nicole M. Brian Pavloff. avery r young, vocals Mitchell Jovia Armstrong, percussion Saxophone: David Boykin Choreography and dance: Alex Wing, bass, electric guitar Support for Ulysses Jenkins as part Trumpet: Ben Lamar Wannapa Pimtong-Eubanks, of Creative Music Summit is and oud generously provided by Black Cinema Vibes: Bruce Nelson Cristal Sabbagh House and by Center for the Study of Race, Politics, and Culture; Traps: Dushun Mosley Running time is seventy minutes Department of Cinema and Media Guitar: Bill MacKay Lighting design: Richard Edlis Neeson Studies; Film Studies Center; Arts + with no intermission. Public Life; and the Richard and Mary Keyboard: Steward Wilson Norwood Theater L. Gray Center for Arts and Inquiry at the University of Chicago. Additional support is provided by the School of the Art Institute. Special thanks to Jacqueline Najuma Stewart and to Rashayla Marie Brown. Artists Up Close About the Work by Nicole M. Mitchell MCA Stage’s series of artist-centered talks, workshops, and open studios Mandorla Awakening: Emerging engages the public with the artists in Worlds intimate settings and provides a closer look at the creative process. Join us Synopsis today. In 2099, in the midst of the inevitable decay of World Union society, a vibrant, First Night diverse, and technologically adept May 2 & 3 culture emerges on an obscure island Audience members are invited to stay on the Atlantic. Mandorla is a richly at the end of the performance for fertile land of special earth power and conversations with Nicole Mitchell and crystal waters that has remained Ulysses Jenkins (May 2) and Renée hidden to the World Union government Baker, Douglas R. Ewart, Dee Alexan- due to the vibrational work of its Above: der, and Joëlle Léandre (May 3), both Renée Baker Jacqueline Stewart, and film producer inhabitants. Mandorla is an egalitarian moderated by Yolanda Cesta Cursach, Photo: Michael S. Don DiNicola for a conversation about society designed by people who have Baker Associate Director of Performance the intersections of music and media awakened their ability to communicate Below: Programs. Michael Zerang as social practices. Following the directly with “The Source.” Having Reduction2 Photo: Ken Carl panel discussion, Ulysses Jenkins survived the destructive forces of the MCA Talk and Screen introduced selections from his works, Egoes Wars and the global virus, the On April 26, in partnership with Black including Cake Walk, Two Zone Mandorlians have made a biological Cinema House, the MCA hosted Transfer, and Secrecy: Help Me to transformation after two generations of Nicole Mitchell, Renée Baker, media Understand. Concluding the day, Don a natural lifestyle, making them artist Ulysses Jenkins, film scholar DiNicola introduced his restored permanently immune to the virus. print of Oscar Micheaux’s Body and Soul (1925), which features a new The story unfolds when a couple score by Renée Baker. embarks on a journey outside the Nicole Mitchell boundaries of the World Union and From the artist Photo: Kristi Sutton On May 1, Stewart, Curator at Black discovers Mandorla. Seeking amnesty My latest project illustrates an alterna- Elias Cinema House, hosted Jenkins for a in this foreign culture, the couple is tive vision for our future. screening of his video “griot tril- astonished by the different life that ogy” Self-Divination, Mutual Native Mandorla offers. Their own transforma- Mandorla Awakening represents the Duplex, and The Nomadics. Earlier in tion beckons them as they resist letting unification of the duality that we the week, Jenkins participated in go of their old ways. Shocked and perceive: It portrays a transformation of Graduate Studies Critiques at The inspired by the ways of the Mandorli- human consciousness that can ulti- School of the Art Institute, and engaged ans, they are confronted with the reality mately heal the environment, promote students and faculty at The University that their home, the World Union, is peace, and awaken spirituality. I titled of Chicago in a series of talks and coming to an end. When confronted it after the mandorla, an almond shape studio visits, organized by Stewart, with images of their world shattering, created by two merging circles that is Professor in the Department of Cinema the couple must choose to adapt to an ancient symbol of wholeness. While and Media Studies, in coordination Mandorla or face death by struggling to the image is most often recognized with the Gray Center for Arts & Inquiry, help their old world survive. as the aura (halo) in early Christian art, Art & Public Life, and Department of the shape itself is much older as a Visual Arts. symbol of the feminine, described in Hindu art as the “yoni,” symbolizing the Riane Eisler and her book The Chalice About the Work Bardos, which I paraphrase here, and fertility of the “Great Mother.” and the Blade, Mandorla Awakening: by Renée C. Baker allow yourselves to be transformed. Emerging Worlds further investigates As satisfying as the multifaceted the issue. Eisler’s research into ancient Sunyata: Towards Absolute Emptiness Six Bardos from Padma expression of sound has been for Europe and the globe re-examines Sambhava’s Book of the Dead sharing my ideas, narrative and visual history through the duality of two types I wrote this music while in residence Paraphrased by Renée C. Baker concepts have always been integral of societies that have competed in Vietnam. Created for chamber to my composition process as well. thousands of years for existence: one ensemble, voice, and dance, it is Now when the bardo of birth is dawning symbolized by the chalice (cooperative inspired by the earliest Buddhist upon me Upon meeting the work of Ulysses societies that have been nurturing, writings to reach Tibet, Padma Samb- I will abandon laziness for which life Jenkins, I was stunned by our parallels prolifically creative, and non-violent) hava’s Book of the Dead (The Bardo). has no time in aesthetics and purpose. Our artistic and one symbolized by the blade or To the modern reader, Sambhava is Enter the undistracted path of study, collaboration has been a doorway sword (hierarchal societies that have towering and opaque, but in his time he reflection and meditation to a new adventure in art-making, one been aggressive, prosperous, and was known for his playfulness. He Making projections and mind the in which the inner symbology, texture, expansive through dominance and would hide his writings in unusual and path….. and narrative that previously stayed fear). remote locations in the belief that There is no time on the path for the Renée Baker Photo: Michael S. within my mind could actually be people recovering them would do so at mind to wander. Baker manifested in visual forms for audi- Emerging Worlds is the third install- a time when his spiritual messages ences to experience along with sound. ment in Mandorla Awakening, which I would have the most beneficial impact. Our first collaboration, Mandorla conceived of as a science-fiction Awakening: Dorla Awakens, was first narrative that unfolds through a series My artistic quest engages his writings performed as a work-in-progress at of performances that all respond to in the same belief. A lush and full- University of California, Irvine. It the prompt: what would a technologi- bodied score for twenty-nine musicians, included original music and video as cally advanced world that is in collabo- seven vocalists, and two dancers well as the choreography of Lisa ration with nature look like? Using staged on a minimalist set, Sunyata: Naugle.