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carolina performing arts 11/12 1

OCT 6/7

Water Stains on the Wall – Cloud Gate Dance Theatre of Taiwan

11/12CREATE | PRESENT | CONNECT

carolinaperformingarts.org // (919)843-3333

2011/ 12

Welcome to the 11/12 season. As you have come to expect, this season includes new works by the world’s most inspiring and engaging artists, performers and ensembles.

But this season also begins with incredibly good news: Carolina Performing Arts recently received a $750,000 grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for “The Rite of Spring at 100,” an upcoming project for the 2012-13 season that marks the centennial of this seminal and groundbreaking work.

The Rite of Spring premiered in Paris in 1913, with music by Igor Stravinsky, choreography by Vaslav Nijinsky and performed by the Ballets Russes. Stravinsky and Nijinsky pushed the boundaries of artistic presentation with the use of complex and primitive rhythms, dissonance and shockingly unconventional choreography. Audience members expressed their contempt, and loud arguments drowned out the orchestra. Before long, a full-scale riot had broken out in the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées and police were called to subdue the mayhem. Through “The Rite of Spring at 100” project, we are commissioning 12 new works by 20 artists, by such luminaries as choreographer Bill T. Jones and director Anne Bogart. French composer Marc-Andrew Dalbavie will write a new work for mezzo-soprano Magdalena Kožená and pianist Yefim Bronfman. Uzbek composer Dmitri Yanov-Yanovsky will write a new work for the Silk Road Ensemble with Yo-Yo Ma. More artists will be announced in the ensuing months and we’ll be sure to keep you informed.

Like some of the sentiment at the 1913 premiere of The Rite of Spring, our 11/12 season may also include some work that you may find difficult to understand. Whatever Paris audiences thought on that night in 1913, they witnessed the premiere of one of the most important works of the 20th century. Just think, the performance you are seeing tonight may also share a similar legacy.

Thank you for your support. Please enjoy the performances.

Sincerely,

Emil J. Kang Executive Director for the Arts Director, Carolina Performing Arts Professor of the Practice, Department of Music


ACKNOWLEDGMENTSCarolina Performing Arts gratefully acknowledges the generous contributions of time, energy and resources from many individuals and organizations including the Office of the Provost, Office of the Chancellor, University Advancement, Department of Public Safety, the Faculty Council, Student Body Government and UNC News Services.

Elite Coach is the of ficial transpor tation provider for Carolina Per forming Ar ts’ ar tists.

ADMiNiSTRATivE STAffEmil J. Kang – Executive DirectorKelly Boggs – Audience Services ManagerMichelle Bordner –Director of Artist RelationsPriscilla Bratcher – Director of DevelopmentRebecca Brenner – Marketing & Communications CoordinatorBarbara Call – Finance and Human Resources ManagerAmy Clemmons – Development AssistantReed Colver – Director of Campus & Community EngagementJennifer Cox – Administrative AssistantMary Dahlsten – Box Office ManagerTiffany Dysart – Artistic AssistantButch Garris – Production ManagerErin Hanehan – Artistic Coordinator Kaitlin Houlditch-Fair – Campus & Community Engagement CoordinatorEllen James – Marketing & Communications Manager Matt Johnson – Production ManagerMike Johnson – Director of OperationsSusan Marston – AccountantDan McLamb – Tessitura Systems AdministratorMark Nelson – Director of Marketing & CommunicationsMark Steffen – Events ManagerAaron Yontz – Production Manager

MEMORiAL HALL STuDENT STAffCarolina Performing Arts is grateful for the more than 100 students who work in our Box Office, House and Tech staff. It is their hard work and dedication that make every performance at Memorial Hall a success.

Advertisers Make This Book PossibleThis program book would not be possible without the advertisers who support it. Their patronage means this information is available to you without cost to Carolina Performing Arts. We extend our gratitude and encourage you to thank them, as well.

The Carolina Performing Arts programs are published and designed by Opus 1, inc., in cooperation with Carolina Performing Arts. If you are interested in reaching our audience with your message in the Carolina Performing Arts program book, please call or email Amy Scott or Kristy Timberlake at (919) 834-9441 or [email protected] or [email protected].

8 Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen with Stefan Litwin, piano

12 Allen Toussaint & Mavis Staples

16 Philadanco

20 Anthony Dean Griffey, tenor, with uNC Music faculty

24 Water Stains on the Wall – Cloud Gate Dance Theatre of Taiwan

28 Babel (words) – Eastman, choreography by Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui and Damien Jalet

32 Angélique Kidjo

34 An Evening with Mary Chapin Carpenter

11/12season

38 Donor Spotlight 39 Board, Endowment, Society 40 Donors 47 Important Information 48 Student View 50 The Last Word 51 Advertisers Index

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season11/12

2011/ 12


11/12NOT quiTE SuRE WHAT yOu WANT?Sometimes you don’t know until you see it …DATE NIGHT

Looking for a fun and relaxing evening out? Bring that special someone, then sit back and enjoy.

n Nutcracker – Carolina Ballet

n Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater

n Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen with Stefan Litwin, piano

n Leif Ove Andsnes, piano

n Christian McBride & inside Straight

Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie BremenSept 7/8 |

Christian McBride Leif Ove Andsnes, piano

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater

HIGH ENErGy These shows are energetic and loud; come prepared to get up, stand up, and dance!

n Allen Toussaint & Mavis Staples

n Angélique Kidjo

n Still Black Still Proud – An African Tribute to James Brown

n Béla fleck and the Original flecktones

n Cheikh Lô

Angélique KidjoOct 16 |

Still Black Still Proud Cheikh LôBéla fleck and the Original flecktones


11/12BrEAKTHrOUGH

These cutting edge, avant-garde performances are guaranteed to stir your soul.

n Babel (words) – Eastman, choreography by Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui and Damien Jalet

n Four Electric Ghosts – Mendi + Keith Obadike

n Teatr ZAR – Gospels of Childhood: The Triptych

n Snow White – Ballet Preljocaj

Babel (words)Oct 9/10 |

Four Electric Ghosts Snow WhiteTeatr ZAR

GLOBAL VIEWS

Travel the globe without leaving the Triangle.

n Water Stains on the Wall – Cloud Gate Dance Theatre of Taiwan

n Beckett’s Watt & Endgame – Gate Theatre (ireland)

n Shiva Ganga – Shantala Shivalingappa (india)

n Circa (Australia)

n Göteborg Ballet (Sweden)

CircaMar 20/21 |

Cloud Gate Dance Theatre of Taiwan

Göteborg BalletShantala Shivalingappa


Classical music performances are made possible by the William R. Kenan, Jr. Charitable Trust. We thank the Trustees for their visionary generosity and for encouraging others to support Carolina Performing Arts.

Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen with Stefan Litwin, pianoWednesday, September 7 and Thursday, September 8 at 7:30pm♥

“A sense of spontaneous combustion and ever-dangerous living…”

– The Times, U.K.


Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen

Under Artistic Director Paavo Järvi, Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen is one of Europe’s most distinguished chamber orchestras. As a result of the unprecedented critical acclaim for their Beethoven symphony cycle recorded for Sony BMG, they have given major tours to Japan (2006, 2007 and 2010) and Canada and the U.S. (2005, 2007, 2009 and 2010) as well as numerous performances throughout Europe.

They have performed the entire Beethoven symphony cycle at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, Paris (2009), the Salzburg Festival (2009), Bonn Beethovenfest (2009) and

Beethovenfest, Warsaw (2010), as well as impressing a sold-out Royal Albert Hall with their all-Beethoven concert at the 2010 BBC Proms. They made a welcome return to Japan in 2010 giving a substantial nine-concert tour, including performances with Dutch violinist Janine Jansen. They also gave hugely success-ful Schumann symphony cycles at Izumi Hall, Osaka and at Tokyo Opera City Concert Hall, where they received great acclaim from audi-ences and press alike. More recently, Paavo Järvi and the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen were invited by Valery Gergiev to per-form their Schumann symphony cycle at the White Nights Festival in 2011.

Stefan Litwin

Born in Mexico City, Stefan Litwin studied piano, composition and inter-pretation in the U.S. and Switzerland with Christoph Keller, Jürg Wyttenbach, Herbert Brun, Walter Levin and Charles Rosen. He has appeared with

renowned orchestras under conductors including Christoph von Dohnányi, Michael Gielen and Marek Janowski. In chamber music, he has partnered with Aurèle Nicolet, Bruno Canino, Kolja Blacher, Christian Tetzlaff, Irvine Arditti, Gustav Rivinius, Manuel Fischer-Dieskau, Eduard Brunner, Ib Hausmann, Jörg Widmann, Michael Riessler and the LaSalle, Arditti, Danel, Pellegrini and Minguet String Quartets, and he has performed lieder recitals with Roland Hermann, Henry Herford, Yaron Windmüller, David Moss and Salome Kammer.

Litwin has performed numerous world pre-mieres and has collaborated with composers such as Luigi Nono, Luciano Berio, György Kúrtag, Hans Zender, Dieter Schnebel, Johannes Kalitzke, Jörg Widmann, Heinz Holliger and Michael Gielen. Featured on television and radio broadcasts in Europe and the U.S., he has recorded for Deutsche Grammophon, Auvidis/Montaigne, Arte Nova, Cala Records, telos, cpo, col legno and häns-sler. Current composition projects include a film music score for a UNC documentary on Argentina’s “stolen children,” a work for the German Ensemble Ascolta, and a music theater project based on Heiner Müller’s play Der Horatier.

Stefan Litwin joined UNC-Chapel Hill in 2008 as the George C. Kennedy Distinguished Professor of Music and also teaches contemporary music and interpretation at the Hochschule für Musik Saar, Germany. Last fall, he opened the first season of his lecture-recital series at the Berlin Philharmonie, discussing and performing music by the New Vienna School and its relation-ship to the work of Gustav Mahler. He was a Distinguished Artist in Residence at Cambridge University’s Christ College, U.K. in 2005-06 and a Fellow at the Wissenschaftskolleg Berlin from 2003-05. The Akademie der Künste Berlin has established a Stefan Litwin Archive of his com-positions, recordings, writings, correspondence and original manuscripts.

classical ensemble

SEpT 7/8Wednesday/Thursday, 7:30pm

SEpTEMBEr 7 prOGrAM Symphony No. 49 in F minor (“La Passione”), Hob. I:49 .............................. Franz Joseph Haydn Adagio (1732-1809) Allegro di molto Menuet e Trio Presto

Wind Octet in E-flat major, Op. 103 ............................................................Ludwig van Beethoven Allegro (1770-1827) Andante Menuetto Presto

iNTERMiSSiON

Piano Concerto No. 1 in C major, Op. 15 ....................................................Ludwig van Beethoven Allegro con brio (1770-1827) Largo Rondo – Allegro scherzando

SEpTEMBEr 8 prOGrAM Haydn Symphony No. 80 in D minor, Hob. I:80 ............................................. Franz Joseph Haydn Allegro spiritoso (1732-1809) Adagio Menuetto Finale: Presto Verklärte Nacht (Transfigured Night) for String Orchestra, Op. 4 .................Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951)

iNTERMiSSiON

Piano Concerto No. 3 in C minor, Op. 37 ....................................................Ludwig van Beethoven Allegro con brio (1770-1827) Largo Rondo – Allegro

program


At the age of 22, Ludwig van Beethoven had successfully established himself as a rising star in the music world. A masterful piano player and very gifted in the art of musical improvisation, he was enabled to take leave from his services as court mu-sician in his hometown Bonn in order to pursue further studies in composition with Joseph Haydn in Vienna, one of the capitals of musical culture around 1800. The endeavor was supported by a generous scholarship awarded by Count Waldstein, one of the earliest supporters of Beethoven’s artistic career.

When Beethoven departed from Bonn, Count Waldstein wrote in Beethoven’s auto-graph album: “The Genius of Mozart is mourning and weeping over the death of her pupil. She found a refuge but no occupation with the inexhaustible Haydn; through him she wishes to form a union with another. With the help of assiduous labor you shall receive Mozart’s spirit from Haydn’s hands.”

Indeed, after Mozart’s death, Haydn was hailed as the leading European composer, often called the Shakespeare of music. Since the 1760s, Haydn had transformed the most important musical genres such as the classical symphony or the classical string quartet, and his music was played and admired throughout the entire continent. With his numerous compositions, he was one of the leading forces in the development of the classical musical language. Already in his early symphonies, and even moreso in the later works, Haydn’s music speaks to the listener with great intensity.

Today, the internationally renowned orchestra Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen belongs to the rare chamber orchestras that can convincingly bring the mu-sic to life, and can create the changing effects of joy, sorrow, surprise or glory, so that their performances stun the audience about the richness and the power of Haydn’s music. And certainly, the young Beethoven acquired the craft of composition from Haydn. What’s more, he was quick in developing his own compositional skills. In his Wind Octet in E-flat major, Op. 103, we witness Beethoven’s masterly command of musical language. The exquisite wind players of the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen bring out the entire quality of the composition.

In Vienna, however, Beethoven really skyrocketed, and his excellent skills as pianist propelled his reputation. His piano concertos were presented by himself as soloist to the Viennese audience. And just as these occasions turned into a revelation for the Viennese audience about what is possible in music, for us Stefan Litwin reveals through his playing the artistry of Beethoven’s piano concertos anew. As one critic wrote about Stefan Litwin’s extraordinary performances, one can almost believe Beethoven himself is sitting at the piano.

Arnold Schoenberg’s Transfigured Night was originally set for String Sextet in 1899 and later published as an orchestral work. Here, Schoenberg makes full use of the richness of the orchestral sound and colors to paint the emotional conflict of the piece. The Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen presents this modern piece in the long tradition of the Viennese musical heritage.

Felix Wörner is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Music at UNC.

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Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen

FELIx WörNEr


Wednesday, September 14 at 7:30pm

❉

Allen Toussaint & Mavis Staples

“The pure power of passion and emotion.” – Rolling Stone


Allen Toussaint, piano Herman LeBeaux, saxophoneRenard Poché, guitarRoland Guerin, bass

Mavis Staples, lead vocalsyvonne Staples, background vocalsDonny Gerrard, background vocalsStephen Hodges, drumsRick Holmstrom, guitar, background vocalsvicki Randle, background vocals, percussionJeff Turmes, bass, guitar, background vocals

Allen Toussaint

2010 Grammy nominee Allen Toussaint, one of the most influential figures in New Orleans R&B, has produced, written for, arranged, had his songs covered by, and performed with music giants The Judds, Paul McCartney, Paul Simon, Elvis Costello, Patti LaBelle, Dr. John, Aaron and Art Neville, Joe Cocker, the original Meters, Glen Campbell, The Band, Little Feat, The Rolling Stones, Devo, Ernie K-Doe, Lee Dorsey, Irma Thomas, Etta James, Ramsey Lewis, Eric Gale and countless others. His songs and productions have been featured in numerous films including Casino, Moulin Rouge and Maid in Manhattan.

In his early 20s, he produced an amazing string of hits for Minit Records, producing, writing, arranging and performing on tracks by Ernie K-Doe, Irma Thomas, Art and Aaron Neville, Chris Kenner and Benny Spellman, putting his signature New Orleans sound on the map. His solo career began with RCA. Two of his earliest tunes – “Java,” which became a mega-hit for trumpeter Al Hirt, and “Whipped Cream,” the Herb Alpert hit – be-came standards. Toussaint then teamed up with Lee Dorsey, often backed by The Meters, turning out a string of hits including “Working in the Coalmine,” “Holy Cow” and “Ride Your Pony.” “Working in the Coalmine” was then recorded by The Judds, “Yes We Can” became a smash hit for The Pointer Sisters, and “Sneaking Sally Thru the Alley” was re-corded by Robert Palmer and by Ringo Starr. Toussaint arranged Patti LaBelle’s hit “Lady

Marmalade” and received a Grammy nomina-tion for 1977’s song of the year “Southern Night,” performed by Glen Campbell.

With a career spanning 40 years and induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, recent ac-colades include the Grammy-nominated pop/vocal album of the year, The River in Reverse – Toussaint’s collaboration with Elvis Costello.

Mavis Staples

2011 Grammy winner Mavis Staples is a Rock and Roll Hall of Famer, a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winner and a National Heritage Fellowship Award recipient. VH1 named her one of the 100 Greatest Women of Rock and Roll, and Rolling Stone listed her as one of the 100 Greatest Singers of All Time. With her bold new album You Are Not Alone, the legendary vocalist adds a remarkable new chapter to a historic career.

Released more than 60 years after she began singing with her groundbreaking family group The Staple Singers, the album follows her 2009 Grammy-nominated Hope at the Hideout and We’ll Never Turn Back, her acclaimed 2007 collection of civil rights movement songs. It stakes out surprising new territory for Staples by matching her with producer Jeff Tweedy, who also leads Wilco. Some of Tweedy’s choices, which would form the emotional core of You Are Not Alone, took Staples back to her earliest memories. She recalls her father, pioneering guitarist Roebuck “Pops” Staples, playing such tradi-tional gospel songs as “Creep Along Moses” and “Wonderful Savior” on “those big ol’ 78 records” for the family. “I couldn’t believe it,” she says. “Those are songs I grew up with – I never thought I would be recording them.” They also chose songs by her late father, songs by blues and soul icons Allen Toussaint, Little Milton and the Reverend Gary Davis and pop masters Randy Newman and John Fogerty, and songs that Tweedy wrote for her. You Are Not Alone caps an incredible decade for Mavis Staples, a resurgence that saw her receive Grammy nominations in blues, gospel, folk and pop categories.

roots

SEpT 14Wednesday, 7:30pm

Program will be announced from stage.


A few years ago, as the keyboard player for an R&B band in New York, I discovered that many of the songs in our book were traceable to one “Crescent City” source: Allen Toussaint. “I Know,” “Lipstick Traces,” “I Like It Like That,” “Sneaking Sally Through the Alley” were all part of Toussaint’s “Hit Parade.” Of course, I was not familiar with the original recordings by Barbara George, Benny Spellmen, Chris Kenner, or Lee Dorsey, but the cover versions of these Toussaint written, or produced R&B classics.

The New Orleans native best explained my initial failure to connect him with the afore-mentioned tunes: “I’m a producer, musician, studio sideman, and not a star performer.” Working in one of those capacities brought Toussaint in contact with Irma Thomas, Ernie K-Doe, The Meters (the house band for Sansu, Toussaint’s production company), LaBelle (“Lady Marmalade”), Dr. John (“Right Place, Wrong Time”), Elvis Costello (2006’s Grammy nominated The River in Reverse), Eric Clapton (2010’s Clapton), and the list goes on.

Toussaint spent the early part of his career producing artists for the Minit label. His ability to mix the influences of New Orleans piano stalwarts Fats Domino and Professor Longhair proved successful. Toussaint’s piano playing marked these tracks with the unmistakable sound of New Orleans riffs and rhumba-infused grooves. Although his name may not be widely known, Toussaint’s contributions to New Orleans music, and pop music in general, earned him a spot in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame class of 1998.

In 2005, Toussaint paired with Mavis Staples, along with Irma Thomas, Ann Peebles, and Billy Preston for the album I Believe To My Soul. Like Toussaint, the career of Mavis Staples began in the 1950s. In 1951, Roebuck “Pop” Staples (1914-2000), formed a fam-ily gospel quartet with his children called The Staples Singers. Success for the group came in 1956 with the release of “Uncloudy Day.” By the mid-1960s, R&B and Soul influenced the groups’ sound, and they signed with Stax Records in 1967. In 1971, The Staples Singers achieved popular and critical success with the songs “Respect Yourself,” “I’ll Take You There,” and “Heavy Makes You Happy.” The ensuing years found the group working with Curtis Mayfield, Mavis recording for Prince’s label as a soloist, while Pops released acclaimed solo albums into the 1990s. In 1999, The Staples Singers were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

The gospel and blues roots of The Staples Singers runs deep. These roots are audible on Mavis’ 2010 album You Are Not Alone. Jeff Tweedy, from Wilco, produced, and co-wrote the title track for this Grammy nominated release. About Tweedy’s song selection, includ-ing Toussaint’s “Last Train,” Staples said, “It was a feeling of pure joy to be singing the songs I sang when I was young….I’m still here, and this is what Tweedy has really done for me – he gave me a chance to be a kid again.”

There is no doubt that this evenings concert will be good for your soul!

Chris Reali is a third-year doctoral musicology student at UNC. His research interests center around popular music, R&B and Soul music.

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CHrIS rEALI

Allen Toussaint & Mavis Staples


PHiLADANCO friday, September 23 at 8pm♥

“Fierce and sensuous…” – New York Magazine


Joan Myers Brown – Founder and Executive Artistic Director

Dancers

Rosita Adamo LaMar Baylor, Janine Beckles Heather Benson Jeroboam Bozeman Justin Bryant Chloé O. Davis Tommie-Waheed Evans Jason Herbert, Lindsey Holmes Joan Kilgore Alicia Lundgren Roxanne Lyst, Ruka Hatua-Saar White

Philadanco

Philadelphia’s premiere modern dance company, Philadanco was created in 1970 to address the lack of opportunities for minor-ity dancers in the Delaware Valley. In the 41 years since then, Philadanco has advanced from a small community-based company to an internationally renowned institution with a reputation for promoting new and emerging dance talent. The Philadanco Instruction and Training program has earned national recogni-tion for providing world-class dance instruction taught by internationally renowned instructors at nominal to nonexistent fees. In addition to mentoring and promoting young dancers and choreographers, the company provides studio space to small companies and independent artists at low or no cost, and was the first company in Philadelphia to offer low-cost housing to dancers. Philadanco’s dancers receive exquisite training in a wide range of dance idioms, young predominantly African-American choreographers are cultivated and supported, and seasoned, critically acclaimed choreographic work is preserved through Philadanco’s programming. The resident mod-ern dance company of the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, Philadanco is a pillar of the Philadelphia arts community and one that serves as a distinguished cultural ambassador around the globe. With all of the company’s artistic achievements, Philadanco has never lost sight of its mission to “present the highest quality of professional dance performance and

dance

SEpT 23Friday, 8pm

prOGrAM Watching Go By, The Day

Choreographer: Hope Boykin | Assistant to Choreographer: LaMar BaylorLighting Designer: Albert Crawford | Costume Designer: Hope BoykinComposer: Ali Jackson | Performed by the Ali Jackson Quintet: James Burton, Xavier Davis, Ali Jackson, Bruce Williams, Ben Wolfe Commissioned by Carolina Performing Arts, Watching Go By, The Day was originally created for Philadanco, The Philadelphia Dance Company, choreographed by Hope Boykin with an original score by Ali Jackson. | Phil. 4:13

PAuSE

Bolero Too Choreographer: Christopher L. Huggins | Music: RavelAssistant to Choreographer: Kayoko AmemiyaCostume Design: Christopher Huggins | Costume Execution: Natasha GurulevaLighting Design: Clifton TaylorA full company piece, Bolero Too, according to choreographer Christopher Huggins, is “electric, physical and sizzling.” Set to a powerful musical score by Ravel and carved by Mr. Huggins with a choreographic Spanish flare style, Bolero Too speaks to relationships between men and women, who they are, how they interact with one another, and the trust factor. It’s sure to keep you on the edge of your seat.

iNTERMiSSiON

By Way of the funk Choreographer: Jawole Willa Jo ZollarAssistants to Ms. Zollar: Marjani Forté & Catherine Dénécy | Music: Parliament FunkadelicsLighting Design: Clifton Taylor | Lighting Assistant: Melody BealCostume Design & Execution: Anna-Alisa Belous

How We Got to the funk An exploration of music and movement from the ’50s to the ’70s.

Cool Baby, Cool Minimalism as only cool can embody.

By Way of the Drum This explores the hotter side of funk with hard-edged soul singers, revisiting the ’70s, concert style.

By Way of the Funk is a new work that harnesses the energy and culture of funk music. The music is the Funkadelics and Parliament. This four-part work is a joyous celebration of 40 years of Philadanco’s existence. As it says in the song, “funk not only moves, it removes, dig.” These words are emblematic of the way funk music makes you want to get up out of your seat and dance and forget about your troubles.

This work uses the entire company as a way to honor the legacy of achievement of Joan Myers Brown and Philadanco.

Funding for this ballet was the co-commission of the Kimmel Center, Incorporated and the August Wilson Center for African American Culture in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and funded in part by the National Dance Project of the New England Foundation for the Arts, with lead funding from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. Additional funding provided by the Ford Foundation, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Community Connections Fund of the MetLife Foundation.

PAuSE

Enemy Behind the Gates Choreographer: Christopher L. Huggins | Assistant to Mr. Huggins: Kayoko AmemiyaMusic: Steve Reich | Costume Design: Christopher L. HugginsCostume Execution: Natasha GurulevaLighting Design: William H. Grant, III | Lighting Execution: Melody Beal

Enemy Behind the Gates was inspired by enemies within our midst. THEY LOOK LIKE YOU. THEY ACT LIKE YOU. THEY LIVE LIKE YOU BUT, THEY ARE NOT ONE OF YOU. The Gate is not invincible but it’s yours to secure. Set to the burning music of Steve Reich and danced by the explosive energy of Philadanco.

The creation of Enemy Behind the Gates is sponsored by Altria Group, Inc. Additional funding from Dolfinger-McMahon Foundation and an anonymous donor also made this work possible.

Philadanco is represented by Baylin Artists Management Inc., 196 West Ashland Street, Suite 201, Doylestown, PA 18901

program


Philadanco is an amazing story of survival and success. It is a testament to the vision of one woman, Joan Myers Brown, a powerhouse in the world of modern dance. Ms. Brown is part of that elite circle of African-Americans such as Alvin Ailey and Arthur Mitchell of Dance Theatre of Harlem. Their efforts have helped to develop an avenue for young black dancers to achieve the same pinnacle of success as others in the dance world through performance opportunities and above all, superb training.

I first heard of Philadanco many years ago as a young dancer. I was excited to find out that modern dance for young black dancers was not only happening in New York with Alvin Ailey, it was happening in Philadelphia as well. As I think about it, trying to create a dance company outside of the nucleus of the dance world, New York City, was auda-cious indeed. But Joan Myers Brown recognized a deep passion for movement and for serious training in young African American community. This passion for movement is indigenous to African-American culture. She tapped into it boldly and we see dancing that reminiscent of the passion one sees in the Ailey Dance Company performances. You feel t is an energy that bursts forth out of need. It can only be expressed through dance. Ms. Brown’s myriad roles as teacher, choreographer, mentor and, yes, mother at times, is the backbone of this company. Her herculean efforts have been the force which has been driving this company towards it half century mark

Joan Myers Brown’s relentless directing is a continual personal and hands on process that insures Philadanco’s growth and survival. Her company is a significant part of sus-taining the black tradition in modern dance. It is important that it is a repertory company. From the beginning, Ms. Brown invited the choreography of major African-American choreographers. This has had a two way impact. It has enriched the artistry of her danc-ers and given them a diverse learning experience. At the same time, it has insured that traditional works survive and it supports the new works of emerging choreographers. A dancer in Philadanco can grow immensely as a result of learning the past works of modern dance great, Talley Beatty as well as the awesome contemporary work of Jawole Willa Jo Zollar.

At the core of these performances is the training. That is what makes Philadanco’s ath-leticism and technical mastery possible. Joan Myers Brown as well as Ailey and Mitchell, have enjoyed their companies’ success because they have also invested in schools which are attached to their companies. Hope Boykin is a product of Ms. Brown’s investment, and other teachers before her. She has come full cycle – a beautiful performer who is able to pass on the baton through teaching and successfully developing her unique voice as a choreographer. And she is able to give back to the company which nurtured her artistry.

Thankfully, it is a different world today where black dancers, thanks to Ms. Brown and others, have now proven their ability to compete and are able to dance with whatever company they choose. Dancers have emerged from the Philadanco experience, beauti-fully trained and importantly, prepared to “SAY SOMETHING “ with their bodies, as Modern dance pioneer, Doris Humphrey, wrote.

And Philadanco is speaking boldly to audiences of all peoples.

Marian Turner Hopkins is a lecturer of modern dance technique and history in the UNC Department of Exercise and Sport Science. She is founder and faculty adviser for the UNC Modernextension Dance Company.

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MArIAN TUrNEr HOpKINS

improve the skills of emerging and professional dancers and choreographers in a nurturing en-vironment, while increasing the appreciation of dance among its many communities.”

Hope Boykin

Durham native Hope Boykin studied with Jennifer Potts and Nina Wheeler and was a three-time recipient of the American Dance Festival’s Young Tuition Scholarship. While attending Howard University, she trained and

danced with Lloyd Whitmore, artistic director of the New World Dance Company. In New York, she studied at The Ailey School, worked as as-sistant to choreographers Milton Myers and the late Talley Beatty, and was an original member of Complexions. She joined Philadanco in 1994, and in 1998, Hope was honored with a Bessie Award.

Since joining Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in 2000, she has presented choreography for Lincoln Center Outdoors Summer Festival, the Thelma Hill Performing Arts Center in Brooklyn, and E-Moves at Aaron Davis Hall in Harlem. In collaboration with Matthew Rushing, Hope presented the MOMENTUM Dance Project, which premiered in Sinoloa, Mexico in 2002. She collaborated with Mr. Rushing and Abdur-Rahim Jackson on Acceptance In Surrender for Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater’s 2005 New York City Center season. And in 2007, the Victory Over Parkinson’s concert, Ms. Boykin presented her work to the original symphony A Calendar of Dances by Greg Rice.

Hope choreographed Go In Grace, a col-laboration with Grammy Award-winning Sweet Honey In The Rock, for the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater’s 50th Anniversary Celebration. She has also created works for Dallas Black Dance Theatre, Minnesota Dance Theatre and Philadanco, the Philadelphia Dance Company.

Christopher L. Huggins

Christopher L. Huggins is a former member of the renowned Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. Originally from Boston, Huggins trained under Andrea Herbert Major, Danny Sloan and Martha

Gray. He attended SUNY Purchase, The Julliard School, and was a fellowship student at The Ailey School. Huggins appeared as a guest art-ist for several dance companies in the United States an abroad.

PHiLADANCO


As a master teacher and choreographer, he works in Europe, Japan, Korea and throughout the United States. He has taught countless master classes and workshops at universi-ties and dance institutions including Howard University in Washington, DC, Spelman College in Atlanta, University of the Arts in Philadelphia, and Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo. Huggins, a much sought-after choreographer, has created ballets for numerous companies including Dallas Black Dance Theatre, Ailey II, Philadanco, Cleo Parker Robinson Dance, Broadway Dance Center of Tokyo and Oslo Dance Ensemble in Norway. He is a 2002 and 2008 recipient of the Ira Aldridge Award for Best Choreography from the Black Theatre Alliance in Chicago for his work Enemy Behind the Gates and Pyrokinesis. He also worked on several projects for Disney in Orlando.

Huggins is a silver medalist from the Seoul International Contemporary Dance Competition, resident choreographer at Duke Ellington High School for the Arts in Washington, DC, and served as Artist in Residence for The Ailey School in 2009. He was the choreographer for the 50th Anniversary Opening Night Gala for the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and is currently a faculty member at The Ailey School.

Jawole Willa Jo Zollar

Born and raised in Kansas City, Missouri, Jawole Willa Jo Zollar trained with Joseph Stevenson, a student of the legendary Katherine Dunham. After earning her BA in dance from the University of Missouri at

Kansas City, she moved to New York City in 1980 to study with Dianne McIntyre at Sounds in Motion. Four years later, she founded Urban Bush Women (UBW) in 1984 as a performance ensemble dedicated to exploring the use of cul-tural expression as a catalyst for social change. Jawole received her MFA in dance from Florida State University and is the Nancy Smith Fichter tenured professor in FSU’s dance department. In addition to the 33 works created for Urban Bush Women, Jawole’s choreography is part of the repertory of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Philadanco and Dayton Contemporary Dance Company, among others.

Jawole burst onto the scene and made an indel-ible mark on the field by challenging assump-tions about body types, styles of movement, appropriate content and the role of community in creation. Still dancing, she is an innovator in the vanguard of dance. Jawole was invited to par-ticipate in a meeting the White House convened

on using creative and collaborative approaches to community building and civic engagement. With FLY: Five First Ladies of Dance presented by 651 Arts, Jawole was featured as a leading influential dancer/choreographer on a program that included her mentor Dianne McIntyre, her collaborator Germaine Acogny, Carmen de Lavallade and Bebe Miller.

Ali Jackson, Jr.

Ali Jackson has performed and recorded with some of the world’s finest art-ists including Wynton Marsalis, Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Aretha Franklin, George Benson,

Harry Connick Jr., KRS-1, Marcus Roberts, Cyrus Chestnut, Reginald Veal, James Carter, Joshua Redman, Brad Mehldau, Vinx, conductor Seiji Ozawa, Diana Krall and the New York City Ballet. His production talent is featured on George Benson’s 2005 release Irreplaceable and he performs on the Wynton Marsalis Quartet’s The Magic Hour. He appears with the Wynton Marsalis Quintet, the Ali Jackson Quartet and

Horns in the Hood. He has hosted the Jammin’ with Jackson young musicians series at Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola and do-nated his time to hurricane relief performances for NBC, CNN and Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Higher Ground Relief Concert. He is the voice of Duck Ellington, a character in the Penguin book series Baby Loves Jazz, and appeared in Apple’s 2006 iPod Ad campaign Sparks. TV appearances include Conan O’Brien with the Eldar trio, The View with the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra and The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. His playing is also heard in Bolden, a film about the beginnings of jazz. Recently, Ali was featured on Two Men With The Blues, a Blue Note release with Wynton Marsalis and Willie Nelson.

Ali won numerous recognitions and scholarships as a child and was selected as soloist for the Beacons Of Jazz concert honoring the legendary Max Roach at New School University. Following an undergraduate degree in music composition at the New School University for Contemporary Music, he studied with Elvin Jones and Max Roach. Committed to education for young people, he has been part of Young Audiences, educating New York City youth about jazz.


Classical music performances are made possible by the William R. Kenan, Jr. Charitable Trust. We thank the Trustees for their visionary generosity and for encouraging others to support Carolina Performing Arts.

Anthony Dean Griffey, tenor

Thursday, September 29 at 7:30pm♥

“Technique, musicianship and poetry in his soul…”

– The Boston Globe

Warren Jones, pianoTerry Ellen Rhodes, sopranoRichard Luby, violin

Leah Peroutka, violinHugh Partridge, violaBrent Wissick, cello


Anthony Dean Griffey, tenor

Four-time Grammy Award-winning Anthony Dean Griffey has captured critical and popular acclaim on opera, concert and recital stages around the world. His beautiful and powerful lyric tenor voice, gift of dramatic interpretation and superb musicianship have earned him the highest praise from critics and audiences alike.

He has performed leading roles at the great international opera houses including The Metropolitan Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, San Francisco Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Glyndebourne, Opéra National de Paris and Teatro Comunale di Firenze. He is a regular guest of the world’s great orchestras and festivals and has collaborated with many of

classical recital

SEpT 29Thursday, 7:30pm

programSEpTEMBEr 29 prOGrAM Come again ................................................................................................................ John Dowland What if I never speed (1563-1626) Fine knacks for ladies

Three Poems by Fiona MacLeod, Op. 11 ............................................................ Charles T. Griffes The Lament of Ian the Proud (1884-1920) Thy Dark Eyes to Mine The Rose of the Night

Barcarolle, Op. 6, No. 1

Three Songs, Op. 10 ................................................................................................Samuel Barber Rain has fallen (1910-1981) Sleep now I hear an army

iNTERMiSSiON

On Wenlock Edge ......................................................................................Ralph Vaughan-Williams I. On Wenlock Edge (1872-1958) II. From far, from eve and morning III. Is my team ploughing IV. Oh, when I was in love with you V. Bredon Hill VI. Clun

Anything You Can Do .....................................................................................................Irving Berlin (1888-1989)

Without a Song .....................................................................................................Vincent Youmans (1898-1946)

Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off ......................................................George Gershwin (1898-1937) and Ira Gershwin (1896-1983)

Over the Rainbow .........................................................................................................Harold Arlen (1905-1986)

today’s pre-eminent conductors, including James Levine, Seiji Ozawa, André Previn, Michael Tilson Thomas, Sir Andrew Davis, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Alan Gilbert, Kurt Masur, Donald Runnicles, Sir Colin Davis, Christoph Eschenbach, Valery Gergiev, James Conlon and Charles Dutoit.

In 2011-12, Griffey makes several important role debuts: as Tichon in Janáček’s Katya Kabanová directed by David Alden and conducted by Graeme Jenkins; as the Male Chorus in a new production of Britten’s The Rape of Lucretia at Houston Grand Opera; and as Lensky in Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin with Opera Carolina. He will also reprise the role of Lennie

in Carlisle Floyd’s Of Mice and Men with Opera Australia. Symphonic highlights include Mahler’s Eighth Symphony with the Orquesta Nacional de España, Britten’s War Requiem with the Eugene Concert Choir, and recitals with the Art Song Festival in Berea, Ohio and with Music for a Great Space in Greensboro, NC.

Recordings include Britten’s Peter Grimes at the Metropolitan Opera (EMI Classics on DVD), Weill’s The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny with the Los Angeles Opera (Euroarts), Britten’s War Requiem with Saito Kinen Orchestra and Seiji Ozawa, conductor, Deems Taylor’s Peter Ibbetson with the Seattle Symphony, Mahler’s Symphony No. 8 with the San Francisco Symphony, Britten’s War Requiem with the London Philharmonic, André Previn’s A Streetcar Named Desire, Poulenc’s Les Mamelles de Tirésias, Verdi’s I Lombardi with James Levine, Amy Beach’s Cabildo and Carlisle Floyd’s Of Mice and Men with the Houston Grand Opera.

Warren Jones, piano

Named 2010’s Collaborative Pianist of the Year by Musical America, Warren Jones performs with many of today’s best-known art-ists including Stephanie Blythe, Denyce Graves, Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, Anthony Dean Griffey, Ruth

Ann Swenson, Bo Skovhus, Samuel Ramey, James Morris, John Relyea, Joseph Alessi and Richard “Yongjae” O’Neill, and has partnered with such great performers as Marilyn Horne, Kathleen Battle and Barbara Bonney. He is principal pianist for Camerata Pacifica.

He has often been a guest artist at Carnegie Hall and in Lincoln Center’s Great Performers Series, as well as in the festivals of Tanglewood, Ravinia and Caramoor. His travels have taken him to re-citals at the Salzburg Festival, Milan’s Teatro alla Scala, the Maggio Musicale Festival in Florence, the Teatro Fenice in Venice, Paris’ Théâtre des Champs-Elysées and Opéra Bastille, Wigmore Hall and Queen Elizabeth Hall in London, the Konzerthaus in Vienna, Suntory Hall in Tokyo, the Cultural Centre in Hong Kong and theaters throughout Scandinavia and Korea. Recent sea-sons have included his debut with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center in a work commissioned for him and Stephanie Blythe:


Covered Wagon Woman by Alan Louis Smith. In addition to performances with the Borromeo and Brentano Quartets, he has been heard at the New York Philharmonic in the Sextet of Ernst von Dohnanyi, and has participated regularly in the annual Marilyn Horne Foundation gala festivities at Carnegie Hall.

His extensive discography includes more than 25 recordings, the latest a compilation of new songs by American composer Lori Laitman on the Albany label. He can be heard on every major record label in repertory from Schubert and Brahms to the more esoteric compositions of Gretchaninoff, Clarke and Smit, as well as contemporary works by Harbison and others.

richard Luby, violin

Richard Luby has ap-peared as soloist with the Orquesta Sinfónica de Xalapa of Mexico, National Radio Orchestra of Poland, the Rochester Philharmonic, the North Carolina Symphony, the National Symphony,

the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Detroit Symphony. He has given recitals of the complete works for violin and piano of Ives, Prokofiev, Brahms and Stravinsky as well as the Sonatas for violin and harpsichord of J.S. Bach and the Sonatas and Partitas of Bach, on baroque and modern violin. His recording credits include two sets of Haydn Trios on the Arabesque label, Bach Concerti on Society Records and Bach Sonatas and Partitas for Unaccompanied Baroque Violin recorded for BBC broadcast by Meridian Records.

Mr. Luby has performed throughout the world as a member of the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century of Amsterdam, and as conductor/soloist with orchestras in Spain, Mexico, Cuba and the United States. He has been a guest clinician at universities and con-servatories throughout the United States and Mexico, Spain, Cuba and People’s Republic of China. His students have attended the Curtis and Cleveland Institutes of Music, Juilliard, Rice, Indiana and Florida State, among others.

Hugh partridge, viola

Hugh Partridge has taught viola at UNC-Chapel Hill since 1996. He was principal violist with the North Carolina Symphony for 30 years (1976-2006) and is the artistic director of the Philharmonic Association and conductor of the Triangle Youth Philharmonic, the official youth orchestra of the North Carolina Symphony. Upon graduation from Indiana University, where

he studied with William Primrose, Partridge won the position of principal violist with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra and joined the faculty of Butler University. In 1970, he was appointed Professor of Viola and Chamber Music at Wichita State University, where he organized and directed the internationally recognized Viola Collective and served as principal violist of the Wichita Symphony.

He has appeared as principal violist in many sum-mer music festivals including the Brevard Music Center and the Santa Fe Opera Orchestra, and as a guest artist with the San Luis Obispo Mozart Festival, the Sun River Music Festival and the New Approach Chamber Players of Sarasota, Florida. In 2003, he received the Raleigh Medal of Arts in recognition of his “extraordinary achievement in the arts.” In 2005, he was awarded the Maxine Swalin Outstanding Music Educator Award in recognition of his service to the community as a role model in music education, instilling a love for music in children and inspiring students to reach high musical standards.

Leah peroutka, violin

Leah Peroutka holds degrees from UNC-Chapel Hill (BM 2007) and the Cleveland Institute of Music (MM 2009). She is a substitute violinist with the North Carolina Symphony and performs regularly with the Carolina Philharmonic,

Western Piedmont Symphony and others as well as maintaining an active chamber music schedule. Ms. Peroutka performs on baroque violin throughout North Carolina. She has par-ticipated in master classes with the Academy of Ancient Music, Jordi Savall and members of Apollo’s Fire, among others. She is a founding member of GEM Baroque, based in Greensboro, NC. Her principal teachers have included David Updegraff, Richard Luby and Joanne Bath, and on baroque violin, Brent Wissick and Julie Andrijeski. She currently serves on the faculty of UNC-Chapel Hill as a lecturer in violin per-formance in addition to maintaining a private studio at her home in Chapel Hill.

Terry Ellen rhodes, soprano

Chair of the music depart-ment, professor of music and opera director at UNC-Chapel Hill (the latter for the past 24 years), Terry Ellen Rhodes has performed throughout the US, Latin America and Europe,

appearing in more than 20 nations in repertoire spanning opera, oratorio, art song and musical theater. A native of Raleigh, NC, she has received numerous grants and awards including a Fulbright Artist-in-Residence/Lecturer position at the Conservatory of Music in Skopje, Macedonia in 1993, an IAH Chapman Fellowship, an IAH Academic Leadership Fellowship and a Lilly grant.

Especially known for her work in the contem-porary music arena, she has premiered a number of works written specifically for her and has recorded two warmly received CDs on the Albany label. She teaches and performs in Italy every summer. As UNC Opera director, she has furthered the cause of new music, producing and directing a number of regional and world premieres. Under her tutelage, the group has performed more than 30 complete operas and 17 scenes programs, with music ranging from the baroque to the contemporary. UNC Opera also performs in area public schools on a regu-lar basis. Dr. Rhodes holds the DMA and MM from the Eastman School of Music and the BM from UNC-Chapel Hill.

Brent Wissick, cello

Brent Wissick is the Zachary Taylor Smith Distinguished Professor of Music at UNC-Chapel Hill, where he teaches cello, viola da gamba and early music ensembles. A member of Ensemble Chanterelle and the Atlanta

Baroque Orchestra, he is a frequent guest with the Dallas Bach Society Folger Consort, Concert Royal, Smithsonian Consort of Viols, Boston Early Music Festival and American Bach Soloists as well as Collegio di Musica Sacra in Poland. He was an NEH Fellow at Harvard, taught at the Aston Magna Academy at Yale and served as chair of Higher Education for Early Music America.

A former student of John Hsu at Cornell University, he has performed and taught at many of the important schools, workshops and festivals in North America, Australia, Europe and Asia. His recording of Sonatas and Cantatas by Bononcini was released by Centaur and his online video article about them has been pub-lished by the Journal of Seventeenth-Century Music. He has also recorded for Albany, Titanic, Dux, Radio-Bremen and Koch International. He is Past President of the Viola da Gamba Society of America, having served as President from 2000-04, and was chair of the 2007 Pan-Pacific Gamba Gathering, of which he has been a board member since 1986.


“Are you nervous?” is the first question Anthony Dean Griffey asks his students as they stand up to sing for his master classes. Their answer is inevitably a shy, “Yes!”

Mr. Griffey then asks a more difficult question: “Why?”

The student usually waffles and then launches into the hesitations all singers feel about performance: self-consciousness, fear of being judged, embarrassment about friends, colleagues or a teacher being in the room, worry about being un-prepared, or any number of other butterfly-inducing emotions, including awe. “Mr. Griffey, you’re a world famous opera superstar!”

Anyone who meets my friend and colleague, tenor “Tony” Griffey for the first time is inevitably impressed. He is, indeed, an “opera superstar,” one of the world’s finest interpreters of the music of Benjamin Britten as well as many of the best-known living American composers. He sings with the world’s finest singers and conductors. Despite all this, Tony remains the warmest, most generous of people. It is the com-bination of his towering stature and frank open demeanor that immediately strikes us. This great and famous performer admits that both as a singer and teacher, he still gets nervous.

Singing lives at the core of the human spirit. To open the voice is to open a portal that travels into the depths of a soul. There are many singers in the world, celebrated singers, who, despite their technical prowess, don’t illuminate these depths. When I hear Tony sing, I have the sense that his voice is a light he is shining deep down, at times warm as a candle; at times dazzling, with a clarion brightness that floods us with light. His voice is always commanding yet has humane vulnerability. His whole body participates in every passionate word he sings, and sings openly and naturally..

Tony and I come from the same family of teachers: he studied with the late, brilliant Beverly Peck Johnson. I studied with her protégé Rita Shane. He recalls Mrs. Johnson fondly and often to students: “Sing to express, not to impress!” a signature phrase of hers. These mentoring words are a daily mantra for my own teaching and singing.

When Tony came to hear my recent performance as the Governess in Britten’s Turn of the Screw, I found myself feeling the same fluttering pangs of nervousness that his students, my students, all artists experience. The premier interpreter of Britten’s oeuvre was out there waiting to hear me! After the show, backstage, as Tony gave me an enveloping teddy bear hug of congratulations, I felt wrapped in the same warmth that his singing gives all who hear him. Once again I realized the truth of a master’s advice. By singing to express, I had impressed a master.

Now we are about to be given the gift of hearing Tony Griffey. We are in for a won-drous journey. A journey to the depths. But we have nothing to be nervous about. The commander of our ship is a master.

Andrea Edith Moore, soprano, is a lecturer of voice in the Department of Music at UNC and an active singer in the U.S. and abroad.

oN

ANDrEA EDITH MOOrE

Anthony Dean Griffey


Water Stains on the Wall – Cloud Gate Dance Theatre of TaiwanThursday, October 6 at 7:30pm and friday, October 7 at 8pmm

photo credit:Dancers: KO Wan-chun TSAI Ming-yuanPerformed by Cloud Gate Dance Theatre of Taiwan | Photo by LIU Chen-hsiang

“Asia’s leading contemporary dance theatre.” – The Times (UK)


program Notes

The virtuosity of Cloud Gate’s dancers has prompted critics to ask, “When has one ever seen a company with such magical and beauti-ful bodies?” (Neues Deutschland) and gasp that they “possess a control and articulation that verge on the superhuman. These are per-formers who can make stillness every bit as eloquent as animation…they have the power to change your metabolism” (Chicago Sun Times). In his new work, Water Stains on the Wall, Lin Hwai-min challenges his dancers with the daunting task of dancing on a tilted stage with an eight-degree inclination.

Covered with white Marley, the entire set looks like a blank piece of rice paper traditionally used by Chinese calligraphers and painters, onto which negative images of drifting clouds in different shades of black are projected. With movements reminiscent of free-flowing ink, these ever-morphing clouds create exquisite spaces that are constantly shifting, bringing Chinese landscape ink painting to life on stage.

Accompanied by the renowned contemporary Japanese composer Toshio Hosokawa’s Zen-like music using traditional Asian instruments, Cloud Gate dancers whirl and leap high on the slanted space with deceptive ease. Firmly grounded on the ramp at a height of 1.25 me-ters, yet appearing to be floating all the time, the dancers give the illusion of clouds and water as their light skirts are frequently “dyed” black by the projected shadows and reappear in shining white light.

The title of the work derives from a legend-ary conversation between two of the most respected Chinese calligraphers from the Tang Dynasty (618–907):

“Where do you get inspirations for your calligraphic style?” asked Yen Chen-ching, whose signature style of Kai script brought Chinese calligraphy to new heights.

“I observe summer clouds that re-semble mountains with spectacular peaks,” replied Huai Su, the young monk who later became the most renowned master of wild cursive style. “The most exciting parts remind one of birds flying out of woods and snakes slithering into bushes….”

“How about water stains on the wall?” asked Yen Chen-ching.

special event

OCT 6/7Thursday, 7:30pm/Friday, 8pm

cloud gate dance foundation

Honorary ChairmanLEE Yuan-tseh

Board of DirectorsHONG Min-hong HSU Chia-shih HSU Sheng-hsiung KO Wen-changBarry LIM LIN Hwai-min Stan SHIH TSAI Hong-tu TSENG Fang-churngWANG Chi-mei WANG Wing-hung WEN Huei-wen Diane YING

Executive DirectorYEH Wen-wen

cloud gate dance foundationFounder /Artistic Director ..........................................................................................LIN Hwai-minAssociate Artistic Director .................................................................................... LEE Ching-chunMusic Consultant/ Creative Assistant to Mr. Lin .................................................. LIANG Chun-meiChi Kung Master........................................................................................................... HSIUNG WeiInternal Martial Arts Master ................................................................................... Adam Chi HSUCalligraphy Master ................................................................................................ HUANG Wei-jongBallet Teachers .....................................................................................LEE Shu-hui WU Ching-yinRehearsal Director ..............................................................................................CHOU Chang-ningRehearsal Assistants .........................................YANG I-chun HUANG Pei-hua TSAI Ming-yuanMedical Consultant .............................................................................................. CHOU Ching-longAccompanists .................................................................................. Holy CHANG KUO Tsung-han

DancersCHOU Chang-ning, HUANG Pei-hua, LEE Ching-chun, TSAI Ming-yuanCHIU I-wen, KO Wan-chun, LIN Chia-liang, LIU Hui-ling, SU I-pingWANG Chih-hao, WONG Lap-cheong, YANG I-chun, YU Chien-hungHOU Tang-li, HUANG Mei-ya, LEE Tzu-chun, LIN Hsin-fang

ApprenticesCHEN Mu-han, CHEN Wei-an, HSIAO Tzu-ping, KUO Tzu-wei LAI Chun-wei, LAI Hsing-lun, LEE Tsung-hsuan, YEH Yi-ping

Water Stains on the WallConcept, Set, Choreography ......................................................................................LIN Hwai-minMusic .................................................................................................................. Toshio HOSOKAWALighting Design ........................................................................................................... Lulu W.L. LEECostume Design ............................................................................................................LIN Ching-juProjection Design ........................................................................................................ Ethan WANGSet Design ...................................................................................................................LIN Hwai-minCo-productions ..................................National Chiang Kai-Shek Cultural Center, R.O.C. (Taiwan) ..........................................................................Esplanade—Theatres on the Bay, Singapore .......................................... Movimentos Festwochen der Autostadt in Wolfsburg, GermanyPremiere ................................................ November 19, 2010 at National Theater, Taipei, Taiwan

Music CreditsTITLE .............................................................................................. CD rEFErENCE #1 wie ein atmen im lichte / Deep Silence ........................................................................ WER6801 22 V. “Chinshi”, Seeds of Contemplation - Mandara / Works by Toshio Hosokawa .................FOCD91173 “Fragmente” I / Works by Toshio Hosokawa .....................................................................FOCD91174 Sen VI / Toshio Hosokawa: Tabi-bito; Sen VI; Die Lotosblume .......................................... STR338185 I. Introduction, Seeds of Contemplation - Mandara / Works by Toshio Hosokawa .............FOCD91176 ATEM-LIED / Toshio Hosokawa: Birds Fragments ............................................................. STR336897 Ferne-Landschaft II / Toshio Hosokawa ........................................................................0012172KAI

The use of the above musical works are licensed by Schott Music Co. Ltd., Tokyo,The recordings are used under the permission of WERGO, FONTEC, STRADIVARIUS and KAIROS (www.kairos-music.com)

ChairmanSHEN Hsueh-yung


Lin Hwai-min, Founder and Artistic Director

Lin Hwai-min studied Chinese opera movement in his native Taiwan, modern dance in New York, and clas-sical court dance in Japan and Korea. An internationally renowned choreographer, Lin

often draws from traditional Asian culture to create works with innovative forms and contemporary relevance, receiving rave acclaims around the world. A two-time winner of the National Culture and Art Foundation’s National Award for Arts in Taiwan, his international honors include the John D. Rockefeller 3rd Award, New York; the Joyce Award of Chicago; the Ramon Magsaysay Award; the “Nobel Prize of Asia”; Best Choreographer at Lyon Biennial Festival; and Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters from France’s Ministry of Culture. He was celebrated by Time magazine as one of “Asia’s Heroes” in 2005. In 2009, he was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Movimentos Dance Prize, Germany.

Lin Hwai-min has been the subject of sev-eral television documentaries. His works have been restaged by dance companies and uni-versities in the US and Europe and his opera direction credits include Rashomon in Austria and Tosca in Taiwan. An acclaimed writer, his 1969 novella Cicada enjoys rare longevity in Taiwan and several of his short stories have been published in the US. His biographies, Legend of Lin Hwai-min and Cloud Gate and Hwai-min as a Young Man, are popular sellers in Chinese-speaking communities.

Lin founded the department of dance at Taipei National University of the Arts in 1983 and served as its chairman for five years. In 1993-94, he was the founding dean of the University’s graduate dance program. In 1999, he gave workshops in Cambodia assisting local dancers organize teaching materials of Khmer classical dance for children. Since 2000, Lin has served as artistic director of the Novel Dance Series, introducing internation-ally renowned groups and artists to dance lovers in Taiwan.

Toshio Hosokawa, Composer

Japan’s best-known liv-ing composer, Toshio Hosokawa won First Prize in the Valentino Bucchi Composition Competition in Rome and partici-pated for the first time in the Internationale Ferienkurse

für Neue Musik in Darmstadt. Since then, he has presented his works in Europe and Japan,

“Right on! You old devil!” exclaimed Huai Su.

In reality, water stains on the wall are the result of a long process of natural, organic and fluid evolution. The legend of the conversation established “water stains on the wall” as a popular metaphor that represents the highest aesthetics of Chinese calligraphy. Inspired by this metaphor, Lin Hwai-min and Cloud Gate’s dancers create an abstract work of spellbind-ing beauty and breathtaking technique that stands sublimely on its own.

Cloud Gate Dance Theatre of Taiwan

According to legend, Cloud Gate is the name of the oldest known dance in China, a ritual dance of some 5,000 years ago. In 1973, choreogra-pher Lin Hwai-min adopted this classical name for the first contemporary dance company in any Chinese-speaking community. Cloud Gate’s rich repertoire has its roots in Asian myths, folklore and aesthetics, but it brings to these age-old beliefs and stories a contemporary and universal perspective. The company is made up of two dozen dancers whose training includes chi kung, meditation, internal martial arts, modern dance, ballet and calligraphy.

Cloud Gate has toured extensively around the world. In 2003, the company opened the Melbourne International Arts Festival with Cursive II, winning the Age Critics’ Award and the Patrons’ Award. In New York, Moon Water was named best dance of the year by The New York Times. In 2006, Cursive: A Trilogy was named best dance choreography of the year by Ballet-Tanz and Theaterheute.

At home, Cloud Gate also enjoys high acclaim and popularity. It performs throughout Taiwan, in venues ranging from the lavish National Theater in Taipei to mid-sized cultural centers in various cities. The company also gives free outdoor performances several times a year, drawing audi-ences of up to 60,000 per performance. To tour campuses and grass-roots communities and to foster young choreographers, Cloud Gate 2 was founded in 1999. Cloud Gate Dance School was founded in 1998. In 2003, in recognition of Cloud Gate’s cultural contributions, the Taipei City Government proclaimed August 21, the premiere day of Cloud Gate’s 30th anniversary season, as “Cloud Gate Day” and named Fu-Hsing North Road Lane 231, home of Cloud Gate’s office, as “Cloud Gate Lane.” This was the first time Taiwan had bestowed the honor of naming a day and place after a living artist and/or artistic group. In 2010, an asteroid discovered by Taiwan’s Lulin Observatory of National Central University was officially named after Cloud Gate.

Most of Cloud Gate’s productions are available on DVD.

gaining an international reputation and winning numerous awards and prizes including First Prize in the Composition Competition on the occasion of the 100th Anniversary of the Berlin Philharmonic (1982), Rheingau Musikpreis (1998), Duisburger Musikpreis (1998) and mu-sica viva-Preises der ARD und BMW AG (2001).

Hosokawa has served as composer in residence, guest composer or lecturer at major contempo-rary music festivals in Europe. As the winner of the 2008 Roche Commissions, awarded in collaboration with the Lucerne Festival, the Cleveland Orchestra and Carnegie Hall, Toshio Hosokawa’s Woven Dreams premiered in 2010 at the Lucerne Summer Festival and in 2011 at Carnegie Hall. 2011 also sees the premiere of his new opera Matsukaze, commissioned by La Monnaie (director: Sasha Waltz), and a new horn concerto co-commissioned by the Berlin Philharmonic, London’s Barbican Centre and Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw.

Since 2001, he has served as music director for the Takefu International Music Festival. He was Composer in Residence with Deutsches Symphonie Orchester Berlin in 2006-07 and with WDR Rundfunkchor Köln from 2006-08. Since 2004, he has been a guest professor at Tokyo College of Music. A resident of Berlin, Hosokawa has been a member of the Academy of Fine Arts (Akademie der Künste) since 2001 and a Fellow of the Berlin Institute for Advanced Study (Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin) since 2006.

This tour is made possible by grants from the Council for Cultural Affairs, Taiwan and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Republic of China (Taiwan).

Water Stains on the Wall is a co-production by:

Exclusive North American Tour RepresentationRena Shagan Associates, Inc.16A West 88th StreetNew York, NY 10024(212) 873-9700 FAX (212) 873-1708www.shaganarts.com


Babel (words) – Eastmanchoreography by Damien Jalet and Sidi Larbi CherkaouiSunday, October 9 and Monday, October 10 at 7:30pm❖

photo credit: Koen Broos

Official Artist Representative

“The most fiercely resonant dance theatre of the decade…” – The Guardian (UK)


Choreography:Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui and Damien Jalet

Visual design:Antony Gormley

Assistant choreographer: Nienke Reehorst

Costume design:Alexandra Gilbert

Light design:Adam Carrée

Dramaturg:Lou Cope

performed by:Navala Chaudhari, Francis Ducharme, Darryl E. Woods, Damien Fournier, Mohamed Toukabri, Paea Leach, Christine Leboutte, Ulrika Kinn Svensson, Kazutomi Kozuki, Sandra Porcel Delgadillo, Paul Zivkovich, Igal Furman, Ben Fury

Music: Patrizia Bovi, Mahabub Khan, Sattar Khan, Gabriele Miracle, Kazunari Abe

Traditional Turkish musical counsellor: Fahrettin Yarkin

Technicians: Bert Van Dijck, Bart Van Hoydonck (SLP), Mathias Batsleer (SLP), Jens Drieghe (SLP), Kim Rens (SLP) Dresser: Elisabeth Kinn Svensson production Manager: Maarten Verbeuren Tour Manager: Sofie De Schutter production assistants: Lies Doms Executive director: Karen Feys

program Notes

BABEL (words) takes as its starting point the specific moment in the tale of the Tower of Babel when God punishes those who built a tower in his name, causing chaos by splintering them into different languages, cultures and lands. That is to say that on Day 1 of rehearsal, a microcosm of 18 performers from 13 countries with 15 languages, seven religious backgrounds and numerous performance modes between them, joined choreographers Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui and Damien Jalet as well as visual artist Antony

Gormley to embark upon a new journey. And it was in the swirling maelstrom of identity, nationhood and culture that they found their in-spiration. Where language is both verbal and physical, where it unites and divides, makes communication both possible and impossible, and is loaded with meaning at the same time as being profoundly meaningless.

Both in process and production, what grew was a city of multiplicity, a network of possibilities, where Gormley’s huge three-dimensional frames are raised, knocked down and transformed, as if made of nothing but our thoughts. Space is dis-sected and appropriated, creating territories, axes and borders that hint at the often random but sometimes deadly geo-political divisions of land, as well as evoking the boundaries and limitations we impose on ourselves and each other. But, of course, by also offering shelter and relief in a landscape of chaos and complexity, structures enable tender, private and intimate moments, without which none of us could survive.

The city is not dissimilar to the landscape French philosopher Michel de Certeau strolls through in his work The Practice Of Everyday Life, where wanderers wander blindly, taking decisions by the millisecond, knowing not what they do, nor why they do it, what it means or where it will lead. People stumble into choices of belief, community and identity that, as well as giving support, close doors, build boundaries and set limits.

And of course they build ivory towers, not just as a demonstration of status and wealth, but also in search of some kind of higher knowledge and enlightenment. The aerial view of, and distance from, those silent patterns far down below bring feelings of comfort, control and order, because as the old sign at the top of the World Trade Center once read, “It’s hard to be down when you’re up!”

Indeed Cherkaoui and Jalet’s journey was informed by their own profound “belief in the belief that something matters” and their joint search for what that something might be. During the process, the show revealed to its makers that what they were doing was turning the Tower of Babel upside down: what mattered was not the external multiplicity of our (regional, spiritual, linguistic, physical…) differences, but the under-lying bond of what unites rather than divides us, and therefore the responsibilities we all share.

Thus, just as the piece spirals towards some kind of omega point, we see a peeling away of the artificial boundaries, structures, defini-tions and technologies we seek to impose on

dance

OCT 9/10Sunday/Monday, 7:30pm


harbor city of Antwerp, Eastman forms the central point for all of Cherkaoui’s work.

With thanks to: Asano Taiko, Marek Pomocki, seniz Karaman, raad van bestuur Eastman, De munt, lise uytterhoeven, Assaf Hochman, Casey Spooner, Alistair Wilson (Push 4) Antony Gormley studios, Juliette Van Peteghem, Milan ‘Mino’ Herich, Sven Bahat, Hisashi Itoh, Kodo Ensemble (Melanie Taylor), Rakesh Mps, Karthika Nair, Frederik Verrote

Production: Eastman vzw and Theatre royal de la Monnaie

Coproducers: Fondation d’entreprise Hermès, Etablissement Public du Parc et de la Grande Halle de la Villette (Paris), Sadler’s Wells (London), Theaterfestival Boulevard (Den Bosch, the Netherlands), Festspielhaus (St. Pölten), Grand Théâtre of Luxembourg, International Dance festival Switzerland - Migros Culture Percentage, Fondazione Musica per Roma (Rome) and the Ludwigsburger Schlossfestspiele (Allemagne). Babel (words) is co-commissioned by Dash Arts 2010 programme on Arabic Arts.

Eastman vzw is company in residence at Toneelhuis (Antwerp), in association with deSingel International Arts Campus (Antwerp) and supported by Asano Taiko (Japan)

With the support of: Garrick Charitable Trust

Tour Producer for North America and Canada:Sunny Artist ManagementIlter Ibrahimof, Directorwww.sunnyartistmanagement.com

Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui

Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui’s works include Rien de Rien with Damien Jalet for Les Ballets C de la B; Ook; D’Avant with Damien Jalet and danc-ers from the Sasha Waltz company; Foi; Tempus

Fugit for Les Ballets C de la B; In Memoriam for Les Ballets de Monte Carlo; Loin for the Ballet du Grand Théatre de Genève; Zero Degrees with Akram Khan; Ik hou van jou/je t’aime tu sais with Damien Jalet for België danst; Corpus Bach with Nicolas Vladyslav; Mea Culpa for Les Ballets de Monte Carlo; End for the Cullberg Ballet; Myth for Toneelhuis; L’homme de bois for dancers from the Royal Danish Ballet; the 3D video installation La Zon Mai with photographer/film-maker Gilles Delmas;

Apocrifu (Apocrypha) for La Monnaie; Origine for Toneelhuis; and Sutra with Antony Gormley, Szymon Broska and monks from China’s Shaolin Temple.

Sutra won him a Best Choreographer (Modern) nomination at the 2009 National Dance Awards in Britain and the 2009 Ballettanz Award for Best Production of the Year. In 2008, Ballettanz named him Outstanding Choreographer of the Year and Sadler’s Wells, London named him an Associate Artist. In 2009, he received the Kairos European Cultural Prize endowed by the Alfred Toepfer Stiftung.

2009 brought his first commissioned work for an American company: Orbo Novo (The New World), choreographed for Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet and premiered at the historic Jacob’s Pillow dance festival. He choreographed Faun for James O’Hara and Daisy Phillips as part of Sadler’s Wells’ collective evening In the Spirit of Diaghilev, and won acclaim with Dunas, his encounter with flamenco legend María Pagés. He also presented a sneak preview of Play with kuchipudi danseuse Shantala Shivalingappa. In 2010, he launched his company Eastman, premiered Babel (words), choreographed Guy Cassier’s vision of Wagner’s Das Rheingold at La Scala in Milan, and created Play, a duet with Shantala Shivalingappa.

Damien Jalet

In 2000, French-Belgian dancer/choreographer Damien Jalet began his artistic partnership with Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui for Les Ballets C de la B, creating Rien de Rien (2000), Foi (2003),

Tempus Fugit (2004) and Myth (2007). In 2002, he created D’avant in collaboration with Cherkaoui, Luc Dunberry and Juan Kruz Diaz de Garaio Esnaola. In 2005, he created the short film The Unclear Age, co-directed with Erna Ómarsdóttir and Dumspiro. With Erna Ómarsdóttir, Gabriela Fridriksdóttir and Raven he created the Ofaett (Unborn) for the Theatre National de Bretagne.

In 2006, he created the duet Aleko for the Museum of Contemporary Art of Aomori, Japan in collaboration with Cherkaoui and Alexandra Gilbert. He collaborated with French director Arthur Nauzyciel and actress Anne Brochet on L’image of Samuel Beckett for Beckett’s centenary in Dublin, and choreographed Stefano Scodanibbio’s contemporary opera Il cielo sulla terra for the Opera of Stuttgart. In 2008, he directed the video Men in Tights with Nick Knight and Bernhard Willhelm and cho-reographed Caesar for the American Repertory Theater, Boston and Ordet for the Festival d’Avignon. He premiered Three Spells at the

our geographical, virtual, political or spiritual worlds. We are left with something more primi-tive, transcendent and unified. We are left with each other. Chained together, as neuro-scientist V.S. Ramachandran’s words tell us in the performance, entirely and literally by our neurons and separated only by our skin.

- Lou Cope, April 2010

Dancers

Original Cast – Created and interpreted by:

Navala Chaudhari, Great BritainFrancis Ducharme, CanadaDarryl E. Woods, United StatesJon Filip Fahlstrom, NorwayDamien Fournier, FranceBen Fury, MoroccoPaea Leach, AustraliaMoya Michael, South AfricaChristine Leboutte, BelgiumUlrika Kinn Svensson, SwedenKazutomi Kozuki, JapanJames O’Hara, AustraliaHelder Seabra, Portugal

Second Cast – interpreted by:

Sandra Porcel Delgadillo, BoliviaIgal Furman, IsraelElias Lazaridis, GreeceValgerdur Runarsdottir, IcelandMohamed Toukabri, TunisiaPaul Zivkovich, Australia

Musicians

Original Cast:Shogo Yoshii (kodo), JapanPatrizia Bovi, ItalyMahabub Khan, IndiaSattar Khan, IndiaGabriele Miracle, Italy

Second Cast:Kazunari Abe, JapanMiriam Andersen, SwedenFadia El Hage, LebanonEnea Sorini, ItalyLeah Stuttard, United Kingdom

Eastman

Founded in January 2010, Eastman was set up to produce and spread the works of artistic director/choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui. Cherkaoui’s work provides the audience with a vast array of projects and collaborations ranging from contemporary dance, theater, ballet, opera, musicals and other forms of performance. His non-hierarchical thinking on movement, body language and culture is the basis of his artistic approach. Set in his native


Tokyo International Arts Festival and worked with Cherkaoui on In Memoriam for Les Ballets de Monte Carlo, Loin for the Ballet du Grand Théatre de Genève, End for the Cullberg Ballet and Sutra with monks from China’s Shaolin Temple.

In 2009, he appeared in Marie Darrieussecq’s Le musée de la mer for the National Theater of Reykjavík, co-directed Transaquania – Out of the Blue in collaboration with Erna Omarsdottir and visual artist Gabriela Fridriksdottir for the Icelandic dance company Cie, and co-directed with Omarsdottir Black Marrow for the Australian dance company Chunky Move. He stars with Alexandra Gilbert in the Editors video You Don’t Know Love.

Antony Gormley

Over the last 25 years, Antony Gormley has revitalized the human image in sculpture through a radical inves-tigation of the body as a place of memory and transformation, using his

own body as subject, tool and material. Since 1990, he has expanded his concern with the human condition to explore the collective body and the relationship between self and other in large-scale installations like Another Place, Domain Field and Inside Australia. His recent work increasingly engages with energy systems, fields and vectors rather than mass and defined volume, evident in works like Clearing, Blind Light, Firmament and Another Singularity.

His work has been exhibited extensively, with solo shows throughout the U.K. in venues such as the Whitechapel, Tate and Hayward galleries, the British Museum and White Cube. His work has been exhibited internationally at museums including the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Louisiana Museum in Humlebaek, the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington DC, the Irish Museum of Modern Art in Dublin, Malmö Konsthall, the Moderna Museet in Stockholm, and the Kölnischer Kunstverein in Germany. Blind Light, a major solo exhibition of his work, was held at the Hayward Gallery in 2007.

Antony Gormley has participated in major group shows such as the Venice Biennale and the Kassel Documenta 8. His work Field has toured America, Europe and Asia. Angel of the North at Gateshead, Quantum Cloud on the Thames in London and Another Place, now permanently sited on Crosby Beach near Liverpool, are amongst the most celebrated examples of contemporary British sculpture.


Angélique Kidjo

Sunday, October 16 at 7:30pm❉

“Global-diva credentials.” – Los Angeles Times

Derek Williams – tour manager and Front of Houseitaiguara Brandao - bass

Magatte Sow - percussionDominic James – electric & acoustic guitarDaniel freedman - drums


Angélique Kidjo

One of the greatest forces in African music, Angélique Kidjo has 11 international albums to her name. In 2007, her album Djin Djin received a Grammy Award. In 2010, she shared the stage with Alicia Keys, John Legend and Shakira for the FIFA World Cup Opening Ceremony in South Africa.

Her most recent release, Oyo, featuring John Legend, Bono and Dianne Reeves, is a measure of her maturity. The album is deeply introspective, reflecting on the events that have brought Kidjo to this point. Born in the West African state of Benin, Kidjo is a tireless campaigner for women’s health and education in Africa, a UNICEF Peace Ambassador and a prolific songwriter.

“When your history is not written, you count on storytellers and traditional singers in Africa to tell you who you are, what your family’s about and what is going on in your society. This is what I do with my music, because I am a witness of my time.” Between 1972 and 1989, Benin was run as a Marxist state under Mathieu Kérékou, who took over in a military coup d’état. Kidjo was forced into ex-ile in order to avoid imprisonment. Her friend and mentor Miriam Makeba was a constant source of guidance.

With Oyo, Kidjo digs into roots that reach far beyond her homeland, roving across boundar-ies, genres and ethnicities, finding the connec-tions that link musical forms from every part of the world while still bonding closely with her own traditions. The songs on Oyo embrace rhythm & blues, soul music, jazz and Beninese melodies as well as a trio of her original works.

Growing up in the port city of Cotonou, she was exposed to a far-ranging array of music and dance. West Africa in the 1960s had an omnivorous appetite for international pop music, and Kidjo was intensely familiar with the music of James Brown, Otis Redding and Carlos Santana, among others. The music of her youth is the theme of Oyo’s mesmerizing tracks.

world music

OCT 16Sunday, 7:30pm

Angélique Kidjo’s is a voice that carries worlds. The rich textures of forty years’ pro-fessional exploration and experience unfurl from her beginnings in the West African musical theatres of Benin and into the jazz schools of Paris, recording studios of Brazil, and dance clubs of enthralled global audiences. Always on the move, Kidjo’s music resonates with the worlds of Yoruba balladry, Bollywood melodrama, Jamaican rhythm and Atlanta funk. An archive of influences hangs together in her compositions as Kidjo’s masterful voice sings amongst these many languages, poetic forms, and multicultural flourishes. This is how Kidjo holds center stage in contemporary global music.

While the biggest names in pop weave fashionable African rhythms and vocalizations into their work, Kidjo’s self-authorship and musical mobility represent the global founda-tions of African music itself. Her talent for collection, curation and exploration coalesce in her impressive catalog of international hits—starting with her “Agola”, which has been sampled for scores of dance hits—and collaborations with Peter Gabriel, John Legend, DJ Spooky and Branford Marsalis. As she archives these cross-cultural conversations, Kidjo grounds her work in the sounds and styles of Benin: interlocking harmonies, dramatic storytelling, local rhythms and refined vocal techniques. She writes most of her songs in a series of African mother tongues that surrounded her education in musi-cal poetry: Fon, Yoruba, and Swahili, interspersed with French and English choruses. Audiences who do not speak these languages are carried by the universal poetries of bodily groove and vocal power.

In Beninoise culture, as well as that of much of surrounding West Africa and throughout the Black diaspora, women’s song is central to community life, and women vocalists occupy a special place in the social spectrum. Through song, master practitioners sug-gest political action, correct misdeeds, and co-imagine a bountiful future. Kidjo’s global project places her in immediate proximity with classic South African vocalist/activist Miriam Makeba, to whom she is often compared, but her experimentation with eclectic form and style also evidence her kinship with the acoustic textures of John Coltrane; the subtle lyrical turns of Curtis Mayfield; and the call-and-response of the gospel shout-ers. To these add her ability to craft undeniable contemporary dance hooks, which place Kidjo’s work in the discotheque as well as the concert hall. Her eight albums offer a carefully-composed chronicle of global Blackness, each a series of successful collaborations across this spectrum. Her 2010 album, Õÿö, is manifest in a stage show featuring a full African choir, a string quartet, and a team of dancers from the Broadway musical Fela!. With this latest project, Kidjo has leverage her education in West African drama, dance and storytelling to earn herself a reputation as “Africa’s premiere diva.”

As an activist and UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador, Kidjo advocates big changes on the behalf of broad groups of people: young

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