UMS Concert Program, : Ums Dance And Theater --

Season: 2008/09
Power Center

130th Season 2008 09 UMS
on Stage
UMS Dance and Theater
Anything is possible.
UMS's 130th season features some of the most astonishing dance and theater performances we could possibly imagine. The performances, however, are just the beginning of profound experiences that are sure to have a lasting impact beyond the stage.
Our 0809 International Theater Series features two events: an exclusive US presentation of a new play that transforms a narrative about a significant collaboration by English and Indian mathematicians into a rumination of the big questions of life, and a co-presention (with the Kennedy Center) of a Kuwaiti version of Richard III that overlays the controversial current political world against Shakespeare's view of 15th-century England.
Our 0809 Dance Series includes five companies and six choreogra?phers whose work ranges from the joyful to the provocative. The two return visits and three debuts feature some of the most distinctive modern dance companies performing today, with choreography by some of the world's most inspired, and inspiring, dancemakers. Best of all, four of the five companies offer two different programs, allow?ing for a more in-depth exploration of the work.
We at UMS may bring the artists to Ann Arbor. But you are the other essential piece of these performances. Without your impressive enthusiasm and desire to be both challenged and entertained, without your willingness to embrace the work on these stages and own it as something special in your own life, the moment of connection between artists and the audience simply wouldn't happen. And those moments of connection can leave an enduring impression long after the immediacy of the actual performance.
When the lights go down, what happens When the performance ends, what begins At UMS, anything is possible.
Complicite
A Disappearing
Number
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 10 I 8 PM THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 11 I 8 PM FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 12 I 8 PM SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 13 I 2 PM & 8 PM SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 14 I 2 PM Power Center
Conceived and Directed by Simon McBurney
Original Music by Nitin Sawhney
Designed by Michael Levine
Lighting by Paul Anderson
Sound by Christopher Shutt
Projection by Sven Ortel
Costumes by
Christina Cunningham
In the chilly English surroundings of Cambridge on the cusp of the First World War, the English mathematician GH Hardy unexpectedly receives a letter filled with mathematical theorems from a young Indian genius, Srinivasa Ramanujan. Their collaboration led to some of the most complex and beautiful mathematical patterns of all time.
A Disappearing Number, winner of the 2008 Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Play in London, delves into this mysterious collaboration, interlaced with stories linked to Ramanujan about a modern-day mathematician who moums her own fate, a physicist who seeks the future, and a businessman who copes with the death of his lover.
The production weaves a provocative theatrical pattern of stories and ideas across three continents, exploring our relentless compulsion to understand.
Simon McBurney's theater company Complicite retums after its wildly successful production of The Elephant Vanishes (2004) in this exclusive US production.
Performed without intermission.
Individual performances are sponsored by
Mark Mo
Mark Morris artistic director
I
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 19 I 8 PM SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 20 I 8 PM Power Center
ce Grou
The Washington Post called Mark Morris "our Mozart of modern dance. There is that same sense of easy fecundity, his air of an aging, congenial enfant terrible, the sheer brilliance and wealth of his choreographic invention." Morris has changed the way that audiences see modern dance, animating his profound and sophisticated love of music through movement. He is, as The Los Angles Times said,"intensely musical, deceptively cerebral, insinuatingly sensual, fabulously funky." Morris's company of exuberant dancers lives up to its reputation of wit and grace. Their refined musicality is further reinforced by the use of live musicians in every performance.
PROGRAM (FRI 919)
New Love Song Waltzes (Brahms: Neue Liebesliederwalzer, Op. 65) (1982) Love Song Waltzes (Brahms: Liebesliederwalzer, Op. 52) (1989) Grand Duo (Lou Harrison: Grand Duo for Violin and Piano) (1993)
PROGRAM (SAT 920)
Italian Concerto (JS Bach: Italian Concerto in F Major, BWV 971) (2007)
Candleflowerdance (Stravinsky: Serenade in A) (2005)
Bedtime (Schubert:Wiegenlied,Standchen,and Erlkonig) (1992)
Grand Duo (Lou Harrison: Grand Duo for Violin and Piano) (1993)
The Saturday performance is sponsored by Dennis and Ellis Serras. Additional promotional support provided by Ann Arbor's 107one.
The Rite of Spring
Compagnie
Heddy Maalem artistic director
y Maalem
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 15 I 8 PM Power Center
Heddy Maalem works with the body as a poet works with words -as material. Born in the heart of Algeria, Maalem's early and extensive training in boxing and Aikido continue to influence his choreography, which is marked by precision, sparse vocabulary, and clarity.
Fourteen utterly distinctive dancers from Mali, Benin, Nigeria, and Senegal come together for Maalem's explosive interpretation of Le Sacre du printemps {The Rite of Spring). Stravinsky's story of a pagan spring ritual is transported to Africa, inspired by Maalem's time in Lagos, Nigeria, a city of 12 million people. Highly dynamic dance sequences and overwhelming group scenes are interlaced with atmospheric film projections and intense scenes of silence that provide provocative contrast to the music. Male and female dancers -each one urgent and unflinching -meld into one unit, pulsating with sex and energy.
Performed without intermission.
The Performing Arts of the Arab World series is supported in part by TAQA New World, Inc; The Mosaic Foundation, Washington DC; and the Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan and Bustan al-Funun Foundation for Arab Arts.
Funded in part by the National Dance Project of the New England Foundation for the Arts and the Performing Arts Fund.
Additional promotional support provided by The Arab American News, Arab Detroit, and Michigan ChronicleFront Page.
011 artistic directors
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FRIDAY, JANUARY 9 I 8 PM SATURDAY, JANUARY 10 I 8 PM Power Center
ce Group
An uber-physical hybrid of precision and invention, Rubberbandance Group mixes up explosive hip-hop, contemporary, and classical dance with energy that pops and sizzles. Founded in Montreal in 2002, RBDG has burst onto the international dance scene with appearances at both hip-hop and contemporary dance festivals throughout North America, Europe, and Japan.
Choreographer Victor Quijada is a total original who grew up on the streets of Los Angeles and was nicknamed Rubberband by b-boys and rappers for his unusually elastic dancing style. He went on to work with Twyla Tharp and Eliot Feld, honing a style that combines the freedom of breakdance, the profoundness of modern storytelling, and the nuances and technique of contemporary dance. "It's really like a genetic experiment,"Quijada says, "taking genes from two different forms so that those forms don't stay the same, but have been informed by each other and changed."
In its UMS debut, RBDG presents two full-evening works: Elastic Perspective, a suite of six dances that are audacious settings of hip-hop to classical music and Latin rhythms, and their newest work, Phase II. Phase II explores whether there is a loss of time and self in our "virtual" universe, answering with a contemporary dance work influenced by ballet and break, and laced with AV feeds, street demeanor, and an ardor for violence and tenderness together.
PROGRAM (FR119) Elastic Perspective (2003)
PROGRAM (SAT 110) Phase II (2008)
atsheva uanc
jad Naharin artistic dir
ompany
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 14 i 8 PM SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 15 I 2 PM Power Center
Since its founding in 1964 by Martha Graham and Baroness Batsheva de Rothschild, Batsheva Dance Company has become one of the most influential cultural role models in Israel, internationally renowned for pushing the boundaries of cutting-edge dance with intense energy, rich sensuality, and a culturally diverse dance language. Led by Ohad Naharin since 1990, this contemporary dance company reels with energy, adrenaline, and force.
While Naharin's choreography has been seen by UMS audiences numerous times over the past decade, the Batsheva Dance Company retums for its first UMS visit since 1998 with two full-evening works. On Saturday, the company presents Three, a bewitching work from 2005 that tests the dancers' individual boundaries in a powerful composition of force, speed, and passion. The Sunday performance features Deca Dance, a celebration of 10 years of Naharin's work with Batsheva that was first performed in 2000. Naharin takes sections of existing works and reorganizes them into a new experience, providing an opportunity to look at Naharin's repertoire over time, from its most extravagant to its most intimate and heartrending.
PROGRAM (SAT 214) Three (2005)
PROGRAM (SUN 215)
Deca Dance (1990-2000)
The Saturday performance is co-sponsored by Gloria and Jerry Abrams and Prue and Ami Rosenthal.
Funded in part by the National Dance Project of the New England Foundation for the Arts.
Additional promotional support provided by Detroit Jewish News.
Sulayman Al-Bassam Theatre
Richard III "
ab Tragedy
THURSDAY, MARCH 19 I 8 PM FRIDAY, MARCH 20 I 8 PM SATURDAY, MARCH 21 I 8 PM SUNDAY, MARCH 22 I 2 PM
Power Center
Based on Richard III by William Shakespeare
Directed by Sulayman Al-Bassam
Sets by
George Tomlinson
Costumes by Abdullah Al-Awadi
Lighting by Richard Williamson
Music and Sound by Lewis Gibson
New Arabic Language Version by Mahdi Al-Sayigh
Commissioned by the Royal Shakespeare Company as part of its "Complete Works" Festival, this engrossing Arab adaptation of Richard III comes from Kuwait. The play unfolds within the hothouse, feudal atmosphere of desert palaces in an oil-rich kingdom. In this world of tribal allegiances, family in-fighting, and absolute power, the questions of leadership, religion, and foreign intervention that are at the heart of Shakespeare's play take on powerful new meanings in a modern Arab-Islamic context.
The evil Richard of Gloucester is interpreted as the aspirant king of a Middle Eastern peninsula. Backed by foreign interests, in the form of a French Buckingham, he falls out with them once he has grasped control of the crown. Eventually, his tyrannical behavior leaves him open to an external invasion backed by dissident internal forces.
Filled with exhilarating multimedia interventions and theatrical displays, this engrossing adaptation gives a window into the often misunderstood world of the Arabian Gulf in all its richness: its social customs, musical heritage, and some of its darker mystical rituals. Performed by a company of actors from England and across the Arab world, the work is accompanied by a live Arab musical score. Performed in Arabic with English supertitles.
Two hours, no intermission.
The Performing Arts of the Arab World series is supported in part by TAQA New World, Inc; The Mosaic Foundation, Washington DC; and the Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan and Bustan al-Funun Foundation for Arab Arts.
Additional promotional support provided by The Arab American News and Arab Detroit.
Marie Chouinard artistic director
SATURDAY, AP
SUNDAY, APRIL 26 I 4 PM [NOTETIMEJ
Power Center
"houinar
Marie Chouinard believes that dance is a sacred art and the body a spiritual force to be celebrated. Ever since she presented her first work in 1978, which immediately earned her a reputation as an exceptionally original artist, she has been noted for her astonishing innovation. Her travels -she has lived in New York, Berlin, Bali, and Nepal -her eclectic studies, and her understanding of various techniques allow her to explore the body in different ways, and her works convey a raw, honest, and gritty expression of our human form. In 1990, she formed the Compagnie Marie Chouinard, and in the dozen works she has created since then she has explored the poetics of the body in shockingly immediate, intelligible, and ever-surprising ways, prompting the The New York Times to call her"a hurricane of unbridled imaginativeness." For this UMS debut, she presents two different programs: on Saturday, her new work Orpheus and Eurydice and on Sunday, her 1993 piece The Rite of Spring (along with Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun). Chouinard's Rite, unlike Heddy Maalem's earlier in the season, is constructed around solos, seeking to awaken strong, clear movements in the intimate mystery of each dancer. Not for the faint of heart, these programs reveal the complex, desirous, wild, and cerebral nature of our being.
Performances contain nudity.
PROGRAM (SAT 425)
Orpheus and Eurydice (2008)
PROGRAM (SUN 426)
Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun (1994)
The Rite of Spring (1993)
Funded in part by the National Dance Project of the New England Foundation for the Arts.
How To Order Tickets
Subscription packages are on sale now; tickets to individual performances go on sale Monday, August 18 (Thursday, August 14 at www.ums.org).
Dance Series
Includes Mark Morris Dance Group, Compagnie Heddy Maalem, Rubberbandance Group, Batsheva Dance Company, and Compagnie Marie Chouinard.
Series Packages (all five companies) range from $115-$180
Theater Series
Includes Complicity's A Disappearing Number and Sulayman Al-Bassam Theatre's Richard III--An Arab Tragedy
Series Packages (both productions) range from $50-$98
Monogram Series
Includes all events listed in this brochure. Choose at least five of these events and take 10 off the total price. Orders must be received by Thursday, August 14.
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 an $8 service charge for all
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).
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 regular ticket prices for most UMS performances. For more information, call UMS Group Sales at 734-763-3100.
Hours
10 am to 5 pm Monday-Friday Closed Saturday and Sunday Extended hours resume after Labor Day