Tickets On Sale May 15 for Summer Events at Wesleyan University's Center for the Arts
Summer Events to Include Performances in July by
Brian Brooks Moving Company, David Liebman Quartet,
Rinde Eckert, Steve Scionti, Alma Moyo, Gina Ulysse
Tickets On Sale Tuesday, May 15
Middletown, Conn., May 4, 2012— Wesleyan University’s Center for the Arts has announced their summer series, which includes appearances by Brian Brooks Moving Company (July 12 & 13), David Liebman Quartet (July 19), and Steve Scionti's Hear What's In The Heart: A Shoemaker's Tale (July 26 & 27); free performances by Alma Moyo (July 5), Rinde Eckert: Performance Musings (July 17), and Gina Ulysse: Voodoo Doll - What if Haiti Were a Woman? (July 24); and free noontime talks DD Dorvillier/human future dance corps: The Making of Danza Permanente (July 10) and María Magdalena Campos-Pons (July 31). Please see full event listings below.
Tickets for Brian Brooks Moving Company, David Liebman Quartet, and Steve Scionti's Hear What's In The Heart: A Shoemaker’s Tale go on sale online on Tuesday, May 15, 2012. Tickets will be available at www.wesleyan.edu/cfa. Tickets go on sale by phone at (860) 685-3355, or in person at the Wesleyan University Box Office, located in the Usdan University Center, 45 Wyllys Avenue, Middletown, at Noon on Monday, June 18, 2012. Tickets may also be purchased at each event beginning one hour prior to the performance, subject to availability. The Center for the Arts accepts cash, checks written to “Wesleyan University”, and all major credit cards. Groups of ten or more may receive a discount on tickets to Brian Brooks Moving Company or Steve Scionti's Hear What's In The Heart: A Shoemaker’s Tale – please call (860) 685-3355 for details. No refunds, cancellations, or exchanges.
All programs, artists and dates are subject to change. Outdoor events will be moved indoors in the event of rain. All Center for the Arts facilities are air-conditioned. Summer at the CFA is co-sponsored by the Capital Regional Education Council’s Center for Creative Youth. Artist residencies are made possible by the Connecticut Department of Economic and Community Development’s Office of the Arts, and Wesleyan University’s Institute for Curatorial Practice in Performance.
Summer at the Center for the Arts (July 5-31, 2012)
Type: Music
Title of Event: Alma Moyo
Location: CFA Courtyard (Rain Location: Crowell Concert Hall)
Date: Thursday, July 5, 2012 at 7pm
Fee: FREE!
Phone: 860-685-3355
Website: www.wesleyan.edu/cfa
Description: Founded 10 years ago in the South Bronx by lead singer and percussionist Alex LaSalle, the intergenerational band Alma Moyo performs Afro-Puerto Rican bomba folk music featuring dynamic drumming, dancing, and rich vocals.
“With the heart and soul of Puerto Rican music, Alma Moyo generates life, heat and love.”
—My Latin Voice
Type: Dance Talk
Title of Event: DD Dorvillier/human future dance corps—The Making of Danza Permanente
Location: CFA Hall
Date: Tuesday, July 10, 2012 at 12:10pm
Fee: FREE!
Phone: 860-685-3355
Website: www.wesleyan.edu/cfa
Description: DD Dorvillier/human future dance corps has been developing her artistic work in New York City since 1989. Her current project, Danza Permanente, premiered in Europe in May, and heads to The Kitchen in New York this fall. At Wesleyan, DD Dorvillier will discuss the process and practices leading to the creation of this new work, whose choreography transposes the music structure, behavior and dynamics of a string quartet to be embodied over time and through space by four dancers, who behave as sound, and become visible music in silence.
“In all her works, DD Dorvillier probes the nature of interpretation and perception, whether by dissecting narrative or dispensing with it altogether.”
—The Village Voice
Type: Dance
Title of Event: Brian Brooks Moving Company
Location: CFA Theater
Date: Thursday, July 12 & Friday, July 13, 2012 at 8pm
Fee: $22 general public, $19 senior citizens, Wesleyan faculty/staff; $10 students
Phone: 860-685-3355
Website: www.wesleyan.edu/cfa
Description: Straight from the Joyce Theater’s Gotham Dance Festival, the athletic and visually arresting Brian Brooks Moving Company returns to Wesleyan with two of their intelligent and risky recent works: Descent (2011), an exploration of the paradoxical tendency of bodies to exhibit both dependency and detachment, performed against a liquid black backdrop; and the New England premiere of Big City (2012), which features anarchitectural set design built by the performers as the dance unfolds, boldly spilling off the stage and throughout the theater.
Brian Brooks is the 2012 Danspace / Institute for Curatorial Practice in Performance Artist in Residence.
“[Brian Brooks] shows us that what is simple can be miraculous. I think that is choreographic genius, really – making the next movement seem inevitable, revealing the virtuosity of the basics, and uncovering interesting stories in repetition.”
—The Dance Enthusiast
Type: Theater
Title of Event: Rinde Eckert—Performance Musings
Location: Crowell Concert Hall
Date: Tuesday, July 17, 2012 at12:10pm
Fee: FREE!
Phone: 860-685-3355
Website: www.wesleyan.edu/cfa
Description: Grammy Award-winning musician, writer, composer, librettist, performer and director Rinde Eckert has built a dynamic theatrical logic that is fiercely interdisciplinary. An inaugural recipient of a Doris Duke Performing Artist Award (2012), this fall Mr. Eckert will be presenting a new play entitled The Last Days of the Old Wild Boy at Wesleyan. Mr. Eckert will perform excerpts of his work and discuss his creative process.
“[Rinde Eckert is] an artist who travels regularly into the upper strata of myth, philosophy, classical music and world literature.”
—The New York Times
Type: Music
Title of Event: David Liebman Quartet
Location: Crowell Concert Hall
Date: Thursday, July 19, 2012 at 8pm
Fee: $22 general public; $19 senior citizens, Wesleyan faculty/staff; $10 students
Phone: 860-685-3355
Website: www.wesleyan.edu/cfa
Description: Grammy-nominated saxophonist Dave Liebman has performed with artists including Miles Davis, Elvin Jones, Bob Moses, Chick Corea, John Scofield, and Billy Hart over the past four decades. Since 2002, Mr. Liebman’s quartet has featured guitarist Vic Juris, bassist Tony Marino and drummer Marko Marcinko, and has explored a wide variety of contemporary styles ranging from bebop and free jazz to fusion and Brazilian. Mr. Liebman was named a National Endowment for the Arts “Jazz Master” in 2011.
“The intimacy of expression they achieved and the nimbleness of line they articulated attested to the versatility of this band, one of the most accomplished in jazz today.”
—Chicago Tribune
Type: Poetry
Title of Event: Gina Ulysse—Voodoo Doll, What if Haiti Were a Woman?
Location: Tuesday, July 24, 2012 at 12:10pm
Date: CFA Hall
Fee: FREE!
Phone: 860-685-3355
Website: www.wesleyan.edu/cfa
Description: Poet, performance and multi-media artist Gina Ulysse is Director of the Center for African American Studies, as well as an Associate Professor of Anthropology at Wesleyan. Her work entitled Voodoo Doll, What if Haiti Were a Woman? On ti Travay sou 21 Pwen or An Alter(ed)native in Something Other than Fiction is an avant-garde meditation on coercion and consent inspired by Gédé—the Haitian Vodou spirit of life and death—that weaves moments in Haiti’s geopolitical history into Ms. Ulysse’s retelling.
“She was a fantastic whirlwind of word and emotion, transforming Haiti from an objective abstract to a subjective reality.”
—The Santa Barbara Independent
Type: Theater
Title of Event: Steve Scionti’s Hear What's In The Heart: A Shoemaker’s Tale
Location: CFA Theater
Date: Thursday, July 26 & Friday, July 27, 2012 at 8pm
Fee: $19 general public; $17 senior citizens, Wesleyan faculty/staff; $10 students
Phone: 860-685-3355
Website: www.wesleyan.edu/cfa
Description: Hear What's In The Heart: A Shoemaker’s Tale features Middletown’s own Steve Scionti, who brings to life all the passion, comedy and drama inherent in a Sicilian-American family. Co-written by director Anthony Crivello, the one-man play garnered two Drama-Logue Awards from Los Angeles critics, and celebrates the life of Mr. Scionti's grandfather, Angelo Morello, who owned Angelo's Shoe Repair on Main Street in Middletown.
“A beautifully realized performance of a powerful story.”
—The Greenville News
Type: Art Talk
Title of Event: María Magdalena Campos-Pons
Location: CFA Hall
Date: Tuesday, July 31, 2012 at12:10pm
Fee: FREE!
Phone: 860-685-3355
Website: www.wesleyan.edu/cfa
Description: A native of Cuba, María Magdalena Campos-Pons’ work over the last 20 years has covered an extended range of visual language investigations, from painting and installation art to performative photography and cultural activism. Ms. Campos-Pons is currently on the faculty of the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.
“In Campos-Pons’ work, heritage is a privilege worth examining, and personal histories are filled with interlocking symbols to decode.”
—Nashville Scene