UMS Concert Program, : On Stage: 05/06 --

Season: 05/06

On Stage
05/06 UMS Season of Dance and Theater
on stage at ums
Each year when we put together our season, we work hard to create meaning... meaning for you, our ticket buyers; meaning for us, as devotees to and promoters of the arts; meaning for the performers, who connect their work with appreciative and receptive audiences; and meaning for this community, which prides itself on offering an innovative performing arts series that rivals that of most major metropolitan markets.
When we select the dance and theater events that are part of our series, we look for performances that can be enjoyed on many different levels. Some people enjoy the sheer beauty and visual impact of what is seen on the stage, while others are looking for works that challenge us to think in new ways, engaging the intellect and the imagination simultaneously.
On Stage at UMS, you will find the utter joy of Mark Morris's witty choreography. The pan-African spectacle combining traditional puppetry with contemporary theatre to tell of Africa's discovery of Europe in the 1820s. Sumptuous moving stage pictures of Japanese dance-theater. A one-man show about a Black man's internal conflict about fathering a child out-of-wedlock. The ancient art of Indian classical dance, reinterpreted through modern eyes.
The events listed in this brochure -some pure dance, some pure theater, and some a combination of the two -are both entertaining and thought-provoking. We hope that you will join us for our 0506 season of dance and theater-magical performances that are sure to transform, inspire and provoke in ways that you can't even imagine.
Mark Morris Dance Group
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 16, 8 PM SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 8 PM Power Center
"Morris is the most important choreographer since George Balanchine." (Boston Globe) Once considered the bad boy of the modern dance world, Mark Morris is now an influential and celebrated choreographer whose once-controversial pieces have become the standard of creativity for a new generation of dancers, choreographers and critics. Morris has changed the way that audiences see modern dance. His unique artistry reflects a profound and sophisticated love of music; the Washington Post said, "Morris's ability to surmount musical difficulties that would flummox most anyone else is awe-inspiring." While the two programs are mostly different, the centerpiece of each is V, which the New York Times called "a life-affirming work...not only one of [Morris's] best pieces in many years, but also one of the few great works that modern dance has produced in a decade." The company of exuberant dancers lives up to its reputation of wit, grace, and a refined musicality that is further reinforced by Morris's use of live musicians in every performance.
PROGRAM (FRI 916)
Rock of Ages (Choreography: Mark Morris, Music: Schubert Piano Trio in E-flat) (2004)
All Fours (Mark Morris, Bartok String Quartet No. 4) (1993)
Silhouettes (Mark Morris, Richard Cumming's Silhouettes Five Pieces for Piano) (1999)
V (Mark Morris, Robert Schumann Quintet in E-flat for Piano and Strings) (2001)
PROGRAM (SAT 917)
The Tamil Film Songs in Stereo (Pas de Deux) (Mark Morris, contemporary Indian music)
Mosaic and United (Mark Morris, Henry Cowell String Quartets Nos. 3 and 4) (1993)
V (Mark Morris, Robert Schumann Quintet in E-flat for Piano and Strings) (2001)
Media Partners WDET 101.9 FM, Michigan RadioMichigan Television, and Metro Times.
Main Floor $44 $40 $32 $26 Balcony $40 $36 $32 $20
Tall Horse
Handspring and Sogolon Puppet Companies
Written by Khephra Bums
Directed by Marthinus Basson
Choreography by Koffi Koko
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 18, 7:30 PM [NOTE START TIME]
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 21, 8 PM
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 22, 8 PM
Power Center
With its mix of magnificent puppets, live actors, captivating costumes, and evocative music, video projection, and dance, this thought-provoking pan-African theatrical spectacle combines the Bambara puppetry tradition of Mali with contemporary techniques from South Africa to tell a tale of Africa's discovery of Europe. Tall Horse re-imagines a true story of the giraffe that was caught in southern Sudan, taken up the Nile, and shipped across the Mediterranean by the Viceroy of Egypt to be presented as a gift to the King of France for his menagerie. On its arrival in Marseilles, "Giraffe Fever" hit. Women styled their hair "a la giraffe" and wore tawny hues. After wintering in Marseilles, the giraffe took several months in the spring of 1827 to walk to Paris, creating a sensation along the route and, some believe, inspiring the design of the Eiffel Tower. Europe's Egyptomania and general fascination with all things African is explored throughout the production, which is told from the vantage point of the giraffe's handler, Atir, who interprets his "discovery" of Europe with both wit and irony. Performed without intermission.
Sponsored in part by
Supported in part by Dody Viola and Loretta Skewes. Funded in part by Heartland Arts Fund. Media Partners WEMU 89.1 FM, Michigan RadioMichigan Television, and Metro Times.
Main Floor $48 $44 $24 $20 Balcony $44 $34 $24$16
Carlo Goldoni's
Arlecchino,
Servant of Two Masters
Piccolo Teatro di Milano Directed by Giorgio Strehler Starring Ferruccio Soleri THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 8 PM FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 8 PM SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 8 PM SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 2 PM Lydia Mendelssohn Theatre
With three weddings, two duels, a dance number, a chase sequence, a love scene, a food fight, and much more, Carlo Goldoni's 18th-century comedy about a wily servant who gets the best of his masters is one of the classic works of commedia dell'arte. Arlecchino is a natural, witty, and thoughtless character. Thanks to, or perhaps in spite of, his naive machinations, three couples of lovers finally get married and live happily ever after. The late Giorgio Strehler, one of the seminal theater and opera directors of the 20th century, directed this universally acclaimed production, which features the definitive commedia dell'arte actor Ferruccio Soleri. Soleri made his debut as Arlecchino in 1953 and has performed the role more than 2,000 times in 40 countries. This appearance is part of his farewell tour, after which he will retire the roie. In Italian (Venetian dialect) with English supertitles.
Media Partner Michigan RadioMichigan Television.
Main Floor $45 $35 Balcony $45 $35
Jose Limon Dance Company
Lar Lubovitch, artistic associate FRIDAY, JANUARY 13, 8 PM
SUNDAY, JANUARY 15, 2 PM
Power Center
Founded in 1946 by Jose Limon and Doris Humphrey, two pioneers of modern dance, the Jose Limon Dance Company balances classic Limon works with commissions from contemporary choreographers. Limon saw his first dance program in 1928 as an art major at UCLA. "What I saw simply and irrevocably changed my life. I saw the dance as a vision of ineffable power. A man could, with dignity and towering majesty, dance as Michelangelo's visions dance and as the music of Bach dances."
Lar Lubovitch's first exposure to dance was watching Jose Limon perform, and like Limon, he possesses a mastery of his craft, a penchant for lush, resonant, full-bodied movement. Lubovitch now serves as the company's artistic associate and creator of two works presented on these programs: his masterpiece Concerto Six Twenty-Two and a new commission, The Chiaroscuro Project, which draws inspiration from artists and events that influenced Limon's collaborations with Mexican visual artists and composers in the 1950s.
TWO DIFFERENT PROGRAMS, INCLUDING
Concerto Six Twenty-Two (Choreography: Lar Lubovitch, Music: Mozart Concerto in A for
Clarinet, K. 622) (1986)
The Chiaroscuro Project (Lar Lubovitch) (2005) The Moor's Pavane (Jose Limon, Henry Purcell) (1949) Psalm (Jose Limon, Jon Magnussen) (19672002) A Choreographic Offering (Jose Limon, J.S. Bach) (1964) Evening Songs (Jiri Kylian, Dvorak songs) (1997)
Funded in part by the National Dance Project of the New England Foundation for the Arts.
Main Floor $40 $38 $28 $22 Balcony $38 $34 $28 $18
Ship in a View
Pappa Tarahumara
Hiroshi Koike, artistic director THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 8 pm Power Center
Founded by Hiroshi Koike in 1982, Pappa Tarahumara has gathered the best of Japanese interdisciplinary artists and has pushed the physical limits of the human body and voice to achieve a universality that transcends cultural barriers. Spectacular and poetic, their performances are characterized by an Asian sense of time and motion, with performers, stage objects, music, lighting, and costume woven together to create a total theater experience.
Ship in a View is set in a seaside town in the 1960s, with the ship representing the link between the town and the world, and also an exit to the world outside. While nostalgic scenes of small-town life are portrayed with poetic sentiment, man's inherent but unfulfilled desire to escape is symbolized by the ship's presence.
Pappa Tarahumara represents an ongoing commitment by UMS to present contemporary Japanese performance art. Over the past decade, UMS has introduced local audiences to contemporary Japanese performing arts companies, including Sankai Juku, Dairakudakan, Akira Kasai, Kodo, and last season's theatrical production of The Elephant Vanishes. Performed without intermission.
Media Partner Metro Times.
Main Floor $36 $32 $24 $20 Balcony $32 $28$24$16
Word Becomes Flesh
Marc Bamuthi Joseph
FRIDAY, MARCH 10, 8 PM Power Center
An artist of significant depth and range, Marc Bamuthi Joseph started as a 10-year-old understudy to Savion Glover for the Broadway musical The Tap Dance Kid. As a teenager, he studied ballet and jazz dance, and also danced with the National Ballet Company of Senegal in West Africa. The Seattle Times called him "a cutting edge artist forging his own hybrid medium -an amalgam of rap music, poetry, movement, and theater." Especially well-known on the spoken word circuit, he makes his UMS debut with Word Becomes Flesh, a highly personal piece that is a series of performed letters to his unborn son using poetry, dance, live music, and visual art to document nine months of pregnancy from a young single father's perspective.
Word Becomes Flesh showcases the unique crossroads of searing politics, theology, poetry, photography, and endless avenues of Black dance, including tap, modern, hip-hop, and West African dance. Joseph says, "I specifically wanted to do a piece about fatherhood because there's a horrible cycle in the Black community, in particular, of absent fathers...Unfortunately, our current social condition is such that a man might be ridiculed for walking out on a family, but is not socially condemned for it. While women continue to fight for their right to make choices about their bodies, the elements of patriarchy and male privilege give a man the social right to choose domestic absenteeism, refraining from offering either emotional or financial support."
Media Partners WEMU 89.1 FM and Metro Times
Main Floor $32 $30 $22 $16 Balcony $30 $26 $22 $12
Children of Uganda
THURSDAY, MARCH 23, 7 PM [NOTE START TIME] FRIDAY, MARCH 24, 8 PM
Power Center
Children of Uganda's exhilarating program of East African music and dance features pulsing rhythms, quicksilver movements, powerful drums, lyric flutes, and songs of joy and hope. The 20 young performers (ages 8-18) live together in Kampala, Uganda and combine dance, song, music, storytelling, and costume on an unforgettable journey through the rich cultural traditions of Uganda. The dual crises of civil war and AIDS in Uganda pose a serious threat to the complete fabric of family and village life that previously nurtured and depended on a rich and varied oral culture. Originally founded to teach orphaned children traditional songs, dances, and stories, the Children of Uganda now represent the 1.7 million Ugandan children orphaned by AIDS and war. Their memorable UMS residencies in 2002 and 2004 have touched thousands of people through youth performances, church visits, and their Power Center performances. Please Note: The Thursday evening performance begins at 7 pm to allow families to attend.
Sponsored in part by
Funded in part by Heartland Arts Fund.
Media Partners WEMU 89.1 FM and Metro Times.
Main Floor $40 $38 $28 $20 Balcony $38 $34 $28 $18
Sacred Space
Nrityagram
Surupa Sen, artistic director WEDNESDAY, APRIL 19, 8 PM Power Center
"I dream of building a community of dancers in a forsaken place amidst nature. A place where nothing exists except dance. A place where you breathe, eat, sleep, dream, talk, imagine dance." (Protima Gauri, founder)
The radiant Nrityagram Dance Ensemble operates as a communal repository or "living archive" whose mission is to document, perform, preserve, and embellish the seven primary classical Indian dance forms. The all-female dance company lives in an artist commune in Bangalore, India, where they participate in intensive dance training and learn Indian literature, mythology, poetry, Sanskrit, music, philosophy, spiritual thought, and dance theory, as well as other disciplines to improve stances and energy levels. Their studies instill an awareness of the interdisciplinary approach and an understanding of the relationships between the arts and physical traditions, both from India and from other countries.
Dressed in ornate costumes of flowing, colorful fabrics and silver jewelry, Nrityagram uses an elaborate movement vocabulary to tell stories based on ancient myths, folk tales, and love ballads, accompanied by live music. Their newest work, Sacred Space, explores the power of movement to create "sacred space" through the movement language of a 2,000-year-old Indian classical dance, Odissi. Originally performed in temples as a sacred ritual dedicated to the Gods, Odissi is a dance of love and passion, an everlasting synthesis of divinity and humanity. Marked by a sculpturesque sensuousness that transports viewers to enchanted worlds of magic and spirituality, Sacred Space is the elusive union of meaning and abstraction.
Funded in part by the National Dance Project of the New England Foundation for the Arts. Media Partner Michigan RadioMichigan Television.
Main Floor $36 $32 $24 $20 Balcony $32 $28 $24 $16
05106 UMS Season
September
16-17 Fri-Sat Mark Morris Dance Group
October
1 Sat An Evening with Sonny Rollins
5 Wed Andras Schiff, piano
8 Sat Pat Metheny Trio
13 Thu Renee Fleming in Strauss's Daphne (concert opera)
18-22 Tue-Sat Tall Horse
Handspring and Sogolon Puppet Companies
29 Sat The King's Singers
November
3-6 Thu-Sun Carlo Goldoni's L'Arlecchino
5 Sat Youssou N'Dour and The Egyptian Orchestra
6 Sun Jean-Yves Thibaudet, piano
19 Sat Concertante
December
3-4 Sat-Sun Handel's Messah
8 Thu Chicago Symphony Orchestra
10 Sat Dianne Reeves: Christmas Time is Here
January
13-15 Fri-Sun Jose Limon Dance Company
14 Sat Leif Ove Andsnes, piano
Norwegian Chamber Orchestra
16 Mon Take 6
19 Thu Orchestre Revolutionnaire et Romantique
The Monteverdi Choir
21 Sat Tokyo String Quartet with Sabine Meyer, clarinet
22 Sun Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra and Wynton Marsalis

0506 Season Media Partner
February
4 Sat
10 Fri
15 Wed
19 Sun
22 Wed
23 Thu
March
9 Thu
10 Fri
11 Sat 17-19 Fri-Sun 23-24 Thu-Fri
25 Sat
30 Thu
31 Fri
April
2 Sun
7 Fri
15 Sat
19 Wed
20 Thu
21 Fri
22 Sat
May
13 Sat
Louis Lortie, piano
Mariachi Los Camperos de Nati Cano
Louis Andriessen in Concert
Soweto Gospel Choir
Takacs Quartet with James Dunham, viola
Pappa Tarahumara: Ship in a View
Vienna Philharmonic with Riccardo Muti, conductor
Marc Bamuthi Joseph: Words Become Flesh
Belcea Quartet and Ian Bostridge, tenor
Kirov Orchestra of St. Petersburg: Shostakovich Festival
Children of Uganda
Ewa Podies in Rossini's Tancredi (concert opera)
The Tallis Scholars
SF Jazz Collective: A Tribute to Herbie Hancock
Los Angeles Guitar Quartet
Mory Kante
Arab World Music Summit
Nrityagram
Chanticleer
Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, violin
Sweet Honey in the Rock
Ford Honors Program: Dave Brubeck
How To Order Tickets
Subscription Tickets On Sale Now!
Tickets to individual events go on sale Monday, August 22.
Dance Series
Includes Mark Morris, Jose Limon, Pappa Tarahumara, and Nritygram
Main Floor $140 $124 $80 $72 Balcony $124 $108 $80 $60
Monogram Series
Choose at least five events from the events in this brochure and take 10 off the total price. Orders must be received before Friday, August 19.
Hours
10 am to 5 pm Monday-Friday Closed Saturday and Sunday Extended hours resume after Labor Day
Phone
With Visa, MasterCard, Discover, or American Express
734-764-2538
Outside the 734 area code and within Michigan, call toll-free 800-221-1229. There is a $7 service charge for all internet, phone and mail subscription orders.
Internet
www.ums.org
In Person
Please visit the Ticket Office on the north end of the Michigan League building (911 North University Avenue). The Ticket Office also sells tickets for all U-M School of Music productions and the Ann Arbor Summer Festival.
Fax 734-647-1171
Mail
UMS Ticket Office Burton Memorial Tower 881 North University Avenue Ann Arbor, Ml 48109-1011
Group Sales
Groups of 10 or more can save 15-25 off the regular ticket price of most performances. For more information, call the UMS Group Sales Hotline at 734-763-3100. UMS accepts group reservations beginning Monday, July 25.
Subscription tickets will be mailed in mid-August.
All sales are final. Refunds are available only when an event is canceled or rescheduled. Programs and artists are subject to change without notice.
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