NEW STAGES: NARRATIVE IN MOTION SERIES SHOWCASES ‘ART OF OUR TIME’ AT RINGLING MUSEUM’S HISTORIC ASOLO THEATER
Sarasota, Fla., Jan. 8, 2013 – New Stages: Narrative in Motion heralds the welcome return of storytelling in the new theatrical and choreographic forms for the 21st century. It is a four-part series of contemporary performance at the Ringling Museum’s Historic Asolo Theater that runs January through March 2013. A continuum of the Art of Our Time initiative at the Ringling Museum it is curated by Dwight Currie, associate director of programming. It features works by Marc Bamuthi Joseph, Bill Bowers, Circle of Eleven, and the Kate Weare Company. Tickets are $15, $20, $25. Call 941.360-7399 or visit www.ringling.org
“The presentation of contemporary art at the Ringling dates back to its first executive director, A. Everett Chick Austin, Jr., who helped transformed the arts in America in the twentieth century and the Museum with the addition of the Historic Asolo Theater and Circus Museum in the late 1940s,” noted Steven High, executive director of The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art. “Chick advocated that, ‘the function of a museum is more than merely showing pictures….it is the place to integrate the arts and bring them alive.’ With the ‘Art of Our Time,’ we hope to enrich our community through the exploration of rich ideas and art forms at play today and in the future.”
Currie added, “By embracing the power of language, gesture, character, and emotion, artists are moving beyond the inscrutable abstractions of the experimental to once again explore the narratives of human relations.” He said, “The authentic embodiment of those narratives in motion – when combined with poetry, media, and a renewed sense of musicality – emerges into new forms that explore and exemplify the rich diversity of ideas at play in the world today.”
THE PERFORMANCES
Word Becomes Flesh, January 24-26, 2013, 7:30 p.m.
Named in the 2012 Class of Doris Duke Artists as one of America’s most vital and productive performing artists, Marc Bamuthi Joseph derives his performance narratives out of interdisciplinary collaboration that incorporates spoken word poetry, contemporary movement, and live music to birth a new theatrical form based on hip hop aesthetics. Presented as a series of performed letters to an unborn son, Word Becomes Flesh documents nine months of pregnancy from a young single father’s perspective. It is a powerful and passionate plea for social responsibility and understanding that critically, lyrically, and choreographically examines the experience of fatherhood in America’s black community.
Beyond Words, February 7-9, 2013, 7:30 p.m.
Bill Bowers employs an eloquent mixture of music, monologues and mime in his ongoing investigation of the silence surrounding the enigmatic matters of gender in our culture today. Often compared to Chaplin and Keaton, he has performed throughout the U.S., Europe and Asia. For Beyond Words, Bowers draws his characters from life and moves beyond mere anecdotes to create a vibrant and visual poetry. With audacity and compassion he explores what it means to be a boy and the messages we receive on our way to becoming men. It is an inclusive montage that celebrates maleness and humanity in capacious terms rather than any narrow punitive viewpoint that diminishes us all.
LEO, February 21-23, 2012, 7:30 p.m.
From Berlin, the Circle of Eleven blends music, acrobatics, dance, and theater into a sophisticated form of entertainment that carries on the spirit of classic German variety theater at a contemporary circus level. It is not a play, or a circus act, or a film project. It is a self-contained, genre-defying performance that won the Carol Tambor Foundation’s “Best of Edinburgh Award” in 2011 and went on to become the hottest ticket at Spoleto. LEO explores a world where gravity has shifted and the hero must undertake a logic-defying adventure that reveals not only his dreams and desires but also his lust for life. Through a clever juxtaposition of live performance with projected film, two Leos move through identical spaces governed by opposing physical laws. It is a small but meaningful story of a man stuck in a box, hoping one day to find his way out.
Kate Weare Company, March 7-9 , 2013, 7:30 p.m.
With both rawness and precision, Kate Weare maps a humanism that is contemporary and profoundly stirring. Hailed for its startling combination of formal choreographic values and visceral, emotional interpretation, her work has been seen at The Joyce Theater, Danspace Project, Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, American Dance Festival, and at venues throughout the U.S. For the Historic Asolo Theater, Weare presents a program of open narrative spaces into which she invites the viewers to insert themselves and to see the work through the lens of personal experience. While in Drop Down she employs the power of tango to investigate the negotiations of erotic proximity, in Garden, she elicits innocence by drawing upon primitive issues origination, collective identity, and safety in the face of the nature’s unpredictable forces.
ViewPoint: The Interplay Between Music and Dance, January 19, 2013, 10:30 a.m.
Choreographer Elizabeth Weil Bergmann presents a duet danced by Moving Ethos directors to illustrate how music influences the way we experience modern dance.
FSU Dance Theatre, March 22 & 23, 7:30 p.m.
Works by the renowned resident faculty, alumni and guest artists performed by the highly skilled students of this top-ranked university dance program.
By purchasing tickets to all four performances in the Narrative in Motion series, get free admission to ViewPoint: The Interplay Between Music and Dance (Jan. 19, 10:30 a.m.) and FSU Dance Theatre (March 22 & 23, 7:30 p.m.).
The 2012-13 Art of Our Time season at the Ringling Museum is supported by a $50,000 grant from Gulf Coast Community Foundation.
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General Admission includes the Ringling Museum of Art, special exhibitions, Ca’ d’Zan Mansion, Circus Museum, and Mable’s historic Rose Garden, all on 66 acres of lushly landscaped grounds. Adults are $25; senior citizens (65 and over) are $20; children ages 6-17 are $5; a three-day pass is $35. Free Admission for children 5 and under accompanied by an adult, museum members. Advance tickets are available online or by calling 941.358.3180. Visit www.ringling.org for more information.
The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, Florida State University, is one of the largest museum/university complexes in the nation. It preserves the legacy of John and Mable Ringling, educating and enabling a large and diverse audience to experience and take delight in a world-renowned collection of fine art; Ca’ d’Zan, the Ringling’s mansion; the Circus Museum; the Historic Asolo Theater; and historic architecture, courtyard, gardens and grounds overlooking Sarasota Bay.